New ways to prevent foot & ankle injuries....
Today's Post, Monday, 5-4-2009
No one likes sprained ankles or foot problems or Achilles problems. Runners and hikers, some kinds of athletes, and ordinary people get them. If you want to get your life back after getting one of them, anything that will help you get rid of them and prevent them in the future is worth it’s weight in gold.
In the online health news though, there were two major ways to prevent foot and ankle problems that most people who have problems with their feet, ankles, or Achilles tendons might not think of as solutions because they have an indirect effect that is not immediately obvious.
The first one comes pretty close to being obvious though.
The really interesting one is the second one.
1. One report found that being too overweight tended to cause foot and ankle problems or make them easier to get and harder to get rid of. So, one solution, if you are more than just a bit overweight, is to find an effective way to lose some extra fat. Weight Watchers works. And, many of our posts have been about different ways to do this also. The good news is that losing even 5 to 10 pounds that you keep off can help. There is leverage involved, so being even 8 pounds lighter may take 160 to 200 pounds of stress off your food or ankle when you push off with your foot or put it into an awkward position.
2. The second one is much less obvious; but may be an easier fix! So if you are a runner or hiker ore even a basketball player who gets more ankle or foot injuries or overuse injuries than you’d like, it may well be worth trying.
It seems that the muscles in your hips stabilize your legs. If they are weak or not sufficiently strong, the slight lack of stability apparently tends to cause foot and ankle injuries &/or make them hard to get rid of if you get them.
The best way to strengthen your relevant hip muscles is to work with a trainer who knows the several exercises for each of the hip muscles. Once you know what the exercises are, you can continue them on your own. But you would need to find a trainer who has more detailed knowledge of this than most do; some money to pay them; & be able to go to a gym with the equipment for many of those exercises.
However, there are two exercises that you can do at home that may be almost as good.
I think the best of these two is to work out on a mini-trampoline. Until or even after you become proficient on it, it may be safer to have something you can hold onto or at least grab if needed. One of the best of these has been highly rated as an exercise and costs just a bit over $150 new. See: http://www.urbanrebounding.com/ .
For even less money, you can skip or jump rope. The good news is that it’s a lot less expensive to get. The bad news is that it may exercise your hips less; & you’ll need to be much more careful to build up to doing it very gradually. Jumping rope is a good deal higher impact than the Urban Rebounder.
Why do these 2 exercises strengthen your hip muscles as well or maybe better than a complete set of hip exercises? Both of them, but particularly the mini-trampoline, use the part of your hip muscle that you use in a squat or jump directly; & since it’s the stabilizing muscles in your hips you want to target, the fact that every single jump in both of these exercises is slightly different than all the others, by doing dozens or even a few hundred reps, by the end of the workout, the stabilizing muscles in your hips will have been exercised at almost every angle.
Plus, it helps enormously that either skipping rope or using a mini-trampoline both are as effective or even more effective than running to help you burn fat and be superbly fit.
That means that using them also helps you lose weight from excess fat.
And, by alternating days between using them and running, you can literally run half as much and be just as fit as someone who only runs. Similarly, they can be a great exercise to use to stay fit if you cannot run or cannot do so temporarily. That’s particularly true of using the mini-trampoline.
Today's Post, Monday, 5-4-2009
No one likes sprained ankles or foot problems or Achilles problems. Runners and hikers, some kinds of athletes, and ordinary people get them. If you want to get your life back after getting one of them, anything that will help you get rid of them and prevent them in the future is worth it’s weight in gold.
In the online health news though, there were two major ways to prevent foot and ankle problems that most people who have problems with their feet, ankles, or Achilles tendons might not think of as solutions because they have an indirect effect that is not immediately obvious.
The first one comes pretty close to being obvious though.
The really interesting one is the second one.
1. One report found that being too overweight tended to cause foot and ankle problems or make them easier to get and harder to get rid of. So, one solution, if you are more than just a bit overweight, is to find an effective way to lose some extra fat. Weight Watchers works. And, many of our posts have been about different ways to do this also. The good news is that losing even 5 to 10 pounds that you keep off can help. There is leverage involved, so being even 8 pounds lighter may take 160 to 200 pounds of stress off your food or ankle when you push off with your foot or put it into an awkward position.
2. The second one is much less obvious; but may be an easier fix! So if you are a runner or hiker ore even a basketball player who gets more ankle or foot injuries or overuse injuries than you’d like, it may well be worth trying.
It seems that the muscles in your hips stabilize your legs. If they are weak or not sufficiently strong, the slight lack of stability apparently tends to cause foot and ankle injuries &/or make them hard to get rid of if you get them.
The best way to strengthen your relevant hip muscles is to work with a trainer who knows the several exercises for each of the hip muscles. Once you know what the exercises are, you can continue them on your own. But you would need to find a trainer who has more detailed knowledge of this than most do; some money to pay them; & be able to go to a gym with the equipment for many of those exercises.
However, there are two exercises that you can do at home that may be almost as good.
I think the best of these two is to work out on a mini-trampoline. Until or even after you become proficient on it, it may be safer to have something you can hold onto or at least grab if needed. One of the best of these has been highly rated as an exercise and costs just a bit over $150 new. See: http://www.urbanrebounding.com/ .
For even less money, you can skip or jump rope. The good news is that it’s a lot less expensive to get. The bad news is that it may exercise your hips less; & you’ll need to be much more careful to build up to doing it very gradually. Jumping rope is a good deal higher impact than the Urban Rebounder.
Why do these 2 exercises strengthen your hip muscles as well or maybe better than a complete set of hip exercises? Both of them, but particularly the mini-trampoline, use the part of your hip muscle that you use in a squat or jump directly; & since it’s the stabilizing muscles in your hips you want to target, the fact that every single jump in both of these exercises is slightly different than all the others, by doing dozens or even a few hundred reps, by the end of the workout, the stabilizing muscles in your hips will have been exercised at almost every angle.
Plus, it helps enormously that either skipping rope or using a mini-trampoline both are as effective or even more effective than running to help you burn fat and be superbly fit.
That means that using them also helps you lose weight from excess fat.
And, by alternating days between using them and running, you can literally run half as much and be just as fit as someone who only runs. Similarly, they can be a great exercise to use to stay fit if you cannot run or cannot do so temporarily. That’s particularly true of using the mini-trampoline.
Labels: avoid foot injuries, overcome overuse injuires from running, overcome sprained ankles, prevent sprained ankles, staying fit if you cannot run
posted by David at 1:15 PM
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