New Research hot of the press

If you have ever strained an ankle it’s a horrible feeling. What’s worse is that a small minority of acute acute ankle injuries go to become chronic. Balance and proprioceptive training has shown to be useful in rehabing ankle strains but what about when it’s too sore to stand on and why does balance training even work anyway.

Try the other leg !

Here is where things get a weird.

A recent study in the International Journal of the Care and Injured did something pretty interesting. They took a population of being with ankle strain on the right side and gave them exercise and balance training on the left side which had no injury. And guess what happened ? Well the injured side improved significantly even they did all there training on the other leg.

What just happened ?

It goes to prove just how important the brain is in recovery from an injury. The brain helps control the neural pathways that provide splinting reflexes and also control muscle growth and activity. By doing some training on the unaffected side the system improves bilaterally so that you can get still get benefit even when you don’t work on the injured site.

Well ok What does this mean for me ?

It doesn’t mean we should all start working on the other leg.

What it does mean is that proprioceptive training is really important in dealing with a chronic ankle injury and also that a significant part of healing lies in a reflexes muscle tone and splinting reflexes.

So if you have an injury that is too sore to stand on it may be a good idea to at least start working on the side that can comfortably bear weight.

Please don’t give up on your chronic injuries ! There is often always something you can do and even though sometimes getting older can be an exercise in patience and niggle management it’s almost always trying something even if you can improve something rather than completely fix it.

 

References

https://www.injuryjournal.com/article/S0020-1383(20)30800-7/fulltext