My Ankles Won’t Work!

This article, in addition to the video above, will outline some of the best ways to relieve your ankle pain quickly, all from the comfort of your own home. We will discuss why your ankles might be painful, the different movements your ankle should be able to do, and how to improve the overall range of motion and reduce your pain. For the best results, I would highly recommend to follow every single exercise noted in the video and descriptions below, otherwise your pain may never fully heal.

What’s Going On?

There could be a large variety of reasons why you ankle is currently painful and not working as well as it should be. Typically, in most cases, people lose the strength and ability to move their ankle through full ranges of motion properly. Because of this, the primary goal of treating ankle pain at home, should be to restore full range of motion and strength through the ankle through it’s varying ranges of motions.

How Should They Work?

Your ankles should be able to do four primary motions. Plantar flexion, which is the ability to point your toe. Dorsiflexion, which is the ability to bring your toe close to your shin. Inversion, which involves turning your ankle inward towards your midline, and eversion involving brining your ankle outward towards your outside of the body. Strengthening and improving mobility through all these areas should be the primary concern to fully fix ankle pain. I would highly recommend checking out the video linked above to see exactly how to do each of the exercises listed below. Complete each exercise for 3 sets of 10 repetitions without pain, before going to the next movement.

Ankle Pain Relief Home Remedy Exercises

Ankle Pumps

A great place to start for improving circulation through your ankles, as well as working some light range of motion, all from a seated position.

Seated Calf Raise & Toe Raise

A step up from the last exercise, the seated calf and toe raise will have your feet on the ground, practicing bringing your toes up as high as possible, and then your heels up as high as possible, rocking back and forth.

Slantboard Holds

Next, we will add in some slantboard holds on the side of our feet, to work our inversion and eversion. I really like using the slantboard, because you are able to increase the intensity of the exercise by increasing the overall slant. I am going to link the slantboard I personally use and recommend, below.

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Normal Calf Raise & Toe Raise

Moving out of the chair, you will practice doing the calf raise and toe raise you did from the seated position, now with your entire bodyweight, standing. This will also be a good test for your balance too, which is important in helping to keep your ankles strong, stable, and pain free.

Slantboard Stepdowns

When you can tolerate the slantboard holds for about 3 sets of 1 minute holds, without any pain, you can start to do some slantboard stepdowns on an angle. I would recommend doing a very small angle on the slantboard first, as this is a very demanding exercise on your knees, hips, and ankles.

Slantboard Calf Raise & Weighted Toe Raise

Once you’ve built some strength with the previous calf and toe raise variations, you can add a little bit more complexity by doing the calf raise on some stairs to increase the range of motion, and add a small weight to the top of your toes to make it more challenging.

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Hold On!

Before you go, make sure you subscribe to our blog! We help individuals of all abilities navigate through the gym and become healthier in life. If you don’t want to do that, I bet your knees and hips might be bothering you too, which is why I think you would enjoy these two articles below.

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