Must-Read: Strengthen Your Ankles!

Avoid Black Swan, weak-ankled friends!

Two summers ago, I had myself the ankle sprains of ankle sprains. In the middle of a pickup basketball game I went up for the rebound — my biggest asset to any pickup team is my dominance of the boards, my outside shooting is a mess — and came down right on an opponent’s foot, rolling my ankle in the process. While it wasn’t broken, I had to stay off my foot for a good month and stayed away from sports for most of the next year, always making sure to double-wrap my ankles if I was running around for a bit. (I still haven’t steeled myself enough to play basketball again yet.)

The thing is, weak ankles run in my family. Rarely did a driveway b-ball game between my dad and I end without him grimacing in pain and having to ice his ankles for the rest of the night. (Or that was just an excuse because I finally got a step on the old man.) This is a problem that I have to imagine I share with some of you gents, which is why today I’m linking to this article over at Men’s Fitness about how to strengthen your knees and ankles.

You can click-through for their advice about knees (my knees are fine!), but here’s what they have to say about strengthening your fragile, puny little ankles:

Knee-to-wall mobilization: Stand a foot away from a wall, push one knee forward until it touches the wall and hold for 20 seconds. Do three sets of 10.

Standing-ankle ABCs: Find a semi-rigid pillow or cushion and place it on the floor. Stand on it with one foot and balance (you can touch a wall for support). Trace the alphabet with your support foot, making shapes resembling an A, B, and so on. Run through the alphabet three or four times per foot.

One more piece of advice for those with weak ankles: Stay the fuck away from Black Swan. It’s basically a movie about torturing feet.