Chapter List

• Introduction
• Achilles Tendon
• Adrenal Glands
• Ankles
• Appendix
• Arteries
• Back
• Belly Button
• Birth Control
• Birthmarks
• Bladder
• Blood
• Body Hair
• Body Type
• Brain
• Breasts
• Cervix
• Childbirth
• Chin
• Circulatory System
• Clitoris
• Collarbone
• Digestive System
• Ears
• Elbows
• Emotions
• Endocrine System
• Energy
• Esophagus
• Eyes
• Fallopian Tubes
• Fat
• Feet
• Fertility
• Fingernails
• Gallbladder
• Gums
• Gynecological Exam
• Hair
• Hands
• Heart
• Hips
• Hormones
• Intestines
• Jaw
• Joints
• Kidneys
• Knees
• Larynx and Vocal Cords
• Lips
• Liver
• Lungs
• Lymphatic System
• Medical Tests
• Menopause
• Menstrual Cycle
• Moles
• Mouth
• Muscular System
• Neck
• Nervous System
• Nose
• Nutrition
• Ovaries
• Pain Relief
• Pancreas
• Pelvis
• Pregnancy
• Rectum
• Reproductive System
• Respiratory System
• Ribs
• Salivary Glands
• Scalp
• Sex
• Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• Shins
• Shoulders
• Sinuses
• Skeletal System
• Skin
• Skull
• Spine
• Spleen
• Stomach
• Stress
• Sweat Glands
• Tailbone
• Tear Ducts
• Teeth
• Throat
• Thyroid
• Toenails
• Tongue
• Tonsils
• Underarms
• Urinary System
• Urine
• Uterus
• Vagina
• Veins
• Vulva
• Wrists
• Shaping Up
• The Total Body Shaping Workoout
• Abdominals
• Biceps
• Buttocks
• Calves
• Chest
• Forearms
• Neck3
• Shoulders3
• Thighs
• Triceps
• Aerobic Conditioning

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Ankles

Ankles

It''s a powerful but delicate feat of foot engineering.

Your ankle is the hinge that joins your leg to your foot as well as the joint that moves them. In fact, the big bumps you feel on each side of your ankle are the junctures where two leg bones meet the heel bone. Inside that structure is a complex web of ligaments, tendons and muscles that protects the ankle.

If you wrench your foot to one side, stretching or tearing one of the ligaments that connects the leg bone to the ankle bone, you''ll get a sprain--the most common type of ankle injury. There are infinite ways to do that--catching a high heel, stepping off a curb the wrong way or wrenching your ankle as you dash to catch a train.

Here are some things you can do to keep your ankles strong and make sure the sprain and pain stay mainly under rein.

Stand like a stork. "One of the reasons we trip and fall is because our sense of balance isn''t good," says Steven I. Subotnick, D.P.M., former professor of biomechanics and surgery at California College of Podiatric Medicine and a sports podiatrist in private practice in Hayward, California. You can improve your sense of balance with an exercise that will also help strengthen your ankles."Take off your shoes and stand like a stork on one leg." While you''re perched on one leg, bend the other one up behind you.

"Close your eyes while you do the exercise," he suggests. "Hold the pose for up to a minute." Then switch legs and do the same thing on the other foot. He suggests doing the stork exercise a couple of times a day to improve your balance and lessen your chances of stumbling.

New Angles on Ankle Looks Your ankles feel fine. But when you look in a full-length mirror, you wish the sturdy things were a little less stout. Is there anything you can do about thick ankles? "If you tend to store fat in the lower leg area, you can reduce by reducing your overall body fat levels," says Rebecca Gorrell, fitness instructor and wellness education director at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Arizona. She recommends "eating a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet with adequate protein and doing a combination of aerobics and strength training." In the meantime, while the fat melts, follow these tips for slimming the look of your ankles from nationally syndicated fashion columnist Patricia McLaughlin. * Cover your ankles with boots. * Choose black stockings to narrow ankle appearance. * Wear fashionably "clunky" shoes. "They make your ankles look relatively small by comparison," says McLaughlin. * Or wear fashionably heavy socks. "Thick, heavy wool socks that you push down around your ankles make a virtue out of mass," she says.

Build your calves. The calf muscles make up an important muscle group that controls and gives support to the ankle. Both strength and flexibility here are important, explains Reba Schecter, director of exercise physiology at Canyon Ranch health spa in Lenox, Massachusetts. One way to make calf muscles stronger is with a heel-raise exercise.

Stand on the stairs, facing up, with the balls of your feet on one step. Your feet should be parallel and a few inches apart. Hold the railing for balance. Slowly rise up on your toes, then lower your heels gently as far as you can with control. Repeat the strengthener 8 to 10 times. Do it three times a week, with a day or two between sessions, Schecter advises. Your calf muscles should feel pleasantly fatigued after each set. As the fatigue lessens, increase the repetitions until you get to a maximum of 12.

Flex your calves. The same position can be used for flexibility. As you gently lower your heels, go to the point where you feel a moderate stretch in your calves. Hold the stretch 10 to 30 seconds. According to Schecter, the count depends on how well you can control the stretch--you shouldn''t stretch to the point of feeling unbalanced.

Repeat the stretch three to four times. Do it after the calf-strengthening exercise--or after any other exercise that works the calves, such as walking or cycling.

Coddling a Sprain

The ligaments that unite our bones and protect our joints are like taffy. If you stretch them, they stay stretched. So even if you only have a mild sprain, it can take two to three weeks for the ligament to lose its pulled-taffy shape and become a normally acting fiber again.

You can help the healing process by doing these things.

RICE it. RICE stands for rest, ice, compression and elevation. Rest means staying off your feet and using crutches if necessary. Ice means applying ice to the injured part of your ankle--for 15 to 20 minutes every 2 to 4 hours during the first 48 to 72 hours, says William Case, P.T., president of Case Physical Therapy in Houston and certified in sports physical therapy. (Use a towel under the ice to avoid frostbite.)

Compression means wrapping your ankle to control swelling. To wrap your foot properly, you''ll need a long elastic compression bandage 1½ inches wide (such as an Ace bandage). Here''s the procedure: Starting at the base of your toes--but leaving your toes exposed--wrap the elastic bandage once around the end of your foot. Then walk the bandage up your leg; overlap half the width of the bandage with the next wrap. Continue wrapping around your foot, overlapping half the bandage width each time. Lessen the tension of the bandage as you wrap up your foot and over your ankle going up your leg to the base of your calf. Make sure that no one area gets too much tension or too much overlap. Get around your ankle as best you can; you can leave your heel exposed.

Elevation means propping up your ankle (above the level of your heart) to prevent swelling.

RICE your ankle for one to two days, until the swelling goes down and you''re not in pain. If the ankle doesn''t improve or you''re still in pain, call your doctor.

Pedal to strength. Even if you''ve injured your ankle, you can still strengthen it as it heals. After any pain and swelling have subsided, usually a week or two after a sprain, start using a stationary bike, suggests Case.

When you''re using the bike to build up your ankle, set the tension on minimum to medium, he suggests. Then, start pedaling for 5 minutes at a time twice a day. Gradually work up to 10 minutes of biking three times a day. Eventually, you can work up to 15 to 20 minutes on the bike.

 

See also Muscular System, Skeletal System