Ankles...ouch.

[singhappy02]

Most of my posts here as of late have been the "woe is me I live in NYC and am never going to find a barn". Well after a lot of trial and error, I think I've found a place worth sticking (NJEC, with Andrew from Bergen). I am giving it a couple weeks to see how it goes before I make my official decision, but for now...I like it! He seems to think

Comments

[fidgetknickers]

I don't have any advice on exercises, but I used to have this problem, and figured it was just due to flexibilty and weak ankles (always had issues with them), until I randomly borrowed a friend's boots to ride one day, and found that I was much more comfortable and didn't have dead feet or sore ankles by the time I was done. Previously I'd always ridden quite long, and even kept my stirrups longish for jumping because putting them up just caused even more pain

[rolypolypony]

Are your boots too tight? Or your half-chaps? Stirrups too short?

As for exercises - the old stand by of standing on the edge of a stair and stretching down into your heel really DOES help for flexibility. If you want to add some strength, do the sink down, then rise up and hold.

[hxgx]

Also, if you do the stand on the stair trick and gently bend your knee while you stretch the ankle it will then stretch your achilles tendon, and probably more mimics a riding leg position.

[vermeer_groupie]

When I sprained my ankle badly a few years ago I had a lot weakness after it was done healing. My doctor suggested an exercise and it really helped a lot. He suggested I take a tennis ball and then roll it around on the floor with the bottom of my foot while I was standing up. I was supposed to do each side for several minutes. After my foot had "warmed up" he told me to try picking up the tennis ball with my toes (you know, kinda curl my toes around it and lift). He recommended that I do it several times a week and then once the lifting and holding the tennis ball became too easy, to switch to a golf ball. It sounded like it wasn't going to work so I was pretty dubious, but I tried it because I was desperate and it did work. My ankles are much stronger than they were and I don't have pain like I used to. Just a suggestion!

[ex_signmypa]

As you identified, weak ankles, I did pilates, and every time she would do ballet pointed toe, I would hyper-flex my ankle, pointing my ankle down instead. Also, I would stand on a step and do ankle lifts. Basically any thing I could think of to do ankle exercises.

Also, surprisingly, I rode a lot and one day I realized my ankles just didn't hurt any more and when I did jumping I could extend my ankles that severely and it didn't hurt.

[horsearcher]

I highly recommend pilates and yoga, with pilates exercises done on an exercise ball. There is a workout I do often that really helps my riding: it is a DVD called Balance Ball for Beginners and you can get used copies on Amazon pretty inexpensively.

As for the stretchy bands: check out www.collagevideo.com which specializes only in exercise videos. I know they deeply discount on shipping if you buy more than one DVD so they are definitely worth bookmarking. :)