After surgery on your ankle, your surgeon will almost always tell you not to walk on that leg for a few weeks. Your surgeon and physiotherapist will train you on how to walk with the normal leg with the aid of crutches.
Surgery for a fractured ankle isn’t the end, if anything it’s the beginning of a long journey toward healing. These exercises mostly apply to the first 8 weeks after surgery.
The goal is to keep that joint moving, to prevent stiffness.
Ankle exercises
These are some of the exercises you should do around your ankle joint. Keep in mind that you will need clearance from your surgeon or physiotherapist before you start any of these.
- Calf pumping exercises
In these exercises, you pump your calf muscles by doing gradual contractions and releases.
These exercises try to aid the pumping of blood up and down your leg.
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2. Up and downward movement of the ankle.
These exercises are called dorsiflexion (upward movement) and plantarflexion (downward movement) exercises.
This movement happens primarily at the ankle joint. These facilitate continued production of synovial fluid (joint juice) plus continued stretch of the ligaments, muscles, and tendons around the joint and hence no joint stiffness.
3. Move the foot in circles.
This exercise still moves the ankle joint and other joints around the ankle. Its role is still to prevent stiffness of the joints.
4. up and downward ankle movement with a rubber exercise band.
This is done by pulling your foot with a rubber exercise band that goes around your foot. This exercise helps strengthen your calf muscles
5. Hip and knee exercises.
These exercises are vital in strengthening the muscles of the hip and knee joint to make sure that you have adequate strength to use them after your fracture has healed and you are allowed to ambulate/walk on that leg.
In conclusion, you need a set of exercises during the rehabilitation following ankle fracture surgery.
