Happy Wednesday Reader!

If you've ever had an ankle sprain before, you'll want to keep reading.

Maybe it was a really bad one. Maybe it was just a little tweak. You laid up for a few days and then went back on your merry way. Maybe you’ve even had multiple ankle sprains over the years and now you’re the person who says, “Yeah, I’ve just got a bad ankle,” or “My ankles are super weak.”

Ankle sprains are incredibly common. And I think that’s exactly why they don’t get taken seriously.

But I want to make the case that you should approach an ankle sprain with the same consistency and intention you’d bring to rehabbing a more significant joint injury.

Because an ankle sprain isn’t just ligament damage. It goes way beyond that.

When a ligament gets overstretched or torn, of course you’ll get the pain and swelling early on. But even after that settles down, the ligament is still damaged. And its entire purpose is to provide structural support to the ankle and limit motion you shouldn’t have.

Once it’s sprained, you often end up with increased laxity and potentially motion you can’t fully control. You lose some of the inherent stability you’ve always relied on without thinking.

But it doesn’t stop there.

When that ligament is damaged, you also lose some of your ability to sense where your ankle and foot are in space. Those ligaments contain tiny receptors that constantly send data to your brain about position and movement. When the signal becomes inaccurate or delayed, your brain doesn’t know when or how to activate the right muscles to stabilize you dynamically.

In other words: you literally lose coordination at the ankle.

This matters most when you’re running, jumping, landing off a curb, or stepping down stairs. If the brain can’t reliably detect where your ankle is, it can’t react fast enough to protect you.

That’s how a lot of repeat ankle sprains happen.

And over time, this can start affecting everything up the chain: knees, hips, gait patterns, small compensations that compound over months and years.

This is where the “continuum of disability” comes in.

A lot of these impairments partially resolve with rest or light rehab, but most of them don’t fully resolve even after the pain and swelling are long gone.

That’s what leads to chronic ankle instability.

Chronic ankle instability means repeated episodes of giving way, recurring sprains, and lingering functional limitations that persist at least 12 months after the initial injury.

Some research even shows a higher likelihood of ankle arthritis long-term. But honestly, the bigger day-to-day issue is that people slowly lose the ability to run, cut, jump, or play the sports they want at the level they want. It’s a slow erosion of capacity of doing a little less, a little less, a little less.

So how do we reduce the risk of sliding into chronic instability?

It’s simple: Treat the initial ankle sprain seriously.

Not with just rest and a brace. Not with ankle ABCs, a few calf stretches, and calling it “good enough.”

But with months-long, progressive rehab that rebuilds:

• Balance
• Proprioception
• Reactive stability
• Running, jumping, sprinting, and deceleration mechanics

You’re proving to your body that your ankle can handle everything you want to do again.

That takes time. It takes consistency. It takes dedication.

And it’s absolutely worth it.

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All the best,

Zach