Ankle Pain

[BBinNCsMom]

My CP has started complaining of ankle pain every time she tumbles. It's the same ankle and I'm wondering if a brace or wrapping it prior to tumbling might help? She's not doing any twisting skills. Just backhandspring and tucks. Thanks!


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[cheermuse]

I would try wrapping it with athletic tape first and see if that helps. Pain could be from overuse.

 

[Matt Faherty]

Taping and bracing is a temporary solution, much like a bandaid. I would seek the advice of a physical therapist or athletic trainer to help your CP strengthen her ankle, and fix the pain at the root of its cause.

 

[CheerBank]

I shudder anytime I read about chronic ankle pain during tumbling, having one former-cp who went through 2 ankle surgeries to repair damage from never giving her injured ankle a rest and a current cp who is simply prone to ankle injuries, having injured each one significantly enough over the past two seasons to keep her out 4-6 weeks at a time and needing PT.

Have you gone to an orthopedist and had it checked out to make sure there is not some underlying physical issue causing the pain? If not, I would definitely start there, and see what the doctor recommends about bracing/taping or going to a PT for strengthening exercises. And if the doctor tells you to let her rest it for several weeks, do it. It is just not worth the greater damage that can be caused by not giving it a chance to heal properly.

 

[Matt Faherty]

Ankles are really prone to sprains, particularly inversion sprains. A sprain is when the ligaments that attach your bones together are stretched and or torn.

The thing about ligaments is that unlike muscle and bones, ligaments do not have a very good blood supply, and therefore do not have the same healing properties that bones and muscles do. In other words, once a ligament is stretched, for the most part, it stays that way. This is why a torn ACL requires surgery to fix, and a broken bone does not.

Now, back to the ankle. After an ankle is sprained, those now lose ligaments will continue to cause instability of the ankle, leading you to constantly re-injure it. The ONLY way to get the stability of the ankle back, and prevent further damage and pain is to strengthen to muscles of the lower leg so that they will help keep everything tight and in it's right place.

Taping and bracing are also used to keep make it so that ankle joint is more stable, but without proper rehabilitation of the joint, it will truly never get better!

 

[BBinNCsMom]

Thanks everyone! I think I'm going to back her off on the tumbling for the summer. Let her rest. She's progressed a lot in 2 months and has been working really hard. Some weeks in the gym 3 days per week. When all star practice starts back up in august, if it's still bothering her, I'll take her to a specialist. She's only 9. I'm hoping it's just overuse.


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