Staying Safe during Your Workouts

After you have had surgery on your foot or your ankle, you are very susceptible to getting injured again. This is because the bones in your foot and ankle are all small and can easily break again. If you've had surgery, you're going to need to take special care to prevent injury to these areas again. Read on for tips to prevent injuring yourself again.

Stretch Before Exercising

You should be doing specific stretches before you exercise. Stretch your ankles and your feet by pressing your feet into a wall and pressing your weight into the wall. Doing toe pointing and rolling your ankles in circles (clockwise and counter-clockwise) can also stretch your feet and ankles. Doing any type of stretch on your body can prevent injury to the ligaments in your body. Always stretch before performing any type of exercise; even jogging or going for a brisk walk requires stretching.

Watch Your Gait

After you've had surgery on your foot or ankle, you may walk differently. If you are doing this without even noticing, you could be weakening your previously injured ankle/foot and you could also injure the other foot/ankle that you are using more. Keep an eye on your gait and if you feel that you are walking differently, you need to go to physical therapy or talk to your foot surgeon about other things you can do.

Follow the Podiatrist's Instructions

After you've had your surgery, you need to listen to your podiatrist's instructions about how to take care of your ankle/foot after surgery. If you're told to stay off of it for 6 weeks, this is what you need to do. If you're told you can't be weight-bearing for another 6 weeks after that, you need to listen to these instructions. If you fail to follow the instructions given to you by your podiatrist, you could re-injure yourself and end up needing another surgery, or worse. Always listen to the medical advice given to you post-surgery.

If you've had foot or ankle surgery, you could potentially re-injure yourself and need another surgery later down the road. Listen to the medical advice given to you, remember to stretch, and if you notice a change in how you walk, you need to bring this up to your podiatrist. Failing to do so could result in another injury or a different type of injury. Contact a foot and ankle specialist to learn more.