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The effect of ankle injuries in your office pool March Madness

There are two things March is known for: green beer and basketball. This week, Americans are enjoying both. Whether you’re a twelve-year-old or a grandmother involved in the nursing home pool, it seems like everyone is talking about March Madness. But did you know that just last week there were five foot or ankle injuries among players competing in the NCAA tournament? Before you hand over your support, you may want to be aware of some of these injuries.

Robert Sacre, Gonzaga Bulldogs; Liam McMorrow, Marquette Golden Eagles; Ty Lawson, North Carolina Tar Heels; Teondre Williams, Oregon Ducks; and Jonnie West, West Virginia Mountaineers suffered foot or ankle injuries in the last week and all of their teams advanced to the tournament. Whether or not these injuries will affect teams is questionable, but what we should be asking is why these injuries happen so late in the season. At this point athletes should be at their peak strength, so why are they falling apart?

Basketball, like all sports, puts a lot of pressure on your body, especially your foot. Running causes an increase in forces on the foot and ankle of three to six times your body weight. When a forward goes up for a rebound, he comes down to hit the ground with a force six times greater than his body weight. Our body is designed to engage and adapt to these forces, but if we do them too quickly, we can damage our body. That’s why athletes go through training. Even with the best training, like that provided to college athletes, your body can still get injured!

Ankle sprains are the most frequent injuries on the pitch. Once an athlete has one sprained ankle, he is much more likely to have another one because the ligaments are damaged. Ligaments are small fibrous bands of tissue that connect bones to other bones. This, along with the muscles, allows the skeletal system to have a considerable amount of stability. If a ligament is stretched or injured, it will never recover to the same amount of strength it had before the injury. Therefore, once he has an ankle injury, it is much more likely that he will have one in the future.

So why don’t athletes sprain their ankles every day?

Physical therapy helps your body regain as much strength and function as possible. Since muscles also contribute to stability, a physical therapist will adjust the patient’s exercises to strengthen the muscles in injury-prone areas. This type of therapy is the most beneficial and that is why your podiatrist often suggests physical therapy for most types of injuries. Basketball shoes are a bit different than the sneakers or running shoes we’ve all kept in our closets. Basketball shoes or high tops are higher to give your ankle more support. You put a lot of stress on your body by jerking from side to side, running from one side of the court to the other, and jumping to retrieve the rebound. Simply changing your shoes can do wonders for reducing injuries on the court. Also, some people are more prone to ankle sprains due to biomechanical weaknesses or simply the way the foot and ankle move when walking or running. This innate weakness can be eliminated with a custom orthosis that controls excessive foot movement.

Although the NCAA offers some of the best training and resources to its athletes, some injuries are unavoidable. If you ever sprain your ankle, trip, or hear a POP, be sure to contact your podiatrist as soon as possible. The sooner you seek medical attention from a highly trained foot and ankle doctor or podiatrist, the better the outcome of your injury.