Broken Ankle brace advice

I am far away from any kind of riding as of now, surgery was 4 weeks ago to repair fibula (7 screws and a metal plate) I was wondering if anyone rides or skates with an ankle brace? I am hoping to be wake surfing first and will need a little support to ease my mind. Any suggestion would be great, waterproof or durable, thanks.
Matt

I recently had some torn ligiments in my ankle. I rode a week later with an ace bandage and an aircast. (http://www.aircast.com/index.asp/fuseaction/products.detail/cat/1/id/6) Probably not the best idea but I had the chance to go out behind a GG edition Supra so I couldn't really pass it up.
It hurt like hell getting in and out of the bindings, but I tightened the binding more than usual on my injured foot and it really didn't bother my too bad while riding. It did hurt even worse the next few day's though. Oh well... I guess you win some and lose some.

Good luck to your recovery.

As an orthopedic surgeon who also rides, i believe I can chime in here. After the fracture has healed adequately, you will want to get whats called a Swede-O ankle brace. It laces up the front nice and tight and also has figure 8 straps that further support the ankle. Check out www.swedeo.com and look at the Inner Lok brace in the foot/ankle section. I use alot of these in my Sports Med clinic.

I agree with Bill not only cause he's a doc. but I use to wear the braces he's ta;king about when I use to water ski jump. I would say that they saved my ankles on more then one occasion.

Al

The best thing you can do is strengthen the ankle with constant balance and reactive training.

Prolonged periods of brace use will weaken the muscles that support the ankle and lead to more problems.

Not saying you shouldn't ride with a brace. Just make sure you compensate with training.

Not disagreeing with Bill but... My son has had multiple ankle injuries wakeboarding- some of the injuries happened while wearing a Swede-o brace. These braces are helpful, but the ultimate brace IMO for wakeboarding is the McDavid A101R. Since my son has been wearing these, he has not had a serious ankle injury, and he rides at a pretty high level. The essential ingredient is the nylon stiffener. These can be modified to fit around the ankle bones and presumably any hardware you may have in there. I'm interested to hear what Bill thinks about this brace.

Agree the McDavid is a nice brace and superior to the standard Swede-O. The inner lok has nylon straps that figure 8 the ankle from both sides. Both are good braces, but neither will fully protect the ankle from future injury.

I broke my ankle a couple of years ago, but as breaks go it was minor in nature (no plates/screws).

My doc told me no bindings, but when it was ok to put weight on it, I was good to surf. The reasoning was because the surfboard served as a balance board for strengthening the ankle, and the speeds were way slow. I rode with no brace, but had it on when I wasn't riding, for "bump" protection...

"The reasoning was because the surfboard served as a balance board for strengthening the ankle"

There you go.

Regular stregthening exercises are much better than a crutch. The Theraband worked well for my rehab.

Thanks for all the advice guys. Bill and Peter, thanks for the recommendations. Jerrod, right on the money about the training, I am a also strength coach so as far as the strength aspect goes I should be fine, I started therapy immediately, stim, massage, stretching, training upper body, core and the good leg as as soon as I could. I just need something once I get out of the boot to feel more comfortable and if I get the green light I want to have something in the beginning to help out. PT says it will be stronger than before. Thanks everyone.

I've been curious about this too. I sprained my left foot father's day weekend then five weeks later partialy tore a couple of ligaments in my right. So out of the past three wake jumps I've made, I've injured myself on two. Considered a brace in addition to strengthening during the offseason but worried about the fit in the binding. What about athletic tape? I know it helped playing basketball in high school. Any certain way to wrap with tape?

I have used Coban before and it slides into the binding pretty easy. It comes in a roll and is disposable.

For future reference, when strength training for ankles, stand on a squishy mat. By this I mean, a yoga mat or something else that has some "give." The unbalance of the mat (while doing squats or lunges) will keep your ankles sturdy and well developed. I've been weight training for many years and have been personal training too. This is a technique many NBA teams use for their athletes coming back from ankle injuries.

When I broke mine learning HS Front Flips I never braced it, once the cast was off I started playing a ton of soccer again. Some days it would hurt like hell, but after 3 months I had all my flexibility back, never felt pain and was in pretty good shape from running around. PT is good but I'm a big believer in surprising your body, when I do lift weights it's on the bubble discs to keep my unbalanced.

All great advice guys, just itching to move around. Started passive range this week and some light theraband plantarflexion and dorsiflexion today. Still no weight bearing till next weeks x rays, but it's feeling good. I did get out on the boat this week and got some shots, one of them made it on www.miamiskinautique.com as the homepage pic, pretty pumped.