One of the hardest things for active people who have been injured is the question of when to get back in the gym. If your ankle is injured badly enough to need an ankle boot, you must be very careful about what activities you take on if you want to avoid reinjury. Although yoga can be a low-impact exercise, not all yoga postures are friendly to people in this condition.
Yoga Basics
Yoga is a traditional exercise form that uses postures and body weight to build strength, endurance, flexibility and balance. In a typical yoga session, practitioners will transition through several different postures. Some of these postures are performed standing up, sitting, lying down and still others on all fours.
Aircast Ankle Boot Basics
Aircast ankle boots resemble ski boots assembled from plastic plates and held together with Velcro straps. They provide the rigid protection of a plaster cast, but allow the wearer to remove it while resting. The purpose of an Aircast ankle boot is to prevent the ankle from bending and buckling while you're moving around. Aircast is a brand name, and the same equipment is available under different brands.
Postures
The key to whether or not you can do yoga in an Aircast ankle boot is whether or not a particular posture stresses your ankle. According to sports medicine specialist, Christer Rolf, M.D., in his landmark book on sports injuries, standing postures and kneeling postures are bad choices for people with ankle problems. Sitting postures are usually safe, as you can do them without engaging your ankles at all. Although handstand postures don't technically stress the ankles, landing wrong from such a posture could be catastrophic for an injured ankle.
Common Sense Caution
Always check with your treatment team before you go back to the gym with an ankle injury, or any other kind of injury. Injured athletes often experience several weeks where their body is almost ready -- and they are psychologically enthusiastic about -- returning to play. However, Rolf warns that those weeks are the most dangerous in terms of re-injury. Listen to your doctor's advice, and follow it.
References
- "The Sports Injury Handbook: Diagnosis and Management"; Christer Rolf; 2010
- "Yoga For a New Age", Bob Smith; 1986
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