The time of recovering from an ankle or any kind of injury is very important! Over the years of training in Martial Arts, I only had some bumps and bruises that I get from training. Having those didn’t stop me from going to class. But one day, I got injured badly and twisted my ankle during MMA class.
How it happened was from doing live wrestling rounds with a training partner of mine. I was rolling around and screaming in pain when the injury occurred. During that moment I knew that I am for sure going to be out of training for a while. What my training partner did was not intentional, and he felt bad for injuring me.
But hey accidents happen. My coach felt bad for me as well. So, he told me to go see a doctor and find out if there’s any ligament or bone damage. When I arranged the time to go see one, I found out that it was only soft tissue damage that I had. The doctor told me that all I needed to do was rest up, ice my ankle regularly, and take Ibuprofen medicine to recover.
He also told me that I should be fully healed within a month. After hearing that from my doctor I knew I needed to figure some things out on what to do to keep me occupied. There were 8 things that I did to keep myself occupied while recovering.
For myself, I found it was a way to stay productive and preventing myself from going insane. Therefore, I will be going into explaining what they are next.
Table of Contents
8 Things To Do While Recovering From An Ankle Injury
1.Type Up Reports
This might not be for everyone, but I recommend typing up some reports to keep yourself busy while recovering. I was in college university still of when I got injured, and I found writing a report helped kept me busy while recovering.
If you’re not in school and you are injured, I recommend that you write some reports. Research says that writing is great for mental exercise, so if you’re in recovery, writing is great for working the mind.
The topics you can write about is:
- Your Interests
- Passion
- Plans & Goals
- A Made Up Story
- Dreams
Doing this makes your reports more exciting to write about as well as keeping your mind going. When it comes to writing about your interests you can express yourself on how you feel. When you’re able to express yourself the more hyped up you are of finishing your story.
2. Read Books
Reading books during my time of recovering was also something that helped keep me going. For myself, I have an interest in reading:
- Self-improvement topics
- Life lesson topics
- Combat sports stories
These are real-life stories that I read. Whenever I read these types of books, I find a lot of inspirational quotes and messages. Seeing those help keep my mind motivated and it is also a reminder that I should never give up.
Research says that reading is excellent for reducing stress. So, if you are feeling stressed during your time while recovering, pick up a book to read.
3. Play Video Games
When I was injured, I couldn’t do much since it hurts walking! So basically, all I could do was sit on my couch with my feet up with a pack of ice on my ankle.
While being in a comfortable spot I just sat back and played whatever games I had on my PS4. Since I couldn’t train, I found playing video games was a good replacement for relieving my stress.
4. Catch Up On Shows & Movies
Not only was I sitting back playing video games, but I was also sitting back and watching shows and movies I missed out on. There were a lot of shows and movies that I didn’t get the chance to watch.
So, I took the opportunity to catch up on them. I felt so relaxed from doing this lol. I was so relaxed to the point where I would binge watch some shows past midnight. Binge-watching shows caused me to go to bed late.
However, ever since I got caught up with the shows. I began to see why my friends and family found those shows so interesting to watch.
5. Work
This was a little difficult for me at the time because I bartended. Work wasn’t all that bad though because of how moving around in a medium-sized bar wasn’t a problem. Making highballs, and serving canned alcoholic beverages wasn’t hard on my ankle.
Sure, I would be moving around with a limp. But, it felt good to at least let my ankle rehabilitate a little while working around the bar. Work has also kept me busy too along with being able to interact with people to keep myself sane.
This option may not work for everyone who is injured from training because we all have different jobs in our lives. For those who work in jobs that involve a lot of physical activity, then you have no choice but to rest up.
For the people who work in offices or don’t do as much physical related work. It should be fine for them since paperwork is usually mostly involved for them to do. My job as a bartender at the time may have some physical activity involved.
However, I only did the small stuff and avoided lifting heavy products that the bar needed.
6. Hang Out With Friends
Well, it all depends on what you want to do. When I was still walking with a limp all I could do was:
- Go out for coffee with a friend
- Go to a restaurant to eat with a group of friends
Whenever it came to my friends that ask me if I wanted to go to any party events. I had to tell them that I couldn’t go. Once I was able to walk without any sorts of problems. I was then able to start partying with my friends.
7. Watch & Help Your Teammates With Their Training
If you have nothing to do during your day, what you can do is go to the gym and watch what your coach is teaching. I have done this myself, and it has caused me to reflect on my style of fighting. After my coach was done demonstrating techniques for the students to see.
I would assist my coach out and see how the students are doing with their techniques. Helping my fellow training partners was a fun experience for me. I liked how I was able to share my opinion with them of the do’s and don’ts when practicing certain techniques.
Helping my teammates out also helped keep my mind into training.
8. Watch & Study MMA, Kickboxing, Muay Thai, Boxing, Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling Matches On Youtube
Besides catching up on watching shows and movies, I also took the time to watch martial arts videos such as:
- Boxing
- Kickboxing
- Muay Thai
- Brazilian Jiu-jitsu
- Wrestling
- MMA
I found doing this was a good way to apply the techniques that I know and relate them to what I watch. Seeing how famous professional fighters use them during their competition is such a shocking feeling. It gave me more of an understanding as to what techniques work and what doesn’t.
Conclusion
When training in the sport of MMA, accidents can happen. People get injured unexpectedly, which was what happened to me. So, if you ever experience an accidental ankle injury from MMA training or other combat-related sport, follow the activities recommended in this article.
Being out of training to recover sucks, but a set plan to keep yourself occupied can help you stay sane.
If you have any questions about what to do while recovering from an ankle injury, please feel free to leave a comment or send a message.
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Hi there! I’m Austin Hoang, an editor & writer focusing on Martial Arts. I am also a martial artist who has spent most of my life learning different disciplines and also have competed in Amateur Boxing and a Muay Thai tournament-based competition. Based on the experiences I have gone through, I would like to share with you all the cool ideas I have. Thanks for visiting my page and I hope I get the most out of educating you all about what martial arts brings in life.
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