swimming

Former Member

I recently sprained my ankle a few weeks ago and I was thinking of taking up swimming once a week to strengthen my ankle and also to lose a bit of weight. My question is do you think going once a week is enough exercise and will it make a difference to my weight loss and the healing process?

Cheers.

Former Member

If your injury was a few weeks ago, then most places would say (depending on the severity of a sprain) that things like swimming are ok - as long as it doesn't cause pain during or after the exercise. Have you been doing motion exercises and stretches in your recovery?

Regarding the weight loss, you need to spend more calories than you consume, so the majority of it will come down to your diet It also depends on your long-term goals, i.e. do you want to lose weight, or change your body shape? I'd say start off with once a week, then increase your sessions if your ankle feels ok, let your body lead the way.

Former Member

Swimming isn't load bearing, so should be fine for your ankle, although try it and see how it goes. Obviously if it hurts lots then stop.

If you want to strengthen your ankle then the best thing is a wobble board, They are usually round disks, approx 30cm across with a half sphere on the bottom. The idea is you stand on it and wobble it around which uses and works the muscles/tendons/ligaments in your feet/ankles.

They're not that expensive and TK Maxx often have them in. Failing that squashing a tennis ball into the floor and rolling it around in circles is a good subsititue, as is practising standing on one leg (assuming you haven't got perfect balance). Make sure you start holding onto the back of a chair to begin with otherwise you'll just do more damage when you fall over.

Swimming can be great exercise and can be fairly rubbish. If you want proper exercise to try and lose weight you'll need to be going more than once a week, you'll need to knock up a fair few lengths, and you'll need to swim hard, not just float up and down. Think swimming so you are out of breath rather than a gentle drift around.

Hope that helps a bit, any more questions just shout. I'm a lifeguard and I did a fair amount of damage to my ankle a few years back playing tennis.