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Talking About Ankle Taping

• June 2008
• Climb Gear Uncategorized

Hi Steph. Thanks for updating your blog so often. I like that! I
have a question about ankle taping. I think you have said that you
have taped your ankles while climbing and I wondered if you have a
particular method you employ to provide support and flexibility that
your ankle needs during rock climbing, especially crack climbing.


I’m pretty familiar with the basic ankle taping method from sports and
such. I’m recovering from a broken leg and a lot of the recovery is
focused on getting all the little tendons in my ankle stronger, along
with all the little muscles and other tendons in my foot, arch, shin,
calf, etc. I’ve been to the climbing gym just a few times and have
climbed outside once since my injury in January and I wonder if a
taped ankle might make me feel a little more confident and able to do
those moves that require a lot of ankle flexibility. Any ankle taping
hints?

Thanks,
Rachel

Dear Rachel,
I hope your leg is doing better. Yes, I have had a lot of trouble with ankle overuse strains (from crack climbing), and also with sprains (from running, hiking and landing parachutes). Taping really helps, a lot. It seems to give stability during healing phases, and enables me to continue my activities even when the ankle is slightly injured. I think this is the real blessing of ankle injuries, versus knees, because you can keep on doing everything with a bad ankle, if you tape it up well. Using a taped ankle doesn’t seem to keep it from healing, either.

If I have a hurt ankle, I use what is probably a pretty typical taping method. I run one piece of tape up both sides of the ankle and under the arch of my foot, like a stirrup. Then I start wrapping around the ankle, and make X crosses over the top of the foot, to get wraps around the foot, and then make X crosses back up to go around the ankle. How much I end up taping depends on how much the ankle is hurt. As with any tape job, it’s easy to tape too tight, and have to undo it all and loosen a bit. If I’m in a small injury phase, I often leave that tape on for a few days. Sometimes it feels too tight at night, and bothers me, and then I finally cut it off and retape the next day. But I like to try to conserve tape somewhat, and so I leave it on as long as it isn’t uncomfortable, like a little cast.

I like preventative ankle taping for very long, sustained crack routes, and also for offwidth climbing. Other than that, I just tape when they are hurt, and leave them be when they are not. I do always wear velcro and lace-up ankle braces under my five tennies, for BASE jumping, since I know I’m prone to ankle injuries–it makes me feel safer.

Since you are still recovering, I’d recommend keeping your ankles taped every time you climb and do sports, until you start to feel like they aren’t vulnerable. And always keep tape handy, because you might really need it suddenly. Once I did a long trail run when my ankles weren’t in great shape, and rolled one 25 miles into it, with another 6 miles left to go, which was really not much fun. If only I had had a roll of tape with me, it would have been way less epic 🙂

I hope you heal fast!
xx Steph