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Training With a Broken Ankle

• December 2015
• Hi Steph Climb Training

Hi Steph, i broke my ankle a few days ago and I was absolutely devastated when I thought about having a long time off climbing. I was reading a few articles on internet about training while injured and came across your website. I was hoping you could give me some tips and advice about which exercises could keep me climbing fit, when can I start climbing training again, what new goals can I set for myself while injured, etc.
Thanks,
Charlotte

Hi Charlotte,
I’m really sorry to hear about your injury, and I know it’s been a few weeks since you wrote. So I hope the recovery is going okay so far. Injuring anything is no fun, but the “nice” thing about injuring legs is that you can still work on core and finger strength. I have found that focusing on core and finger strength gives me the biggest return for my time.

I recommend you work on core strength with exercises that aren’t going to hurt your ankle. My favorite core exercise will do the trick for this: it’s a repetition of the yoga boat pose. You lift your upper body and lower body up off the floor at the same time, legs straight and back straight. I like to hold my arms hands-up at the same time and bring my straight arms in and out from my sides while I’m doing the lifts. You never release all the way down to rest on the floor, until you’re done exercising. So you raise up high into boat pose and lower down to just hovering above the floor with back and legs until you finish your reps. I count sets of 10, and I try to add a set of 10 every time I’m feeling good, and at least stay at the same count I did last time (usually the day before) if I don’t feel like adding a set. So for example, the first time you do these you might do 3 sets of 10. Then you might do 3 sets of 10 for a few days, until you feel good to do 4 sets of 10. And et cetera. You can also do bicycle ab workouts (lie on the floor, hands behind your head, and bicycle your legs in front of you while you rock your elbows toward opposite knees) with a hurt ankle, and this is another very effective core exercise.

You’ll need to be a lot more careful working on finger exercises, because obviously you don’t want to slip off and land on your ankle. If you have access to a hangboard, you’ll want to rig up a ring or a clip-in point for your climbing harness, and clip a cordelette or a piece of webbing from your belay loop to that clip in point below the hangboard, so that you can step on the floor with your good foot only (or no foot at all) if you slip off or need to take a break. You can always get one of your nice friends to help you do this, since you’re hurt 🙂 Once you feel safe and able to use a hangboard without risking falling off onto your ankle, there are tons of things you can do. I really like the 10 minute hangboard workouts available on the Metolius website. It’s amazing how just doing 10 minutes a day can help you maintain and even improve your finger strength. If you don’t already have a hangboard, this might be the time to buy one and get it rigged up. When you’re not injured, you can use that harness clip in point for removing or adding weight in the future to do different workouts, so it will be a longterm investment even when you’re recovered.

Here’s a really great and informative post, with lots of creative ways to mount boards in different spaces.

You may be pleasantly surprised to find that your ankle injury actually bumps you up to another fitness level, if you’re able to focus on core and finger strength during your recovery 🙂

Your doctor has probably given you a time frame for starting activity again. I’d follow that advice. Usually when you’re trying to figure out when to start doing more, and how hard you can go, pain is a good guide and most of us can tell the difference between injurious pain and getting-back-into-it pain. Be careful and listen to your body, but remember that being as active as possible keeps the blood flow going, keeps your spirits up and helps your body heal.

Best of luck with your recovery and your training!
Steph