Every year, Norwegian emergency rooms and hospitals report between 150,000 and 200,000 overtreatments, but the actual number is probably significantly higher. Most people who overstep don’t seek professional help, and many can face challenges for the rest of their lives with wear and tear injuries.
– The biggest challenge with overstepping is the risk of stepping over again. Your ankle should be able to withstand a lot and carry you for the rest of your life, yet the majority of people skip training and rehabilitation. This can have serious consequences,” says Per Morten Fredriksen, professor and physiotherapist.
Fredriksen is a professor with a PhD from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences and one of the experts behind a new method for active ankle rehabilitation, Wear’n’Go – Ankle Trainer, which is used for training the ankle after overtraining.
He believes that people are well aware of what should be done in the acute phase immediately after the injury, but lack understanding of long-term training.
– Compression of the injury site, elevation and ice once the damage has occurred is the recipe. The ankle is designed to withstand a lot of weight from above. Stepping over damages the ability to keep the ankle in the correct position, which can cause wear and tear on the ankle over time. That’s why training after the acute phase is important,” says Fredriksen.
Most people avoid boring rehabilitation exercises
Fredriksen has played and coached handball himself for several years and points to a simple explanation for why people drop training exercises after overtraining – they’re boring.
– Nowadays, the most common treatment after a hypertrophy is to think that “everything will be fine”. Even if we have training exercises with good effect, these must actually be done. This is rarely the case, because we don’t take the time to train in our busy lives and forget the professional advice when the pain is gone,” says Fredriksen.
Stabilize the ankle and train the ligament with active rehabilitation
Overstretching can make it difficult to walk on the foot, reduce balance and cause severe pain. That’s why prevention and rehabilitation are so important.
– Overtraining can lead to long-term injuries and many people have to live with an unstable ankle for the rest of their lives. This can cause major problems. Ankle rehabilitation takes much longer than many people think and very few people have the same stability as before the injury. That’s why good rehabilitation is crucial, so that the risk of a new breach is reduced,” says Fredriksen.
Actiweight labs developed the Wear’n’Go – Ankle Trainer product, which allows patients who have overstepped to train themselves, without having to set aside time, and to get a sufficient amount of exercise without having to think about it.
The Ankle Trainer actively rehabilitates the ankle by triggering muscle activity around the ankle and in the ligament. While continuing to do exercises and follow a training program is encouraged, the Wear’n’Go – Ankle Trainer provides continuous stability training as a supplement to the training exercises.