Ankle inversion sprain ? or off-loading photo ?

How we do one thing, is how we do all things.

I was sitting having my morning coffee earlier than normal this morning, which left me time to ponder some things.
Look at this picture, is this not a magnification of the "cross over gait" x100 ? Thus, is that planted foot not inverted ? Yes, it has to be, to a degree, a high degree. There is a reason why soccer players have a great affinity for ankle sprains.
When we have a narrow based gait, we are most likely going to strike more laterally on the foot, more supinated, if you will. If you widen step width, less inversion, less lateral forces (typically) and less supination (typically) compared to a narrow based gait.
If we descend stairs with our feet in a more narrow based gait, we are not only going to be inverted more, but striking at the ball of the foot, thus, more on the lateral foot tripod. This is the typical inversion sprain injury position.
When we jump, we should be trying to land with our feet more abducted, certainly not narrow based, because if we are too narrow we are at more risk for the same lateral forefoot landing and thus ankle inversion event. Just like descending stairs.

We see plenty of ankle inversion events. Why?
Because most people do not have enough hip abduction or peroneal skill, strength, endurance and they are unaware of their weak gait patterns or their ankle spatial awareness. Many have lazy narrow based gaits and insufficient proprioceptive awareness. And, they carry these things over into running, walking, jump landing (ie. volleyball, basketball, etc), and descending stairs, just to name a few.

How we do one thing, is how we do all things (mostly).

Rickie Lovell As he struck the ball it would been everted. The momentum of the follow through will have off loaded the everted foot as the energy moves in a similar line to that of the ball. It is extremely rare for a footballer to get a sprain from this, I certainly didn't see over several years working in professional football.
On a side note, find some footage of David Beckham taking free kicks - the mechanics are astounding!

The Gait Guys possibly everted, but no guarantee.It still looks pretty inverted to me.But we see your point, and is a real good one, real good. Super good. We will check our the bender-man thanks for chiming in with such great insight !

The Gait Guys yes, the momentum of the leg kicking across the body would externally spin the stance leg. The picture is likely showing the offloading phase, not the loadin

Rickie Lovell The benefits of being a Brit that used to play!

VIDEO CASE: Is this lateral compartment weakness

Trying again here.  VIDEO CASE:  Is this lateral  compartment weakness ?
 
Quite simply, there are too many people playing doctor out there that do not have the ability to examine their clients appropriately. Here is another case of just that. 
It is clear that this client has left lateral compartment deficits. Or is it too much medial compartment tone ? Your screens and loading tests will not likely show you this specifically, this client may merely present, as they did in this case of left frontal plane hip-pelvis drift and a right cross over step.  If you have been with us for awhile, you know these 2 match up when it comes to locomotion. But one must solve the "Why" for the "how" to be accurate (how to fix it).  
But, if you are looking for weakness, you will find it here, yes, peronei and lateral gastroc are weak. But is it inhibition or neurologic or frank weakness ?  It is because of heightened medial compartment tone ? It could be, thus making one think of possible centrally mediated processes. 
And, is the ankle the source or the frontal plane drift (glute weakness) the source ? Cart or the horse ? Chicken or the egg ?  You have to examine your clients, on and off their feet, shoes off, socks off (yes, i took the socks off afterwards). Screens are not enough if you are trying to solve problems. Fixing how your client's improper loading is not a fix always, it could merely be teaching a compensation over a compensation to a problem.   Be smarter than the rest, get the knowledge to examine your clients deeper , and more specific, function. Then, how they are moving, and the movements that you see that you do not like, will make more sense.  
in this case, if you do not address the foot and the hip abductors and pelvis stabilizers, you lose, and so does your client as you build more strength into their asymmetry . . . .  eventually leading, possibly, to complaints.

Ankle Sprains...A nice review here

A nice FREE FULL TEXT literature review about the biomechanics, diagnosis, grading and treatment (conservative and non conservative) of acute ankle sprains. There is an interesting section at the end for prevention. Consider this a staple for your library to refer to when needed.

 "This paper summarizes the current understanding on acute ankle sprain injury, which is the most common acute sport trauma, accounting for about 14% of all sport-related injuries. Among, 80% are ligamentous sprains caused by explosive inversion or supination. The injury motion often happens at the subtalar joint and tears the anterior talofibular ligament (ATFL) which possesses the lowest ultimate load among the lateral ligaments at the ankle. "

Fong DT, Chan Y-Y, Mok K-M, Yung PS, Chan K-M. Understanding acute ankle ligamentous sprain injury in sports. Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy, and Technology : SMARTT. 2009;1:14. doi:10.1186/1758-2555-1-14.

link to full text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724472/

Oh, it is just a simple ankle sprain. It will heal fine. (Not always ! Sometimes we do not know what we should fear, often because we do not even know it exists.)

When an ankle sprain is far more than an ankle sprain.

_________

Fracture of the Anterior Process of the Calcaneus

We have seen enough of these over our careers that we know they should be on the differential list when an ankle sprain smells fishy. This may be the most frequently missed fracture in the foot because it is not well known and the classic radiographic series often leaves this teeny tiny area poorly laid out on plain film radiographs.  This focal piece of bone, has a critical attachment to the cuboid and navicular so it is critical for stability of the rear-midfoot complex and obviously for mobility of the forefoot on the mid-foot. This Bifurcate ligament (see diagram above) if left unhealed or reattached to its calcaneal base can lead to anatomic instability and serious performance and loading problems. It can be a career ending injury if it is not caught early. This fracture accounts for ~15% of all calcaneal fractures and as we mentioned, it is misdiagnosed as a more severe ankle sprain. The mechanism is a typical inversion sprain mechanism, the most common of ankle sprains, and it can have all of the other typical presentations but with this fracture as a complicating parting gift of the injury. 

Do not miss this one ! When in doubt, refer it out. Don’t leave your client with an unresolving ankle sprain. If you are anxious, as for the imaging and a competent clinical exam. Tenderness over the calcaneocuboid joint that is localized approximately 1 cm inferior and 3 to 4 cm anterior to the lateral malleolus, just distal to the anterior talofibular ligament insertion is of high suspicion.  

This fracture can be serious and lead to prolonged disability and as we said it can be a career ending injury. So do not take that next ankle sprain too lightly. You or your client may pay for it for a lifetime.  

If you do not know it exists, you can’t make the call.  So after today, after reading this short blog post, you are now officially accountable !

Shawn and Ivo

Gait guys and clinical nerds

The “Top-End” Peroneal Walk Foot Skill: Another Restoration Foot Trick by The Gait Guys

Have stability problems in your ankles ? Lots of people do !
Here is a brief video of a simple, but difficult, functional exercise to strengthen the peroneal muscles in full plantar flexion (we will give more detailed tricks and techniques away on the Foot-Ankle DVD exercise series, once we get some time to get to it !). The key here is to not let the heel drop during single fore-foot loading and to keep the ankle pressing inwards as if to try and touch the ankles together medially …..if you feel the heel drop on the single foot loaded side (or you can feel the calf is weaker or if you feel strain to keep the inward press of the ankle) then it might be more than the peronei, it could be the combined peroneal-gastrocsoleus complex. The key to the assessment and home work is to make sure that the heel always stays in “top-end” heel rise plantarflexion. But you have to strongly consider the peronei just as seriously. Studies show that even single event sprains let alone chronic ankle sprains create serious incompetence of the peronei. Most people do not notice this because they never assess the ability to hold the foot in full heel rise (plantarflexion) while creating a valgus load (created by the peronei mostly, a less amount from the lateral calf) at the ankle. This is why repetitive sprains occur. The true key to recovery is to be able to walk on the foot in this heel-up “top-end” position while in ankle eversion (ankles squeezed together) as you see in this video. This is something we do with all of our basketball and jumping sports athletes and it is critical in our dancers of all kinds. And if they cannot do the walking skill or if they feel weakness then we keep it static and put a densely rolled towel or a small air filled ball between the ankles and have them do slow calf raises and descents while squeezing the towel-ball with all their ability. This will create a nice burn in the peroneal muscles after just a few repetitions. The user will also quickly become acutely aware of their old tendency to roll to the outside of the foot and ankle because of this lack of awareness and strength of those laterally placed ankle evertors - the peronei. It is critical to note that If you return to the ground from a jump and cannot FIRST load the forefoot squarely and then, and only then, control the rate of ankle inversion and neutral heel drop (ankle dorsiflexion) then you should not be shocked at chronic repetitive ankle sprains. Remember, the metatarsals and toes are shorter as we move away from the big toe, so there is already a huge risk and tendency to roll to the outside of the foot through ankle inversion. Hence why ankle sprains are so common. We call this “top end” peroneal strength but for it to be effectively implemented one must have sufficient top end calf strength as well, you cannot have sound loading mechanics without both.
It is not as easy as it appears in this video. We encourage you to give this a try and we bet that 1 out of every 2 people who try it will notice “top end” weakness felt either in the peronei and/or in the calf via inability to keep the heel in “top-end”. Oh, and do not think that you can simply correct this by more calf work, not if the peronei are involved, which they usually are.
One more trick by The Gait Guys………bet you cannot wait for the foot dvd huh !? Ya, it has only been on our list for 3 years now !
 We talk more about this kind of stuff on our National Shoe Fit Certification program.
Email us if you are interested thegaitguys@gmail.com

Acupuncture can be effective for many types of sports injuries and rehabilitation of gait related disorders. One such study can be found here.

The effect of needling is though to be 3 fold: local, segmental and cortical.

The local effect of needling occurs at the site of the needle insertion. Local tissue damage causes cytokines to be released and this stimulates both the inflammatory and healing process, as well as increasing local circulation.

The segmental affect is thought to be at the spinal cord level (the dermatome or sclerotome) where inhibition of pain impulses occur (pre synaptic inhibition for you neuro nerds out there)

The cortical or “long loop” effect is thought to be due to activation of higher brain centers which cause descending inhibition of pain and activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis (which appears to be one of the reasons acupuncture can be effective for colds and other problems).

You can view many of our posts on pain and its physiology here to gain a better understanding of the pain pathway and pain modulation.

The Gait Guys: yes, sometimes we are a pain, but we offer solutions to help and give you the research to back it up