Get Rid of Ankle Pain When Going Down Stairs

Get Rid Of Ankle Pain When Going Down Stairs

Your ankle pain should not stop you from doing exercises you enjoy!

The video above addresses one specific potential cause for ankle pain when going down stairs: uncontrolled ankle dorsiflexion. That means it is hard for your ankle to control your knee bend when going down stairs.

Why Do I Have Ankle Pain?

Going down stairs requires your knee to come forward over the foot, this motion is called ankle dorsiflexion. During ankle dorsiflexion, there is a lot of force that your Achilles and leg need to control.

When your ankle dorsiflexion is not controlled, the front of your ankle might bind which causes pain.

What Can I Do To Fix My Ankle Pain?

Try balancing on one foot and hold onto a wall for a little extra support. Then shift your knee forward and push through your toes so your heel just barely lifts off the ground.

Keep the motion slow and controlled!

And keep it in a pain free range. That might mean only shifting your knee forward 1 inch initially.

Progressively shift your knee farther forward with each repetition. This is important to help your ankle get used to controlling all of its motion.

You should feel your calf, glute, and quad work if you do this right.

It may take your body a couple weeks to do this without wall support and in a controlled fashion. But you can do it!

We also posted about pain in the front of the ankle while doing squats, the fix for this issue could help when going down stairs so checkout this video too!

Remember, This Is Only The Start For Most Injury Recoveries...

The body is complicated and this is one small, but important piece to your injury recovery.

Get Individualized Injury Recovery Help!

Click here to schedule a virtual or in-person appointment with one of our doctors of physical therapy. Feel free to visit www.forefrontpllc.com to learn more about our practice, Forefront Physical Therapy.