Your Keys to Rock-Solid Ankle Stability, Explosive Sports Performance and Incredible Balance!

If you were to ask me which often-neglected body part you could work that would have the greatest immediate impact on your sports performance, my answer would be instantaneous...the ankles.

The ankles are admittedly not glamorous. You're never going to have someone ask you to flex your ankle for them or ask you to roll down your sock for a better look.

But think of it this way...can you think of a single sport that doesn't involve the ankle in some way (poker and billiards don't count as sports, even if they're on ESPN - we'll limit ourselves to sports during which you can't smoke and drink).

If you're playing football and you need to make a sharp lateral cut to avoid getting hit, the majority of that force goes right through the ankle. A weak ankle will turn and possibly sprain. A strong ankle will take that force and allow you to make that sharp, powerful cut and leave tacklers in the dust!

Think of every racket sport you can...how many of these involve planting a foot, lunging for ball then rapidly changing direction?

Even if you're just running or sprinting in a straight line, you can benefit from stronger ankles. When your foot contacts the ground, all the force of your muscles propelling you forward goes directly through the ankles.

And one more HUGE benefit to strong ankles? With proper training, you can make them practically injury-proof!

Using myself as an example, after doing ankle stability training (like the kind I'm about to tell you about), I had an instance playing tennis where I was lunging to the side to reach for a ball. My foot stopped but my momentum continued to carry my body laterally. My ankle bent 90 degrees, touching my outside ankle bone to the ground.

Without ankle strengthening, it would have been sprained for sure. As it was, my ankle popped right back up and I kept playing like nothing had even happened! No injury, no swelling, no tenderness, no problem!

Balance is another tremendous benefit. When your ankles are strong, you will be much better able to keep your balance even under awkward conditions. Think about it...the small muscles of the ankle are constantly firing to maintain balance (if you've ever run in the sand, you know how sore your ankle and calf muscles get the next day).

These small muscles play an extremely important role in balance. Strengthening them will give you a greater ability to maintain your balance, even if you've already got great balance right now!

So now that you know what ankle strengthening can do for you, let's get into the nuts and bolts of how to do it.

These exercises can be done at the end of your weight or cardio workout or at the end of sports practice sessions. I wouldn't recommend starting a training session (or especially a sports practice session) with them as fatiguing these support muscles and the connective tissue in the area will leave the ankles temporarily weaker and possibly more prone to injury (until they have a chance to recover and strengthen). Doing these exercises at the end of a session avoids this potential issue completely.

You'll note that many of the concepts I will describe here involve balance training but with added twists to target them directly to ankle strengthening.

At the end of the article, you will find a link with pictures of these exercises in action.

Here are the techniques:

1. Standing and balancing

This is a very simple exercise and the one we'll start with. All you need to do is stand on one foot and balance there for as long as you can!

As you work to keep yourself balanced, you will notice that your ankle is constantly shifting around to compensate for slight changes in your body position. This constant shifting is working the supporting muscles of the ankles!

You can do this exercise anywhere at any time. All you need to do is stand on one foot and balance there for a minute or two, then switch to the other foot. It's so easy, you can get it done at the bus stop or while you're making dinner!

It is deceptively simple but very effective. This is because in everyday life, you very rarely stand on one foot for any length of time. Your ankles and calves are not required to balance or support you as much. When you stand on one foot, you force these supporting muscle to work overtime.

For an added twist, try closing your eyes while balancing. Without the visual cues to help keep you balanced, your ankles will have to work much harder.

2. Standing and balancing with weights

The next step up from the previous exercise is holding onto a pair of dumbells (or other form of resistance) while you are balancing on one foot. What this does is simply increase the resistance with which you are working. This increase in resistance will increase the demand on the muscles.

The more weight you use on this exercise, the more strength you'll be able to build up in your ankles. Think of it this way...if you're holding onto 2 50-lb dumbells, that's an extra 100 lbs that your body must work to balance. If you hold 2 100-lb dumbbells, you've got 200 extra pounds! This is extreme overload and overload builds strength, especially when your ankle muscles have never experienced this kind of stress before!

If you get to the point where you're unable to hold onto the heavy dumbbells for long enough to be effective, you may wish to try placing a barbell across your shoulders as though you were doing a squat (do this in the squat rack with the safety rails set high).

This will also have the effect of increasing the instability of the exercise, making it more challenging for the ankles. Also, you'll be able to use FAR more weight (I've gone as high as 405 lbs for this version).

3. Standing on an unstable surface and balancing

Now that you've learned how to work with the dumbbells, it's time to move on to balancing on an unstable surface. This will really challenge the strength of your ankles.

Some good surfaces you can use include foam (like the foam on a flat bench), a pile of towels or clothing, sand, air mattress, etc. There are a great many surfaces that are effective for this. Feel free to use your imagination. I like to use a rolled-up towel set on the floor for this one - no need to buy any expensive equipment!

This balancing can be done either with or without weights. If you are using weights, I would suggest sticking to dumbbells - they're easier to control than the barbell.

4. Standing, balancing and catching

You can do this variation in combination with the first or third variation. Have someone throw a ball or other object to you while you are standing on one foot (you can also bounce a ball off a wall if you're training alone).

This will force you to shift your balance around dramatically while standing on one foot, further forcing your ankles to work, while also developing your co-ordination while balancing.

5. Swinging dumbbell calf raises

This exercise adds the large muscles of the calves to the mix. Basically, you will do as the name implies - you will do a single leg calf raise, holding onto one single dumbbell, swinging it around yourself in random directions as you do the calf raise. This forces your calves and ankles to build stabilizing strength VERY quickly.

It also helps train your ankles to react quickly to sudden random stresses, much like in a sporting event. This is very practical movement that has great carryover into sports.

Now that you have this knowledge, it's time to put it into practice! Consistent training with these techniques will have a tremendous, immediate impact on your sports performance. You'll be cutting sharper, pivoting stronger and be practically injury-proof in no time!

Nick Nilsson is Vice-President of BetterU, Inc. and has been inventing new training techniques and exercises for 17+ years. Nick has written many training books including "Muscle Explosion! 28 Days To Maximum Mass" & "Metabolic Surge - Rapid Fat Loss" - http://www.fitness-ebooks.com

The Importance of Staying Fit

When age catches up with us and we cut a sorry figure, losing all confidence, the mantra of staying fit has more sweetness than anything else. Anything that promises to keep you young and youthful catches your fancy and you shell out your shillings without second thought. When the world is fed on global feast and more and more delectable food, often fat laden foods tickle our palate, who could blame us if our waistlines started expanding? More than that, our lifestyle has changed tremendously.

The pleasure of driving a sedan has made us forget that we were given legs to travel distances. We have become slaves of comforts provided by modern technology. Everything comes to us these days at the click of a mouse. We have become couched potatoes. Inactivity has become a habit in that we don't mind sitting idle for hours wasting energy and life. This becomes a bane when we hit our middle ages. Youth is always brimming with activity. Your metabolic rate is always at a fast pace and fat has no place on your body. The greatest physical decline happens between the age group of thirty and forty.

During this phase our metabolism slows down dramatically, we lose muscle mass, bones lose flexibility and density and for the saddest part the amount of body fat increases. A slower metabolism is one the biggest reasons for the physical decline. The other being our inactivity, we have no one to blame but ourselves. We have long forgotten the art of walking, cooking healthy meals at home, and regular exercise. As we are after comforts it is so easy to slip into the habit of idleness. Simple exercises on a regular basis can keep you fit. Aerobic activities like swimming, cycling, running are good to do away stress and anxiety. Mild to moderate depression can also be dispelled by following simple exercise programs.

Regular aerobics accelerate the metabolic rate and this in turn will burn those extra calories which would otherwise get deposited as fat. Always remember that you really are what you eat. So instead of falling for all that is junk stick to a balanced diet. A dietary allowance of at least twenty five grams of fiber should also be included daily. Remember that rock hard abs and bulging muscles do not determine your fitness. Just sweeping around the courtyard, wiping the kitchen floor and washing linen can help you rather than keeping idle. Yoga also can help you to keep fit and relieve you of stress.