- Feb 26, 2011
- 235
- 79
I'm an adult gymnast (almost 20) and I just started taking classes back in June 2010. I was a dancer before this for about 14 years, so I picked up a lot of skills fairly easily. I almost had my front tuck on floor, and then at the end of August 2010 I was working on them on tumble track and I sprained my ankle very badly. Since I rolled on the side of my foot and then on top, I got an inversion sprain and a high ankle sprain. It was so bad that I couldn't feel my ankle at all within about 10 seconds of hurting it because my entire foot and ankle and half-way up my calf was swollen. I went to the ER and got x-rays and nothing was torn or broken. It took over almost a month to be able to walk semi normally, and I had a lot of bruising on the outside of my ankle. I didn't go to physical therapy at first because I was just going back to school and was trying to juggle that and working, but I was doing everything I knew to rehab my ankle. I just started PT a couple weeks ago because I felt like I was stuck with the rehab (it's been almost 7 months since the injury now) and they said I was doing all the right things and that my ankle is fairly close to being back to normal. The main issue I still have is that my achilles and some other muscle or tendon or something in the back of my foot is very very tight and it really restricts my movement. I can't really jump on it because I can't plie that far when I land.
Anyway, just giving you plenty of background so you can answer my question properly.
My issue is that even if I do manage to get my ankle completely back to normal, there's a very good chance that I will sprain one of my ankles again because I've sprained both of them many times in dance (most were pretty mild and were completely healed in a couple weeks). I love gymnastics and it's something I've always wanted to do, and I would hate to give up already when I really haven't even had time to actually get into it (I've pretty much only been working on bars for the last 7 months). However, I really can't afford to have another injury like this, and I don't want to risk really damaging something and never being able to get back to normal.
Any advice?
Anyway, just giving you plenty of background so you can answer my question properly.
My issue is that even if I do manage to get my ankle completely back to normal, there's a very good chance that I will sprain one of my ankles again because I've sprained both of them many times in dance (most were pretty mild and were completely healed in a couple weeks). I love gymnastics and it's something I've always wanted to do, and I would hate to give up already when I really haven't even had time to actually get into it (I've pretty much only been working on bars for the last 7 months). However, I really can't afford to have another injury like this, and I don't want to risk really damaging something and never being able to get back to normal.
Any advice?