The recovery.
If you’ve ever broken a leg or a foot, let me tell you, recovery is hard. As someone who is recovering from a broken ankle, I will tell you rehab is a godsend.
I was recently cleared for exercise, and I have been walking as much as I possibly can. And I live in LA, so it can be hard. For the first month back on two feet I was terrified of uneven surfaces, stepping on my ankle the wrong way, even healed, would radiate waves of pain up and down my leg. The larger problem, however, was other people: Since I no longer used my crutches, and the walking boot was off, I no longer looked like a person with a visible disability, but walking even one block took me ages and left me physically and mentally exhausted.
What’s next?
I had to cut exercise down to where there were little to no stairs involved and vocally advocate for myself when navigating groups of people. Yoga classes and group exercise classes were a no-go.
For someone who relished the hands-on and slightly competitive nature of group classes, I was at a loss for how to work out. I chronicled some of the best alternatives for you, from not just a place of recovery, but also a place of calm.
Walking.
Walking, I’ve found, helps relax me. Even though that I can now exercise without pain, I’ve kept walking as one of my main ways to exercise. It’s not the cardio of running or sweat of cycling, but gives you a good over-all body feeling of accomplishment. It’s easy on the joints, which, for me is currently necessary. I get a lot of work done and sorted mentally when I walk. If I’m worrying over something, I find that taking a long walk while contemplating that problem, more often than naught, leads to a solution.
Swimming.
Swimming is aerobic and I find that the water is soothing when my ankle is particularly achy. It is a full-body workout, you’re essentially getting resistance training from the water, which provides a little more than 12 percent resistance than air. You don’t have to swim laps if you find that too repetitive — start with a kickboard for 15 minutes or go to the shallow lap lane and walk. You could try a class and see if what works for you, but swimming is highly recommended as a form of injury recovery. After a few weeks of laps just a couple hours a week, I found that the former leg muscles I had lost were coming back.
Recovery.
Not everyone heals at the same rate and every injury is different, but all of the above are great first steps, and I have been finding that the exercises I did when I was injured still benefit me now that I am nearly healed. Do what feels good for your body. If your gym has a hot tub I would recommend a soak after a workout, it helps release tension in the muscles and feels great on tender bones and joints!
Author: Aly Casey