How to Strengthen Your Ankles for Dance with Six Simple Exercises
Begin Your Journey to Lifelong Excellence in Dance
Ankle injuries are among the most common injuries that people experience. A slip off a sidewalk or a stair, twisting, or putting a heel in a small pothole can all damage the ankle. We see many ankle injuries in sports, too. And, especially, to dancers.
Why are ankle injuries so common in dance? Overuse, trauma, and incorrect footwear. You spin, jump, land. Each movement only needs a small error, and your ankle goes.
Strengthening your ankles can help prevent injury and support your body better, helping you to enjoy dance for many years to come.
These six foot and ankle strengthening exercises for dancers that we outline in this article can be done in your home, in the studio, or backstage.
Common ankle injuries for dancers and how they affect you
The most common types of ankle injuries for dancers are:
Achilles Tendonitis
As a dancer, you have a high risk of experiencing Achilles tendonitis because of the high-impact nature of dance, though there are many factors that can contribute to Achilles tendonitis, such as having flat feet or high arches, wearing improper shoes for dancing, or not stretching before dancing.
It occurs when there is a sudden stretching or tearing in the tendon that connects your heel bone to your calf muscles. This can happen when you land after doing a jump, especially if you land on your toes instead of your heels.
The main symptom of this injury is pain in the back of your lower ankle or heel, especially when you try to walk on it or point your toes down towards your feet. This pain often starts gradually and then worsens over time.
Ankle sprains
Ankle sprains often happen when you land from a jump and your ankle twists. This can damage the ligaments in your ankles, causing pain and swelling around the ankle. The injury can range in severity from mild to severe and depends on how much damage has been done to the ligament and the degree to which it has been stretched or torn. It can take up to six weeks for an ankle sprain to heal.
Ankle fractures
You have seven bones in your ankle ─ the calcaneus, talus, cuboid, navicular, and the medial, middle, and lateral cuneiforms ─ all of which can suffer stress fractures because of overuse or trauma.
The pain usually hits at night or when doing certain activities, such as walking.
Ankle impingement
Ankle impingement is a condition where the ankle is compressed or pinched by the surrounding tissues. It can be a result of trauma, injury, and repetitive strain.
The symptoms of ankle impingement include pain that worsens with activity and a feeling of instability in the affected joint.
Preventing dancer’s ankle injuries
All the above injuries will impact your ability to dance. You could be prevented from doing what you love for weeks, and returning to dance too soon could cause further damage ─ perhaps even enough to stop you from dancing again.
Of course, prevention is better than cure, and there are several ways to prevent ankle injuries. These include:
Ensuring you adopt the correct techniques
Landing jumps correctly
Cross-training, to help overall body strength
Listening to your body, and not pushing through pain
Always wearing appropriate footwear when dancing
The most effective preventative action, though, is to ensure your ankle is strong.
Ankle strengthening exercises for dancers
When strengthening your ankles, it’s important to choose exercises that will give you a good foundation for further strengthening. Not only will the right exercises help to prevent injuries, but they will also aid bone density and improve your balance.
Here are six simple foot and ankle strengthening exercises for dancers that you can do immediately and anywhere.
Exercise #1: Walking on heels/toes/inside/outside of feet
Walk on your heels for a few steps, then your toes. Repeat 10 times.
Walk on the inside of your feet for a few steps, then the outside. Repeat 10 times.
This helps to strengthen the muscles around your entire foot and ankle.
Exercise #2: Single leg heel raise
Stand facing a wall, and place both palms on the wall shoulder-width apart.
Bend one leg at the knee, so that it is off the floor, while the other leg remains straight.
Now, rock onto your toe, lifting your heel off the floor.
Then relax back into your heel.
As your heel touches the floor, repeat.
This simple exercise helps to stretch and strengthen the tendons and muscles around the ankle.
Watch our Single-Leg Heel Raise how-to video
Exercise #3: Wall sit with soleus heel raise
Lean your back against a wall.
Step your feet a short distance away from the wall, ensuring that your hips through to your head are ‘glued’ against the wall.
Bend your knees to support a squat.
Lift your heels an inch or two off the floor, again keeping your back pressed into the wall.
You can make this exercise a little hard by flexing your feet back and forth, or by doing the exercise on one leg.
Watch our Wall Sit with Soleus Heel Raise how-to video
Exercise #4: Kickstand lunge
Stand with your feet parallel to each other.
Move one foot a foot or so behind you.
Raise the heel on your back foot, so that only your toes are touching the floor.
Bend down, keeping your back straight so that the knee of your rear leg moves down toward the ankle of your front leg.
Repeat.
It’s crucial that you work within your range of motion. If you cannot rest your knee to the floor, then only go as far as you are able.
Exercise #5: Double leg pogo hops
With your feet directly aligned with your hips, raise up on your toes.
Spring up as high as you can.
While moving up away from the floor, curl your toes toward your shin.
As you return to the floor, relax your toes so that you land on them.
Spring up again and repeat.
This takes a little practice to get right. There should be a little bending of the legs, but not excessively, to gain the spring you need. Most of the spring, though, should come from a soft landing and bounce back.
Watch our Double Leg Pogo Hops how-to video
Exercise #6: Single leg pogo hops
The single-leg pogo hop follows the same routine as the double leg, except that you raise one foot off the floor by bending the leg at the knee.
Watch our Single Leg Pogo Hops how-to video
All these exercises use your body weight to help strengthen your ankles and keep them healthy. They are a solid starting point on your journey to ankles that will stand the test of dancing throughout your life and can be used as standalone exercises, part of a focused strength and endurance exercise regime, or as part of your warmup before dance training and performance.
However, as good as they are, these exercises are only a foundation. They won’t prepare you for the demands of more dynamic forms of dance.
Take your dancing to the next level
When dancing, you put your body through an enormous range of motion. It requires strength and stability to execute all these moves. The ankle and foot are the foundation for this.
When we work with dancers, we employ exercises such as those we’ve outlined here, and build them up with guided progression to get your performance ready.
Our staff includes experienced former dancers, giving you the added peace of mind that you have a physical therapy and training partner that understands how dance impacts your body. We take a structured approach to help you take your dance to the next level:
First, we have a one-to-one evaluation to establish baseline data that will be tracked throughout your work with us.
Next, we develop a personalized plan that we review and update each session.
Throughout, we take a team approach, matching you with dedicated physical therapists and trainers with years of experience as leaders in the field.
To begin your journey to a lifetime of pain-free excellence in dance, book an appointment with Reload for your comprehensive 90-minute body evaluation!
