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MSK Health
Brighton & Hove and West Sussex
Brighton & Hove and West Sussex
Foot or ankle pain is a common complaint and can be caused by many different things. As we use our feet and ankles so much in everyday activities, it can be very worrying when it is painful to walk, run, or jump. They are built to support these activities and are very strong, so it is difficult to damage them. Most painful ankles will improve and get better with time and a little help.
It is good to continue to use your foot or ankle as normally as possible but you might need to make some adjustments to what you do for a while. There are things that you can do to help yourself while your ankle or foot is painful.
How to Protect Your Joints Leaflet
Arthritis Research UK Foot Pain Information Leaflet
For some virtual consultations we may ask you to send in a photograph of your feet to support your assesment. You can find out how to do this by clicking here.
Even when your ankle or foot is sore it is safe to do exercise. This can really help to regain movement and strength. It also promotes using your ankle or foot normally again. If you continue to go to the gym, an exercise class, or swimming you may want to change how much you do for a time.
There are some examples of exercises to do below. You can use our symptom tracker to check if what you are doing is helping you to improve.
Foot & Ankle Get Moving Exercises
Foot & Ankle Get Strong Exercises
Arthritis Reseach UK Foot & Ankle Exercises
X-rays and scans can help for a small number of people and in certain situations. However, most of the time it shows us things that are normal for the age of your foot/ankle and are not related to your pain. These sorts of findings will not help the foot/ankle get better. This is why your GP or clinician may say that it is not needed.
Most foot and ankle pain will settle naturally in time with little or no help. Occasionally you may need some extra help to get your foot and ankle better.
If you feel you would like to talk to a healthcare professional to help you further with your foot/ankle you can fill in a self referral form.
Exercise is often used to help you improve your symptoms by increasing your muscular strength. We all need to improve our muscle mass (the amount of muscle we have) before being able to increase our strength, power and endurance.
Strengthening is a process that requires us to challenge our bodies with activity to be able to drive a change. These changes are not immediate and strengthening will take at least 6-8 weeks before we notice big changes.
Below are some ideas of how to choose what repetitions you should be using. Remember that you need muscle mass and strength before you can improve your power and/or endurance:
This is the process where we build muscle mass.
Rep range tends to be greater.
3 sets x 12-15 repetitions.
Improve your strength with lifting heavier loads.
Improve your strength by lifting more repetitions.
3 sets x 3-5 repetitions with a heavier load.
3 sets x 8-12 repetitions slowly.
Hard work (80%)
When you are ‘strong’ you can increase the speed at which you move a load.
4 sets x 4-6 repetitions.
50% maximal effort.
Explosive.
The goal is to be able to improve the amount of time that you can keep going for.
3-4 sets x 15-25 repetitions.
Light resistance.
Do you find it too difficult?
Is your pain worsening
Do you lose good technique/movement patterning?
If Yes, Regress.
Reduce the load.
Reduce the repetitions.
Reduce the depth of the movement
Have you just recently progressed?
Do you feel that there is still a challenge but your pain does not worsen?
If Yes, Maintain.
You might need a bit longer doing what you’re doing.
Do you find it easy?
Can you complete your whole program without a challenge?
Do you not have any flare ups?
If Yes, Progress.
Increase the weight.
Increase the repetitions.