Do you need to wear ankle support during daily running?

February 25, 2020

Ankle sprain is very common in sports. According to medical data statistics, ankle sprain accounts for about 20% - 40% of all sports injuries. For this reason, beginners of running, or people with regular running plans, may have this question: I often go running, in order to prevent ankle sprain, do I need to wear Ankle Support to run?
Ankle Support Sleeve

Today, we are going to answer the following three questions to see if we need to wear ankle support.
• Can wearing an Ankle Support Brace prevent all ankle sprains?
• Will wearing an ankle brace affect our running performance?
• Long-term exercise with an ankle brace can reduce muscle strength?

1.Can wearing ankle support avoid all ankle sprains?
The answer is No. For runners who have had ankle sprains or ankle instability, wearing ankle support brace really helps reduce the chance of ankle sprains.

A study on the effectiveness of ankle protection to reduce the repeated ankle sprains of female football players found that in the past five years (1717 practices and 650 competitive games), the frequency of multiple ankle sprains of female players wearing ankle protection was 0%, while the frequency of ankle sprains of female players without any treatment was 35%.

But this is for people who have had ankle sprains, and the women football players selected in the above study have also had ankle sprains.
In fact, for those who have never had ankle sprain, the effect of ankle protection is very low.

A study found that ankle protection has a strong preventive effect on athletes with ankle sprain, but it has no or very low effect on athletes without ankle sprain.

The study also recommends that for athletes who have had ankle sprain, special sports rehabilitation (proprioception training, balance training) combined with ankle care can prevent ankle sprain to the maximum extent.

Will wearing ankle support brace affect our running performance?
If you don't choose the ankle support that will limit the range of ankle movement, it's usually not.
Ankle Support Sleeve

A study found that although ankle support may limit ankle flexion to some extent, ankle support has no or very little effect on running speed, vertical jump height and agility.

In other words, for a friend who has had ankle sprain, wearing ankle protector may not have a huge impact on running performance.

Does long-term exercise wear protect ankle to be able to let muscle strength drop?

Generally not.
The decrease of muscle strength is related to the long-term non use of muscle.

Even if you are running with ankle support, your ankle is doing bending and stretching, and there is no long-term lack of muscle.
So if you're just wearing ankle support during exercise, you don't have them at other times, which doesn't make muscle strength lower.

Summary
Generally speaking, ankle support has limited effect on people who have not suffered ankle sprain. If you have not suffered ankle sprain, you can run without wearing ankle protection.

Author:

Ms. Emily Zhou

E-mail:

emily@szhxw168.com

Phone/WhatsApp:

8613510714528