An ankle sprain is defined as a common injury, inversion type, lateral ligament injuries represent approximately 85% of all ankle sprains. The incidence of ankle sprain is highest in sports populations.
Poor rehabilitation after an initial sprain increases the chances of injury recurrence. Severe ankle sprains occur commonly in basketball players. From a study of elite Australian basketball players (McKay et al, 2001) reported that the rate of ankle injury was 3.85 per 1000 participations. Recurrence rates amongst basketball players are reported to be greater than 70%. Athletes with chronic ankle instability miss practices and competitions, require on-going care in order to remain physically active, and display sub-optimal performance.
According to Doherty, Delahunt, Caulfield, Hertel, Ryan and Beakley (2014), females were at a higher risk of sustaining an ankle sprain compared with males and children compared with adolescents and adults, with males and children compared with adolescents and adults, with indoor and court sports the highest risk activity. Rubber tubing, also called exercise tubing or exercise bands, is a portable, convenient fitness tool–especially for those on the move. They are similar to resistance bands and is a simple, inexpensive way to add resistance training to your workout and build strength and bone density. Resistance bands are made of strong, thin rubber with handles at the end, and come in a variety of resistances depending on your fitness level. They come in a variety of resistances, including light, medium and heavy. Resistance bands are incredibly simple, but they’re also extremely effective at working your muscles.
Additionally, resistance-band training can help you boost stamina, flexibility, range of motion and more. From a study in Universidade Esradual Paulista (Silva et al, 2016) Elastic tubing is considered safe, easy to use, portable and low cost, and capable of increasing the tension linearly from the beginning to the end of the contraction movement, demonstrating advantages with respect to training with free weights. Another study (Han et al, 2009) stated that elastic tubing and elastic bands are often used in therapeutic exercise programs. There are many inherent advantages of elastic resistance exercises: ease of use, low cost, they are highly versatile and finally they impose a weightbearing overload on the joint to be rehabilitated. Physical therapists often use elastic tubing exercise in conjunction with other rehabilitation exercises to promote ankle strength and balance in patients with recurrent ankle sprains.
When utilizing elastic resistance exercise to rehabilitate a chronically unstable ankle, the unaffected ankle is attached to the elastic tubing and the affected ankle experiences a weight-bearing overload to resist against the perturbation force. To maintain balance in response to the balance-disrupting force imposed by elastic tubing, the weight-bearing ankle must actively resist in the opposite direction against the imposed perturbation.
