On September 10, 2016 Assumption (Louisville) girls’ volleyball coach Ron Kordes won the 1,000th match of his career in the semifinals of the Ultra Ankle® Louisville Invitational Volleyball Tournament.
We recently spoke with Coach Kordes, who is also the Club Director of Louisville-based volleyball club KIVA, to congratulate him on his career milestone and also to ask him his professional opinion on ankle injuries and volleyball ankle braces.
We hear all about it on TV and sports radio – the dreaded high ankle injury and how long we can expect the athlete will be on the sidelines compared to a regular ankle injury. But what is a high ankle injury and how does it happen? Why are high ankle injuries so much more difficult to treat?
Where a classic ankle injury is caused when the ankle turns inward, or rolls inward, a high ankle injury can occur when the ankle and lower leg twists excessively outward. Alternatively, a high ankle injury can occur if there is an excessive force on the ankle when the toes are pointing up. Unlike a classic ankle injury, a high ankle sprain is not to the ligaments surrounding and supporting the ankle, but to the tissue and ligaments that hold the lower leg bones, the tibia and fibula, together (hence the “high”).
Athletes with a high ankle injury will most likely complain of pain in the upper ankle and shin region. If an athlete believes they have a high ankle injury, they should cease activity immediately and get a quick evaluation by an athletic trainer or other medical professional. Since athletes with a high ankle injury are typically out twice as long as someone who suffers a classic or low ankle injury, it’s important to not make the injury worse by continuing activities.
Once evaluated, the sports medicine professional will most likely prescribe the common RICE method (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation) for recovery as well as recommend an ankle brace designed specifically to treat a high ankle injury versus a low ankle injury.
Since the high ankle injury is typically caused by ankle rotation, it’s important to wear an ankle brace that is going to restrict excessive rotation during recovery. The only braces to effectively restrict excessive ankle rotation utilize a “hinged-cuff” design where the cuff is the section above the ankle that connects the inside of the brace to the outside of the brace with a rigid connection. This connection combined with a semi-rigid stirrup that goes under the foot creates the stability necessary in both the vertical and horizontal plane to restrict excessive ankle rotation.
Here at Ultra Ankle® we designed two advanced ankle braces with hinged-cuff technology that are prescribed by sports medicine professionals specifically for high ankle injuries. The Ultra High-5 (pictured) is a great sports ankle brace designed to treat both high and low ankle injuries, while the Ultra CTS ankle brace is designed to treat both high and low acute ankle injuries. Both braces will also unload the ankle which reduces weight bearing pain allowing athletes to return to competition quicker and safer.
If you’ve been diagnosed with a high ankle injury, have reoccurring ankle injuries, or an acute injury and are interested more in hearing about how our ankle braces can help you get back in the game – send our certified athletic trainer a message. We’d be happy to talk through your injuries and see if our technology would be right for you.
As a high impact sport, football players wear more protective gear than many other athletes. Players must protect themselves from injury by wearing the most advanced equipment from state-of-the art helmets, to breathable pads, all the way down to advanced ankle braces. Since the responsibility of each athlete varies greatly from position to position, some players are at a higher risk of ankle injuries and should be especially concerned with which ankle brace is best for football.
Unlike sports with a much higher ankle injury rate for every player, you’re not going to see the entire team wearing preventative ankle bracing in football – usually only the offensive and defensive linemen. The football players on the line are typically the most vulnerable for ankle injuries due to the fact that they quickly pivot and turn while other players are constantly falling on their legs/ankles.
Most of the ankle injuries suffered by linemen are high ankle sprains, which are more severe than a classic ankle sprain and can take twice as long to heal. Once an ankle sprain occurs, there is a 70% chance that the ankle will be re-sprained. With each ankle sprain the ankle ligaments become further and further stretched apart making the ankle joint more loose and unstable with each sprain.
For this reason, linemen have started to wear ankle braces to help prevent football ankle injuries or lessen the severity should an injury occur. For offensive/defensive linemen it’s not only crucial to keep their ankles healthy, but also to be able to get down in their stance comfortably while retaining their explosive power. To meet both of these expectations, the best ankle brace for this position would be a hinged brace with a flexible shell, such as the Ultra Zoom®, that custom fits to the ankle for maximum comfort and provides full range of motion.
Although linemen are the most susceptible to ankle injuries during play, many other players on the field may still be wearing an ankle brace – especially those with a history of ankle injuries or chronic ankle instability. In the case of chronic ankle instability, the athletes should wear an ankle brace that offers more long-lasting support than taping or a lace-up style support, such as the hinged-cuff Ultra High-5®, that can withstand the pounding of an entire football season while providing maximum protection to help prevent furthering injuring the joint.
Regardless of which position you may play, if you’re interested in learning more about if you should be wearing an ankle brace for football send us a message. Our certified athletic trainer would be happy to answer any of your questions and help you stay on the field all the way from two-a-days through the championship game.
That’s the question I hear all of the time as an athletic trainer with over 30 years of experience specializing in ankle injuries and ankle injury prevention. For as common as ankle injuries are in today’s sports (over 25,000 ankle injuries occur each day in the U.S.), it surprises me that there isn’t more available information about which ankle brace is the most effective for the various sports and athletes.
Before you blindly take my opinion or assume that I’m only going to promote my own products and not give an unbiased review, let me share with you why I’m considered by others a leading expert in the ankle bracing field and have been evolving the ankle brace market for 35 years. In 1983, as an athletic training student working with a college football team, I knew there had to be something that supported ankles more effectively than a century-old, corset style lace-up support.
That thought led me to invent my first ankle brace product and start my own company which quickly grew into a volleyball household name by the mid 90s – that company is called Active Ankle® and is still producing ankle braces to this day. Shortly after leaving Active Ankle® in the late 90s, I realized that my original design concepts could be pushed even further and really revolutionize the ankle bracing industry with product designs it had never seen before. I then started Ultra Ankle® and invented the first hinged-cuff technology ankle brace product line that you can see on our website today.
Since lace-up ankle supports were invented in the 1800s and I happened to invent the technology behind the other leading volleyball ankle braces, produced by Active Ankle® and Ultra Ankle®, I wanted to share my ankle bracing expertise with you and point out the differences in the most common volleyball braces used today.
As opposed to listing out individual features and dissecting each one at a time, I wanted to instead share this quick reference chart with you comparing:
Lace-up ankle supports – Based off of a corset-style design that uses laces to tightly join a flexible piece of cloth down the front center of the ankle. Common brands for this type of sports brace include: ASO®, Active Ankle®
Hard plastic ankle braces – Utilizes a hinge with foam padded stirrups on each side of the ankle joint connected with a piece of Velcro that wraps around the stirrups. Common brands for this type of sports brace include: Active Ankle®, Shock Doctor®
Soft-shell ankle braces – Composed of a flexible plastic material known as Performathane® lined with custom-fitting PerformaFit® foam. The hinged-cuff design wraps completely around the ankle and utilizes two Velcro straps to secure the top and bottom cuffs. Only brand for this type of sports brace: Ultra Zoom® by Ultra Ankle®
While all three types of braces claim to offer significant ankle support, you can see by the chart above that just isn’t the case. Let’s discuss some important key takeaways from this information:
Just as with other technologies, products that used to be considered state of the art are now outdated and being replaced with more advanced, functional, and effective devices. In the case of sports ankle braces, this is especially true when looking at the evolution of bracing from the century old lace-up to the semi-rigid Active Ankle® braces to the invention of the hinged-cuff Ultra Ankle® braces.
If you’re looking to upgrade to the latest ankle bracing technology and give the hinged-cuff brace a try, check out our Ultra Zoom® product page and read one of the many ankle brace reviews left by our Ultra athletes. If you have questions or hesitations about our brace, take a second to send a quick message to our certified athletic trainers and they would be happy to hear about your ankle bracing concerns and if a hinged-cuff brace would be a great fit for your athletic needs.