Preventing ankle sprains comes down to three things: training your balance, strengthening the muscles around the joint, and using external support if you’ve been injured before. Nearly half of all ankle sprains recur within a year, so prevention matters most for people who’ve already rolled an ankle once. But even if you haven’t, a consistent routine of balance and strength work can dramatically cut your risk.
Why Ankles Are So Vulnerable
Your ankle is held together by bands of connective tissue that absorb shock, keep your bones aligned, and stop the joint from moving in unsafe directions. On the outer side of the ankle, three ligaments connect your lower leg bone to the bones of your foot. These outer ligaments are the ones most commonly torn because the ankle naturally wants to roll inward when you land awkwardly, step on an uneven surface, or change direction suddenly.
Once those ligaments stretch or tear, they don’t always heal to their original tightness. That looseness, combined with a loss of positional awareness in the joint, is why a 5-year military health study found that 44% of people who sprain an ankle go on to sprain it again. The good news is that specific training can compensate for both problems.
Balance Training Is the Single Best Prevention
The most effective way to prevent ankle sprains is to retrain your body’s sense of where your ankle is in space. When you stand on one leg on an unstable surface, tiny muscles around the ankle fire rapidly to keep you upright. Over time, those reflexes get faster, which means your ankle corrects itself before it rolls far enough to damage a ligament. The National Athletic Trainers’ Association gives this its highest evidence rating and recommends a multi-intervention balance program lasting at least three months.
A protocol from UCSF Orthopaedic Institute outlines a practical daily routine you can do at home with no equipment beyond a couch cushion:
- Single-leg balance: Stand on one foot for 30 to 60 seconds, 2 to 3 sets per session. Once that feels easy, stand on a pillow or close your eyes.
- Single-leg squats: On one foot, slowly lower into a half squat (about 45 degrees), hold 3 seconds, return. Do 2 to 3 sets of 15 reps.
- Half-circle taps: Place six targets in a semicircle about 30 inches from where you’re standing. Balance on one leg and slowly tap each target with the other foot. Three sets of 30 to 60 seconds.
- Floor touches (oil derrick): Stand on one leg with a slight knee bend. Keep your torso straight and slowly reach toward the ground, bending deeper at the knee. Three sets of 15 reps.
Do these once or twice a day for 6 to 8 weeks. After that, maintaining the routine a few times per week keeps those reflexes sharp. If you play a sport, doing a shortened version as part of your warm-up is ideal.
Strengthen the Muscles That Resist Rolling
The muscles running along the outside of your lower calf are your ankle’s first line of defense against an inversion roll. When they’re strong, they contract quickly enough to counteract the forces that pull the ankle inward. The muscles on the front and back of the lower leg also matter because they control how the ankle moves forward, backward, and side to side.
Calf raises are one of the simplest and most effective exercises for building this strength. Stand with the balls of your feet on a step, rise onto your toes, hold for 3 seconds, and lower slowly. Start with both feet, then progress to single-leg raises. Three sets of 15, once or twice daily.
Resistance band exercises add targeted work for the outer calf muscles. Wrap a band around the ball of your foot and slowly push your foot outward against the resistance (eversion). Then pull it inward (inversion), point it down (plantar flexion), and pull it up toward your shin (dorsiflexion). These four directions train every muscle group that stabilizes the ankle. Don’t overlook hip strength either: weak hip extensors and abductors change how forces travel down your leg, indirectly increasing ankle injury risk.
Bracing and Taping After a Previous Sprain
If you’ve sprained your ankle before, wearing a brace or tape during physical activity meaningfully reduces your chance of doing it again. Both lace-up braces and semirigid braces are effective, and traditional athletic taping works too. The choice is mostly about comfort and practicality: braces are easier to apply yourself and maintain their support throughout a game, while tape loosens over time but feels less bulky to some athletes.
For people with no history of ankle sprains, the evidence for bracing is weaker. External support helps most when the ligaments are already compromised. If your ankles are healthy, your time is better spent on balance and strength training.
What Your Shoes Actually Do (and Don’t Do)
High-top shoes seem like they should protect the ankle, but the research consistently says otherwise. A randomized study of 622 subjects found no significant difference in sprain rates between high-top and low-top shoes. A 2019 systematic review and meta-analysis reached the same conclusion. One study even found that high-top shoes can delay the activation and reduce the contraction strength of key ankle stabilizer muscles during a roll, potentially making things slightly worse.
What matters more than collar height is fit. Shoes that are too loose allow your foot to slide inside, and worn-out soles lose their grip and shock absorption. Replace athletic shoes when the tread is visibly worn or the midsole feels compressed. A shoe that fits snugly and grips the surface well does more for your ankles than any specific shoe style.
Warm-Up Programs That Cut Injury Rates
Structured neuromuscular warm-ups combine balance, strength, and movement drills into a 15 to 20 minute routine done before training. The most studied version is the FIFA 11+ program, originally designed for soccer. After one professional soccer organization introduced a prehab program incorporating elements of the FIFA 11+, the rate of the most common ankle sprain dropped from 37% of all foot and ankle injuries to just under 11%. That’s roughly a 70% reduction.
You don’t need to follow that exact program. The core ingredients are dynamic stretching, single-leg balance challenges, controlled jumping and landing, and sport-specific cutting or direction changes done at increasing intensity. The key is consistency: doing it before every practice and game, not just occasionally.
Playing Surface and Ankle Flexibility
The ground beneath you matters. An analysis of more than 4,800 NFL foot and leg injuries over four seasons found that roughly 20% more non-contact lower extremity injuries occurred per play on synthetic turf compared to natural grass. If every game had been played on grass, an estimated 300 fewer injuries would have been expected over that period. You can’t always choose your surface, but if you regularly play on turf, it’s one more reason to invest in prevention training and consider a brace if you’ve had previous sprains.
Limited ankle flexibility is another risk factor that’s often overlooked. If your ankle can’t bend far enough when your foot is planted and your knee moves forward (dorsiflexion), other structures absorb the force instead, and the joint is more likely to give way laterally. Stretching your calves and Achilles tendon, foam rolling the lower leg, and performing gentle ankle circles all help maintain the range of motion your ankle needs to handle sudden movements safely.