Can You Break Your Ankles Ice Skating?

Can you break your ankles ice skating? So many things go on at ice skating rinks that make ice skating a dangerous sport. Nonetheless, the risks can be avoided by being cautious enough while at the rinks.

From experience and consultation with experts, you can break your ankles ice skating because of ill-fitting ice skates, poor ice skating technique, and the sleek nature of ice skating rinks. Breaking ankles when ice skating is more prevalent in figure skating and hockey skating. Other skating disciplines that can break your ankles are recreational and speed ice skating.

Can You Break Your Ankles Ice Skating?

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. In the rest of this post, we cover more about why you can break your ankles when ice skating. We also cover other ice skating-related injuries and how to prevent these injuries. As a passionate skater, you don’t want to miss out on all these.

So, without much ado, let’s get to it!

• Figure Skating: Figure skating is the artistic form of ice skating. It involves performing tricks, jumps, turns, dance, and spins. If you land incorrectly or go extreme on one of the tricks, you may hurt or break your ankles.
• Hockey Skating: Hockey skating is a contact ice skating sport. The sport can be vigorous and intensive as players fight their way to score. Hockey skating, therefore, involves jumps, quick sharp turns, and sudden stops. If you trip and fall, you may break your ankles.
• Speed skating: Speed skating is a contactless ice skating sport that involves going around a short or long track. Because of high speed or sudden stops, it’s possible to trip and break your ankles.
• Recreational Ice skating: Recreational ice skating is done primarily for leisure. Beginners and experienced skaters can accidentally fall to break their ankles. One can also hurt their ankles from sudden stops and turns.

Reasons why you can break your Ankles Ice Skating

It’s possible to break your ankles ice skating because of ill-fitting ice skates, poor ice skating technique, and the sleek nature of ice skating rinks. How does this happen, you ask?

1. Ill-fitting ice skates

Ill-fitting ice skates can be either too tight or too loose. Loose ice skates will cause your feet to wobble in them, leading to pronation. If this goes on for a long time, your ankles may end up deformed for a while.

In addition, there’s a high chance your feet can come out of the skates when ice skating at high speed. This can lead to the breaking of your ankles in case you hit a hard object or surface.

On the flip side, too-tight ice skates exert a lot of pressure on your feet and ankles. Though this may not break the ankles, it can lead to muscles soreness around the ankles.

That being said, it’s recommended to use correctly fitting ice skates with proper lacing. This will prompt you to buy ice skates with a snug fit if you want to protect your ankles. When purchasing your ice skates online or offline, please remember to look out for the following considerations.

Below is the detailed buyers’ guide I did with you in mind. You’ll find it helpful whenever you’re shopping for ice skates and other types of inline skates.

Related post: Inline Skates: How to choose Inline Skating Shoes |Beginners and Intermediates

2. Poor Ice Skating Technique

Ice skating uses tricks and techniques that can hurt your ankles and other body parts when not performed correctly. For example, doing advanced tricks like quick turns, high jumps, and sudden stops can break your ankles if you don’t get them right.

It’s, therefore, important to take things slowly by avoiding tricky and risky techniques. However, this doesn’t mean you stop challenging yourself. Instead, you can try out new tricks and techniques with caution.

Also, skating with pronated legs for some time can hurt your ankles. This is a poor skating technique that should be corrected on time in the early stages of skating.

Related post: How to Keep Ankles Straight When Rollerblading (3 Easy Steps)

3. Sleek nature of ice skating rinks

Ice skating rinks are made of a sleek icy surface, increasing the probability of sliding for beginners. In addition, ice skates have a thin and short blade base, making it harder for beginners to master quick control on ice skates.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about it other than using the correct skating posture and being in the company of qualified ice skating trainers.

Other Common Ice Skating Related Injuries

Apart from ankle fractures, you can also suffer the following ice skating injuries: wrist sprains and fractures, cuts and bruises, overuse injuries, head injuries, and knee injuries.

Wrist sprains and fractures

Wrist sprains and fracture injuries occur when you fall on your hands. Falling is inevitable when skating. Even experienced skaters fall during emergencies. It’s common to see many skaters avoiding a fall using their hands. This can lead to wrist sprain and fracture when the impact is massive.

Cuts and bruises

Cuts and bruises injuries can occur in two main ways. One, you can fall on sharp objects like rocks, pebbles, and twigs. And two, the sharp blades on your skates can leave you with cuts and bruises on the hands or other parts of the body.

Overuse injuries

Overuse injuries are associate with over skating. Ice skating is fun, and I get it. However, over skating overstretches the muscles and can cause severe injuries to your ankles, feet, and knees. One common overuse injury is blisters that occur in the inner parts of your feet.

Related post: How to Prevent Blisters When Rollerblading |3 Effective Solutions

Head injuries

Head injuries occur when you accidentally fall on your sides, backward or forward. Head injuries are severe and can lead to concussions. In some cases, these injuries may require surgery. The best way to keep safe is by wearing the recommended head helmet for ice skating.

Knee injuries

Knee injuries occur when the anterior cruciate ligaments tear. These ligaments provide stability and enable the knees to rotate properly. Severe impacts on the knees can cause these ligaments to tear.

How to Prevent Ice Skating Injuries

Ice skating injuries can be frustrating. Your best shot at avoiding them is by being cautious and doing the right things when at the ice skating rinks. Below are the things to do if you want to prevent ice skating injuries.

Wear the proper protective gear

The complete protective gear for ice skating comprises a helmet, wrist pads, elbow pads, and knee pads. If you’re playing hockey, you may also need to wear shin and chest guards.

Wear the right fitting ice skates

This will help prevent blisters, soreness in feet muscles, and hurting ankles. The correct fitting ice skates are neither too tight nor too loose.

So, always pick the right size according to your shoe size. However, there should be an inch space between your toes and the front end of the skates.

Wear the right articles of clothing

Ice skating rinks can be cold, so it’s important to keep warm by wearing the right clothes like long-sleeved shirts, jackets, sweaters, long socks, a headscarf, and a Bennie. Most importantly, you should ensure your clothing doesn’t put you at more risk. For example, long scarves can get in between your ice skates, resulting in unnecessary falls.

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Warm-up and down before and after skating

Ice skating uses all body muscles, especially the lower body. It’s, therefore, essential to prepare these muscles by warming up your body before putting on your ice skates. In addition, when you’re done after 2-3 hours, it’s also important to warm down. This simple exercise will help keep your muscles in good shape while preventing muscles soreness.

Only use the proper techniques

There are numerous skating techniques that every skater yearns for. However, it’s important not to sacrifice your safety at the expense of being cool. Therefore, by all means, try and avoid the more sophisticated tricks and techniques when you’re not ready for them.

Can You Break Your Ankles Ice Skating? Final Thoughts

Can you break your ankles ice skating? Absolutely yes. Often, skaters break their ankles because of ill-fitting ice skates, sleek ice skating rinks, and trying out complicated tricks and techniques.

That’s it for today. I hope you found this helpful!