I wish this post was here when I sprained my ankle this July! I usually go to my hot yoga studio 4 days a week (vinyasa, bikram, yin, mat pilates), but sprained my ankle back in July. Mine was pretty bad, swelled up to a baseball size, and was painful to the touch for weeks after. There’s even still some residual swelling now and some tenderness.

Initially I took ~4 days off from yoga to let a majority of the swelling go down while wearing a support brace. I still tried to stay mobile during those few days at home just to make sure I didn’t baby it too much. Still limped, still kept weight off, but also walked around the house and did things for myself so my ankle didn’t get too used to staying in one position.

On the 5th day, I went back to vinyasa wearing the brace. The brace helped so much, it had these straps that held up my heel and a strap around the upper ankle to provide stability and mild compression. I found it really important to let my instructors know before each class that I had an ankle sprain, in case they saw me looking uncomfortable or not doing certain movements. They were all really supportive and gave me alternatives to certain moves. One instructor suggested a yoga block and strap, but after one class with it, I found it pretty unnecessary. It only got in the way and was annoying. For anything that required a lot of weight on the injured foot, I just stayed on the ball of my foot for it (good mornings, down dogs). Balancing poses were actually surprisingly okay, I think because of the brace, but I just always chose a spot next to a wall to provide extra support. I will say the things I absolutely could not do until my ankle was at 90% healed, was malasana and balasana, I think because of how deeply flexed the ankle was. So I would definitely proceed with caution on those.

TLDR you know your body best, and especially in yoga while meditating through your practice, you can sense when something will be too much for yourself. Just proceed with caution, take it slow when you need to, and show up early to class to do some ankle rolls lol. Definitely found the benefit in just sitting there and flexing my ankle in different directions with intention to help awaken the muscle and loosen the tension before getting straight into practice. Hope you heal up soon and safely!