Top Soccer Injuries: How to Prevent and Treat Common Issues on the Field

Can you guess what the most common injury in women’s soccer is? It can range from being a slight nuisance to a lifelong niggle. You’ve most likely had it yourself. 

An ankle sprain - aka a ‘rolled ankle’.

My name is Nathaniel. I’m an Osteopath who has treated many ankle sprain patients and even patients with hip and knee problems that have resulted from poorly managed ankle sprains. Over and over, I see that exercises and treatment are focused on the ankle, all the while leaving the real culprit untouched. 

An ankle sprain is where the ligaments on the outside of the ankle are stretched to the point that they either tear or become painful. Not only are ankle sprains common, they, more often than not, will happen to the same person again and again. Despite being common, persistent, and repeated, most people and therapists will fail to find the real culprit. 

I’m going to bet that you’ve rolled an ankle before. If you haven’t, I’m sure you’ve had some close calls where you’ve stepped on a footpath in a funny way or in a small ditch in a field. When the outside of the foot stays connected to the ground and the whole bodyweight travels over the top of it, the ankle is vulnerable. It is the most vulnerable position for the ankle to be put in. 

Who let it get to that position? 

If you were to look at YouTube or talk to most therapists, most will tell you that you must have weak ankles. All of the exercises they suggest and all of the conversation is centered around the foot and ankle. “Stretch your ankle. Strengthen your ankle. Stretch AND Strengthen your ankle.”

Let’s think about it for a second, though. The ankles aren’t playing soccer by themselves. It’s you who’s playing, and you have many parts. In just the leg, there are ankles AND hips. Those two are a couple. They do almost everything together. If one suffers, so does the other. If one can’t do the job, the other will do extra. 

As your foot lands in a run, it rolls in, turning on all the big muscles around the back of your hip, like the glutes and hamstrings. These big muscles control the speed of your knee movement all the way down to your ankle and foot. 

Now, imagine if we stiffen up that hip. The hip doesn’t roll in as much, meaning that a lot of those big muscles don’t turn on. The hip has left the party - leaving the ankle behind by itself. All of that force that usually would be taken up by the hip is left for the ankle to try and stop on its own.

Then the ankle rolls. 

Whether it recovers quickly or takes months for the ankle to return to feeling semi-normal, the hips are often left untouched. It’s like we didn’t even think of them. Because they are left untouched, ankle sprains happen over and over. 

But we can interrupt this! I’ve seen repeatedly that when the hips are addressed, the ankles feel totally different. They function normally because they know that their partner (the hip) has got their back once again.

Since the hips were there the whole time, it’s a wonder that we forgot about them.

See one of our Osteopaths for an individual assessment of what is causing your ankles to roll. Or, if you’ve had a history of ankle sprains yet are now getting problems higher up (hips, back, neck), it may be that your ankles could be causing your current issue.