Can You Run with a Sprained Ankle?

Can You Run with a Sprained Ankle?

You've rolled your ankle. Maybe it was a loose stone on the trail, a kerb you didn't see, or just a bad step on the stairs. Now you're sitting there with a swollen ankle wondering: can you run with a sprained ankle, or do you need to stop completely?

I've worked with hundreds of runners through ankle sprains over the years. It's one of the most frustrating injuries because it comes out of nowhere. One second you're mid-run, the next you're hobbling home.

Here's the short answer:

You should not run on a sprained ankle if you have pain, swelling, or bruising. Once those symptoms clear and you can hop pain-free on the injured ankle, you can begin a gradual return to running. Most Grade I sprains keep you off running for 1-2 weeks. Grade III sprains can take 4-6 months.

But there's a lot more to it than that. Let me walk you through everything you need to know, from understanding what's actually happened to your ankle, to knowing exactly when it's safe to run again.

What is an Ankle Sprain?

First, it helps to understand what you've actually injured. A sprain is damage to a ligament, which is the tough connective tissue that holds one bone to another across a joint.

There are several types of ankle sprain, but the most common one in runners is the lateral ankle sprain. This happens when your foot rolls inward suddenly, like when you land on a loose rock or step off a curb awkwardly. The ligaments on the outer side of your ankle get overstretched or torn.

Lateral ankle ligament anatomy showing ATFL, CFL and PTFL

The three lateral ankle ligaments are:

For the rest of this article, I'll focus on lateral ankle sprains. The principles apply to medial sprains too. High ankle sprains (syndesmotic sprains) are a different beast and tend to take longer to heal.

All ankle sprains get graded on a scale from I to III:

Grade I (Mild) Sprain

Microscopic damage to the ligament fibres. You'll feel some local tenderness and mild swelling, but the joint stays stable. Most runners can walk normally within a few days.

Grade II (Moderate) Sprain

A partial tear of the ligament. You'll notice clear swelling, bruising, and real pain. Walking feels uncomfortable. This one needs proper rehab time.

Grade III (Severe) Sprain

A complete rupture of the ligament. Significant swelling, bruising, and joint instability. Some Grade III sprains need surgery. Recovery takes months, not weeks.

Mild and moderate sprains usually heal without surgery. But the rehab approach, and how long you stay off running, varies enormously depending on which grade you're dealing with.

Read this guide to ankle sprain recovery time to understand exactly how long each grade takes to heal and what you can do to speed things up.

Can You Run with a Sprained Ankle? The Honest Answer

Here's the thing. If you've just sprained your ankle badly, the pain alone will usually stop you from running. Even a mild Grade I sprain hurts enough to make running feel like a terrible idea.

So the real question isn't "can I keep running right now?" It's:

When can you start running again after an ankle sprain?

This matters because I see the same pattern again and again with runners. The initial pain fades after a few days. The ankle feels okay walking around. So they lace up and head out. Then they roll it again, or they finish the run and wake up the next morning with a swollen ankle and a setback that adds weeks to their recovery.

Pain fading is not the same as healing being complete. That's the key thing to understand.

The ligaments need time to repair properly. The muscles around the ankle need to regain their strength. And your proprioception, which is your ankle's ability to sense its own position and react quickly to unstable ground, needs to be retrained before you run again.

Rush that process and you're setting yourself up for chronic ankle instability. I've seen runners who've sprained the same ankle four or five times because they kept going back too soon. Don't be that runner.

Why Running Too Soon Makes Things Worse

This is something competitors often gloss over, but it's really important. When your ankle hurts, your body automatically changes the way you move to protect it. You shift your weight. You alter your stride. You compensate.

Those compensatory movement patterns don't just affect your ankle. They ripple up through your whole body. Your knee takes on more load. Your hip has to work differently. Your lower back picks up the slack. I've seen runners develop knee pain and lower back pain directly as a result of running too soon on a sprained ankle, because their altered gait put stress on joints that weren't ready for it.

There's also the issue of muscle atrophy. When you protect an injured ankle, you naturally use the surrounding muscles less. They weaken quickly, sometimes within just a few days of reduced activity. Weaker muscles mean less support for the ankle joint, which increases your re-injury risk.

So running on a sprained ankle doesn't just risk making the sprain worse. It risks creating a chain of new problems further up the leg.

The 4 Signs You're Ready to Run After an Ankle Sprain

Rather than going purely by a timeline, I prefer to use physical benchmarks. These give you a much more accurate picture of whether your ankle is genuinely ready for the demands of running.

You should hit all four of these before you start running again:

1. Zero Pain and Swelling

Your ankle should feel pain-free not just when you're sitting still, but during weight-bearing activities. Walk on uneven surfaces. Go up and down stairs. If any of that causes pain or makes the ankle swell up afterwards, it's not ready.

Swelling after activity is a clear signal that the tissues are still reacting to load. Don't ignore it.

2. Equal Ankle Dorsiflexion on Both Sides

Dorsiflexion is the movement where you pull your toes up towards your shin. You need this range of motion to run properly. After a sprain, the ankle often stiffens up and loses this movement.

Here's a simple test. Stand facing a wall. Place your toes about 10cm from the wall. Lunge forward and try to touch your knee to the wall without lifting your heel. If you can do it on your uninjured side but not your injured side, you've still got a dorsiflexion deficit to address before running.

Check out my guide to ankle mobility exercises for runners to work on this.

3. Strong Calf Muscles

Your calf muscles generate forces of three to eight times your body weight when you run. After missing time with an ankle injury, they weaken fast.

Test this with single-leg calf raises. Stand on the injured leg and raise up onto your toes, then lower slowly. You should be able to do at least 20 clean, controlled reps with the same ease as your uninjured side. If you can only manage 10, or if the quality drops off significantly, your calf needs more work before you run.

My 10-minute ankle strengthening routine covers this in detail.

4. Stable Ankle Balance

This is the one runners most often skip, and it's arguably the most important. Proprioception, your ankle's ability to sense position and react to sudden changes in surface, takes a real hit after a sprain. The nerve endings in the ligaments get damaged along with the tissue itself.

Test this with the multi-directional hop test. Hop on the injured leg and land. Then hop side to side. Then forward and back. You should be able to complete 5 sets of 20 seconds in each direction without pain, wobbling, or loss of control. If you can't, your ankle isn't ready for the unpredictable demands of running.

Candid iPhone photo of an athletic woman balancing on one leg on a grass surface outdoors, arms slightly out for balance

How Long After a Sprained Ankle Can You Run?

Here are the realistic timelines I work with when coaching runners through ankle sprains:

These are rough guides. Every runner is different, and every sprain is different. The four benchmarks above matter more than the calendar.

One thing I always tell the runners I coach: even if the pain goes away in a few days, that doesn't mean you've healed. Ligament tissue takes weeks to properly repair. The pain-free window can be deceptive.

What About Running with an Ankle Brace or Strapping?

I get asked this a lot, especially by runners who have a race coming up and can't face the idea of missing it.

The honest answer is that ankle strapping with zinc oxide tape, or a good ankle brace, can give you some of the external stability that your injured ligaments would normally provide. It won't fix the underlying problem, but it can reduce your re-injury risk in the short term.

My position on this: strapping is a tool to help you get to a start line, not a substitute for proper rehab. If you use strapping to run through a sprain without doing the strengthening and balance work, you're borrowing time you'll have to pay back later, usually with interest.

Also, your ankle can become reliant on external support if you use it too long. The goal is to build an ankle that's strong and stable on its own. Use strapping sparingly and strategically, and always pair it with your rehab work.

When Must You Stop Running with an Ankle Sprain?

If you're already in the process of returning to running and you notice any of the following, stop and rest:

These are signs the ankle isn't coping with the load yet. Back off, give it a few more days, and revisit the four benchmarks above.

If symptoms persist or you're unsure, get it checked by a physiotherapist. A proper assessment will tell you exactly where you are in the healing process and what you need to do next. Don't guess when it comes to ligament injuries.

Ankle Sprain Rehab Exercises

Good rehab is what separates runners who recover quickly from those who keep re-injuring the same ankle. Here's how I structure it with the runners I coach.

Start with gentle range of motion work in the first day or two. Ankle circles, gentle dorsiflexion and plantarflexion, alphabet tracing with your foot. These keep the joint moving and help manage swelling without stressing the healing tissue.

Here's a selection of gentle ankle exercises you can do in the early stages of your ankle sprain rehab:

Video thumbnail

Once you can walk without pain, usually within the first week for a Grade I sprain, move on to strengthening. Calf raises, resistance band exercises for the peroneal muscles, and single-leg balance work all belong here. Check out my guide to peroneal muscle rehab for more on this.

Here's an ankle rehab routine with slightly more advanced weight-bearing exercises to strengthen the muscles around the ankle joint:

Video thumbnail

Balance and proprioception training is the final piece, and it's non-negotiable. Single-leg standing, wobble board work, and eventually single-leg hops all help retrain the ankle's ability to react quickly to unstable surfaces. This is what prevents re-injury when you're back out on the roads or trails.

Here are some great tips from physio Tom Goom for retraining your balance after a sprained ankle:

For a complete programme, my ankle strengthening routine for runners takes you through all of this step by step.

How to Return to Running After an Ankle Sprain

Right. You've hit all four benchmarks. Pain is gone, swelling is gone, your dorsiflexion matches the other side, your calf is strong, and you can hop without wobbling. Now it's time to start running again.

Here's how I'd structure it:

  1. Week 1: Run-walk intervals on flat, even ground. Try 1 minute running, 2 minutes walking. Repeat 8-10 times. No trails yet.
  2. Week 2: Increase the running intervals. Try 2 minutes running, 1 minute walking. Still on even surfaces.
  3. Week 3: Continuous easy running for 15-20 minutes on flat ground. Introduce gentle camber changes.
  4. Week 4+: Gradually increase distance and introduce more varied terrain. Trails come last.

The key word throughout is gradual. If your ankle swells after any session, that's your cue to back off and give it another day or two.

Stick to flat, even surfaces until you're running comfortably for 30 minutes without any symptoms. Trails, with their unpredictable surfaces and camber changes, put the ankle under much greater stress. Save them until your ankle has proven itself on the roads first.

My free return to running plan gives you a full week-by-week structure to follow. It takes the guesswork out of the process completely.

Also worth reading: how to start running after a long break, which covers a lot of the same principles around rebuilding gradually after time off.

Candid iPhone photo of a lean male runner jogging slowly on a flat tarmac path in a park, slightly cautious posture, wea

How to Prevent Future Ankle Sprains

Once you're back running, it's worth thinking about why the sprain happened and what you can do to reduce the risk of it happening again.

Research shows that previous ankle sprain is the single biggest risk factor for future ankle sprain. Once you've sprained it once, the ligaments are slightly looser and your proprioception is compromised. That's why ongoing ankle strengthening and balance work matters so much.

Here's what I recommend to all my runners who've had a sprained ankle:

If you want to look at the bigger picture of injury prevention, my guide on how to prevent running injuries covers the key principles I use with every runner I coach.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I run on a sprained ankle if it doesn't hurt?

Not necessarily. Pain fading doesn't mean the ligament has healed. You also need to check for swelling, test your range of motion, and confirm your balance and strength match the uninjured side. Running too soon, even without pain, risks re-injury and can lead to chronic ankle instability.

How long should I stay off running with a sprained ankle?

A Grade I sprain typically keeps you off running for 1-2 weeks. A Grade II sprain needs 3-6 weeks. A Grade III sprain can take 3-6 months, especially if surgery is required. Use physical benchmarks rather than just a timeline to decide when you're ready to return.

Can I run with a sprained ankle if I strap it up?

Ankle strapping can reduce re-injury risk in the short term and may help you get to a race start line. But it's not a substitute for proper rehab. Relying on strapping without strengthening the ankle means you're masking the problem, not fixing it. Always pair strapping with a full rehab programme.

What happens if I run on a sprained ankle too soon?

Running too soon can worsen the ligament damage, increase swelling, and delay healing. It can also cause compensatory movement patterns that put extra stress on your knee, hip, and lower back. Repeated early return is a leading cause of chronic ankle instability in runners.

What exercises should I do for a sprained ankle?

Start with gentle range of motion exercises, ankle circles and alphabet tracing. Progress to calf raises, resistance band peroneal strengthening, and single-leg balance work. Once pain-free, add multi-directional hops. Combine strength and balance work for the best results and lowest re-injury risk.

Whatever stage you're at with your ankle sprain recovery, the most important thing is to be honest with yourself about where you are in the process. I know how tempting it is to rush back, especially if you've got a race on the horizon. But a few extra days of patience now can save you weeks of setbacks later.

If you're unsure, talk to your physio. And when you are ready to run again after a sprained ankle, follow a structured plan rather than just winging it. Your ankle will thank you for it.