Avoid These Common Football Injuries
If your child is on the high school or college football team here in Spring or Tomball, TX, it’s important to watch for signs of football injuries. You see, because of the high speeds and hard hits that characterize this popular sport, players have a high risk for ankle and foot injuries. Want to know what you’re watching for? These are the most common foot and ankle-related football injuries facing young student-athletes.
Top Football Injuries: Rolled Ankles
One of the most common injuries for football players is a lateral ankle sprain. It’s an injury that happens when your ankle rolls inward, and your outer ligaments tear. Symptoms of this injury include instant pain and tenderness, as well as swelling on the outside of your ankle.
When it comes to ankle sprains, we rank the severity of your injury on a grade from one to three. With a grade one sprain, you’re facing a mild injury, that shouldn’t keep your child sidelined for too long. A bit of icing and rest, and all should be back to normal/
Get a grade two sprain, and your injury is serious enough to need immobilization in the form of taping or a brace. And, with a grade three sprain, the injury is serious, and you’ll need at least seven to 10 days of rest, likely followed by rehab. (For our patients’ convenience, we have an in-house athletic trainer who can help you recover from this kind of injury and get back into the game.)
High Ankle Sprains in Football
Football players can sustain a high ankle sprain when there’s trauma to the ligaments in your ankle and lower legs that connect your tibia and fibula. With this kind of football injury, symptoms include pain just above the ankle. Often, high ankle sprains and fractures go hand in hand. Typically, you’ll need six to eight weeks to rehab from a high ankle sprain before you can return to the football field.
Lisfranc Football Injuries
Lisfranc injuries impact the ligaments and joints in your midfoot. While these injuries range from mild to severe, they can be harder to heal because of reduced blood flow to this part of your foot. Dallas Cowboys defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence learned that the hard way when a Lisfranc injury interrupted his 2024-25 season early on. While he was able to avoid surgery, doctors sidelined him for four to eight weeks. And that’s pretty much the best-case scenario with this kind of football injury: Lisranc injuries will leave you in a cast for about six weeks, if you’re lucky; at worst, you’ll need surgical repair before immobilizing the injured foot.
Treating Football Injuries in Spring, TX
While these are the most common football injuries our team of podiatrists treats, they are not the only ones by any means. Football players also have a higher risk for Jones fractures, Achilles tendon inflammation and ruptures, turf toe sprains and more. To protect your athletes and keep them in the game, make sure to stop activity and come into the office at the first sign of foot, toe or ankle pain.