Sprained my ankle!!!

How about swimming?

I tore my MCL back in Feb and still have limited mobility, hence my BeachBody dvd's have been collecting dust.

I've been doing a lot of swimming, still favoring the knee a tad, but doing mostly butterfly or breast stroke laps to elevate heart rate (similar to as fatty78 stated, upper body movement will get your heart rate up). Plus getting into a bathing suit in public is really keeping me in check!

There are a lot of exercises you can do on the floor/stability ball that don't put much (or any) pressure on the lower extremeties. Check out some workouts here: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/workouts

There are a lot of great exercises for the lower body so that your leg muscles don't weaken while you're giving your ankle some rest and TLC. Here's a great one for the thighs (and to multi-task, it incorporates some upper body as well!) http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/swiss-thigh-and-fly

Once your ankle is up for rehab, check out these exercises to repair any muscle imbalance and improve mobility: http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/footandankleinjuries/a/ankle_rehab.htm

A sprained ankle varies in degrees of injury, you may have just stretched one the ligaments too far, have a small tear or completely torn a ligament apart.

Following the RICE method as soon as you injure your ankle really helps speed recovery,
R - rest
I - ice it for 20min every 1 hr, so 20 min ice, then 40 min nothing
C - compression, wrap it to keep swelling/inflammation down
E - elevate, put it on a pillow or cushion so that it is above your heart
and take pain relievers, if needed

Don't completely go immobile, it will tighten up too much, but be gentle with it too

Tracing the alphabet with your foot are very good exercises for rehabilitating it, I can't remember how often you should do it, I think at least once a day

How bad is your sprain, did you hear a pop or tearing sound? Is your foot able to move more forward or backward than it should be? If so, I would see a doc right away, you could have torn a ligament completely apart, and that would require surgery.

Once you are able to do more, swimming is a very good exercise, there are exercises for people who have limited mobility, you could do those in the mean time.

Once you sprain an ankle your chance of reinjuring it goes up, it will always be more susceptible to injury, so wearing a ankle brace and being more mindful of it when you do exercise is helpful in preventing further injury.

HTH,
Demetria

Depending on your medical advice, you might try some other activities as well and see how you respond. In my experience, many ankle sprains are activity specific--meaning they hurt at one angle, but not at another. You might find that you are still able to ride a bike, do a rowing machine, etc.

As others have said, a pool can be a good alternative. The only drawback I have found to using swimming as an "injury alternative" exercise, is that it takes a certain amount of time to build up the stroke efficiency and endurance to really get the benefit out of it. My problem is about the time I went through all that, I was recovered from the injury and never went back to the pool. ;-(

(Actually, that was my mistake, because keeping it up would have been a good thing).

So, if you can get to a pool, check out some aqua classes as well. Might be a lower learning curve.

And take care of that ankle--ankle sprains can become chronic problems if not healed thoroughly.