Ankle fusion

[ygorlcosta]

Hello,

Just wondering if someone with a fused ankle got back surfing… I’m goofy footer and o got my right ankle fused

[davismx]

Not sure if you're the same person who posted a similar thing on Reddit, but here's what I posted there.

I don't have a fusion, but have very limited range of motion in my ankle from a bad fall off of a cliff 6 years ago. I'm goofy foot and injured my left/rear foot, which I think is harder when it comes to surfing vs the front foot. I was only a decent surfer before my accident, and it definitely makes surfing harder, but still worth doing.

My limited range of motion causes a few problems. Both my dorsiflexion (bringing your toes up towards your shin) and plantarflexion (pointing your toes down) in my ankle are very limited and cause a few problems.

Because my plantarflexion sucks for the first few years when I would go to pop up, since I couldn't point my foot down, often I would slam the top of it into the tail of the board, which really hurt. Then because I couldn't raise my toes up very well when trying to plant my foot on the board I would often drag my big toe across the deck, bruising it and jamming the edge of my big toenail into the toe next to it. After a while my muscle memory shifted and I trained myself instinctively to lift my foot higher as I pop up and it doesn't happen too often.

The other big problem is because I have very little dorsiflexion (you'll have zero w/ a fusion), I can't lean forward on my bad ankle much more than 90°, so getting in a low crouch is pretty difficult, especially so because it's my rear foot. I have to compensate by either lifting my heal and getting up on the front of my foot (reducing contact with the board), or rotate my foot backwards at a weird angle so I can drop knee. Or I just stand in my normal stance with a nearly straight rear leg, which limits my ability to really dig into a frontside turn.

So it's quite a bit harder, but you know you're going to try it anyway, so just do it and figure out what works for you. You'll definitely be a worse surfer than you were, but if you're at all like me you'll figure out your limitations and still catch enough decent waves to make it more than worthwhile.