I has assumed from the Title "
Grrrrrrrr" that this was a bear thread..... Oh Well, my disappointment.
I won't believe you are:
A). overweight or fat.
B). going to a gym.
C). less than adorable wearing nothing more than your hat and smile.
Without pictures. Lots and lots and lots of pictures.... (hint hint hint)....
I hope that brightens your mood.
Now on to injury and workouts.
DO NOT do workouts when parts of your body are in the process of healing.
Why? Because the whole lifting weights and pushing your muscles to do more than before leads to 'shredding' the muscle tissues that you are working out. This is injury to the muscles. Its not 'bad' injury such as what you did to the ankle, but its injury none the less.
You need to give your time body to heal from all injuries between workouts, since you have more than just shredded muscle (that can heal sufficiently to be worked again 2-3 days later) you gots to wait until that injury is healed.
The other aspect to this is your body is already using up important resources to fix the ankle, that means that when you do shred the other muscles those resources will be unavailable for either the ankle or the muscles - thus healing is slightly stymied either for the muscles or the ankle.
Next: Ice packs.
As Doctor told you keep the leg up. What doctor may not have told you that the best icepack (and heating pack) is a damp one.
I suggest using regular dish soap (liquid) pour a bottle of that into a large ziplock bag, squeeze out as much air as possible and throw into the freezer for about an hour. The liquid may have started off clear, but will turn a solid color without turning solid.
When you use it, wrap it in an old t-shirt that has been dampened, then apply to the affected area. Not only will it present better cold, but it will conform to the body.
A similar thing can be done for a heating pack. Take a hand towel, wet it, wring it out, lay it out and fold it twice or thrice, place it in a plastic shopping bag (two is better) and heat in the microwave. Put that all into a pillow case.
The pillow case is dry, but there is a bit of humidity.Cold following heat usually works to reduce pain and swelling (corrected I had reversed that sorry).
This article may be of interest:
http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/ex...c-injuries
Typically to swelling injuries, applying heat will help with blood flow, so lead to a bit of swelling - but we need blood flow to pull out the dead and dying tissues that any injury causes. Pain in the case of worked out muscles is not actually the muscles, but the toxins built up and sitting in the muscle. Similar is happening with your ankle, some of that pain is because there are toxins (dead cells) sitting around and unable to escape.
This
http://charlotte.cbslocal.com/2011/03/07...e-or-heat/ explains it even more and tells you when to start using such.
BTW take care of you.... and pictures of your next work out - hat only, smile optional :biggrin: