What’s actually happening when you sprain your ankle?

Question

What’s actually happening when you sprain your ankle?

In: 109

Answer 1

In your joints, where one bone connects to another, the bones themselves don’t link. They can’t – they’d be too rigid and wouldn’t be able to move around freely.

Instead, the bones come close together, and a bunch of little slightly-stretchy flexible fibers called *ligaments* actually form the connection between them. (Compare *tendons*, which connect bone to *muscle*.) A sprain is when the ligaments are damaged, usually by bending a joint too far or in an unusual way.