Hong Kong Adventures, Ankles, & Active Recovery

Anyone who’s spoken to me in the last 4 years likely knows that I have quite a serious chronic ankle injury. I fell while on a work trip in Rajasthan in 2019, and torn ligaments unfortunately never fully heal. As an aspirationally active person, it’s something I think about every day.

Since moving to Hong Kong, I’ve made remarkable progress on the injury because, to be honest, there’s been no other choice! Streets here are steep as staircases and walking is the mode of transit that makes the most sense for the majority of routes. At the end of grad school last June, I struggled with walking more than a mile a day, and now, I can walk 6 miles in a day once or twice a week with ease! My overall fitness level (cardio) is much higher, and I’ve built routines that allow me to strengthen, push, grow, and recover. My physiotherapist and I have a weekly rhythm for this, where my exercises progress each week (I’m now doing single-leg squats and lifting weights while standing on one leg 3x a week, which is not an easy workout, even for the uninjured!).

Having family and friends visit us is absolutely the highlight of our year, and when they are here I have host-fomo where I’m not able to take a break from walking because I want to show our guests absolutely everything! 

At the end of April, our marathon month of sister visitz & high school friend reunions in Hong Kong, my leg and hip muscles fatigued to the point where I was instructed not to walk at all (at ALL!) for a week or two, and focus on some crucial things that I had forgotten are quintessential for “active recovery”:

1. Sleep
2. Protein intake
3. Other forms of rest

I’d quite literally forgotten that when we’re sleeping is when muscles rebuild, had neglected protein count when I had to abandon eating FODMAPs for another health thing that’s been going on, and just wasn’t resting.

A little bit of a setback with my ankle has historically been cause for anxiety and despondency on my part in the past, because I always think about how long it will take to be fine again. But this week, lying on the mat during a hip/neck/shoulder-opening class, I was overwhelmed with thoughts of how lucky I am to be able to invest so wholly in active recovery.

I am blessed to have a world-class physical therapist, time and space to stretch in my apartment, access to classes that prioritize recovery over other factors like calorie-burn. I am surrounded by a wellness ecosystem that gets me. (I also have a therapist I trust, with whom I’ve worked for half a decade; a weekly dry needling routine; a TRE provider among one of my favorite friends; access to a breathing and pranayama specialist; and friends who generally understand that all of these things are connected, and important.)

[I sometimes hear jokes like, "If your ankle hurts so much, how come you're always the first one on the dance floor??" The point isn't to rest forever. The point is to rest intentionally so I can be fully present when it comes time for celebrations, or just comes time to be a Punjabi in daily life. It is a delicate balance, and it's one I'm carefully choreographing at all times.]

Making the "effort to rest" seems counterintuitive, but for many of us, it is an effort: remembering that our bodies are at the base of all the productive things we do. Remembering we have to be well to perform well. We heal to get stronger.

I love the framing of “active recovery” because it’s not about waiting for things to get better—it’s about what I can do for myself, by myself and with others, to support myself to heal. It’s putting your socks back on after savasana. It's grabbing the ice pack before you sit down. It’s allowing yourself to eat until you’re full. It's stretching every morning before you look at your phone. It’s about making a plan to rest, and having trusted loved ones who hold you accountable to doing the work of resting.

I wonder, whatever it is that you’re “recovering” from in this moment, how can you make your recovery more intentional and “active”?