It was crazy...I was running to the side for a backhand on the tennis court... I hit the ball and stopped... well, my foot stopped but my body didn't.

I rolled my left ankle literally 90 degrees to the side then rolled to the ground.

I actually FELT my outer ankle bone "knuckle" touch the surface of the tennis court.

The people I was playing with saw it... and visibly grimaced and just stood there with their mouths hanging open... didn't even go for the ball that I hit straight down the sideline.

They came running over to see if I was ok.

They thought I was DONE.

Little did they know I had a secret weapon... my training had given me ankles of steel... (or rubber, I guess maybe :).

Because I said "I'm good"... literally got right back up, called out the score and went right back to playing.

They couldn't believe it.

At the end of the set, one of the guys came up to me and asked how I could roll up on my ankle like that and come up just fine and keep going.

I gave him a smile and said "I don't just train for strength or muscle... I train for durability, too."

Then I said "Let me show you the exercise I do to get ankle strength like this. It's really easy."

"I take a couple of weights and hold them in my hands. Then I stand on one foot for about 30 seconds at a time. I'll go back and forth for a couple of sets on each foot. Then I'm done."

"That's it?" he said.

"Yep, literally that's it. It sounds simple because it IS simple. Try it right now without any weight." I told them. "Just stand on one foot for 30 seconds and see what happens."

He looked skeptical but did it...he picked up one foot and stood on just the other.

After about 3 seconds, he started tilting a little bit to the side and his support leg started shifting around to try and maintain balance.

A few seconds later, the shifting got bigger and more frantic.

Then another few seconds later he started flailing his arms around.

Then when he was about to tip over, he set his other foot down.

I looked at him and said "When was the last time you stood just one foot like this?"

He thought about it a moment... "Honestly, I have no recollection of EVER having done that."

"Yep, exactly." I replied. "It's not something anybody really ever does on purpose. Who needs to do that in real life?"

"But if you think about it, balance requires strength...and strength can be trained...and training your muscles and your connective tissue for strength IMMEDIATELY improves your resilience and resistance to injury."

He was nodding slowly now as he chewed this over in his mind.

I continued... "I do that with kettlebells or dumbbells in my hands but when I want to really focus on building ankle strength, I'll put more than 400 pounds on my back and stand on one foot with THAT."

He looked VERY suspicious of that... "What? Are you kidding me? 400 lbs? I've gotta see that."

I pulled out my phone and said "Give me a second...I had actually grabbed a shot of that not too long ago in my basement gym.... there we go."

"I use a bar called a Safety Squat Bar that I can have on my back hands-free. In this picture, I've got 425 lbs on my back and I'm doing the standing on one foot thing. I have my hands ready to catch myself if I tilt too far and I'll use those rails to help keep the set going."

He looked at the picture and said "Dang. No wonder your ankles are so strong. That's insane. I can't even stand on one foot for 10 seconds without falling over."

"Yep, naturally you don't start with weights like that but you can really build up to some serious weight. Even just standing with no additional weight is going to build your ankles up MUCH stronger than they are now."

He noddded and said "I'm going to start doing that. It seems really easy and like something I can do just about anywhere."

"Yep, and you don't even need dumbbells...just hold a bag in one hand or a couple of heavy bags for resistance, once you get strong enough with just your bodyweight."

"Cool." he said. "Let's get back to the game you freaking Terminator."

This is a great example of how you can train specifically for injury prevention and durability.

Stuff like this can be eye-opening, especially if you've never trained specifically for durability and injury-prevention before.

Now imagine getting a bunch of simple exercises like this that you can use for EVERY joint in your body.

THAT is what you'll get in my friend Logan's "Indestructible Body" course.

And right now, you can get it for 40% off.

Grab your copy of the Indestructible Body system for 40% off here now!

(use code MADSCIENTIST40)

Fair warning...TODAY is the last day he's offering that 40% off coupon code.

So if this sounds like something you'd be interested in, definitely jump on this right away.

And if you missed the 11 sample exercises that I sent along yesterday, you can still see those here.

Nick Nilsson
The Mad Scientist of Muscle