How to Improve Your Ankle Mobility
Mar 4th, 2008 by Mehdi Tags: Flexibility, Injury
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Your ankles are made for mobility. You can move them up & down, rotate them in & out, … Your knees are designed for stability. When your ankles and/or hips lack mobility, your knees are forced to compensate.
Knee pain and lower leg injuries like shin splints can be caused by tight calves & lack of ankle mobility. Here are 2 simple exercises to stretch your calves and improve your ankle mobility.
Pike Calf Stretch. Assume the pike position. 1 foot on the floor with straight leg, 1 foot behind your ankle. Raise on your toes. Come back by pressing your heel against the floor.
Ankle Mobility Drills. Hold on to something. Assume the Split Squat position. Push the knee of your front leg as far as possible and come back. You will feel the stretch in the front of your ankle.
- Heels on The Floor. Lace your shoes or go barefoot. The heel of your front leg must stay on the floor. Curl your toes up if necessary.
- Back Leg Doesn’t Matter. The goal is to stretch your front leg, not your back leg. The heel of your back leg can come off the floor.
- Work on All Planes. Ten reps straight forward, ten reps to your big toe, ten reps to your small toe.
Do 1-2 sets of 10 reps of the Pike Calf Stretch & Ankle Mobility Drills as warm-up before your strength training workout. You can also do them on non-training days for faster improvements in ankle mobility.
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Thanks for this, I dislocated my ankle about 8-9 months ago this should really help.
Excellent article, ankle mobility is great subject.
In the part about ankle mobility you mention that a stretch is felt in the front of the ankle. Shouldn’t the stretch be felt in the back, near the achilles? I actually do get a feeling in the front of my ankle when I do that exercise, which I assumed was because of scar tissue from a twisted ankle.
Oh, and the videos don’t work
Great topic Mehdi. I’ve had ankle problems for a while and this is just what I needed.
@Richard
You have plantarflexors & dorsiflexors. The calf pikes stretch your plantarflexors (achilles etc). The ankle mobility drills the dorsiflexors (front of ankle).
Reload the page if video don’t work, sometimes youtube videos hang. Think it’s youtube wanting you to visit their site.
Great stretches, never seen them before!
I need to start doing dynamic stretches; I’ve only been doing static stretches after my workout.
It’s annoying that 9 weeks into Stronglifts 5×5 I still can’t even REACH parallel on squats. I’ve increased poundages by about 100 lbs (currently squatting 210), but because I can’t go ATG I feel no accomplishment.
I’ll do all 9 dynamic stretches, followed by some easy static stretches, and post the results in my log a week or two from now.
what exactly is it to be mobile? just capable of moving? then shouldn’t knees be mobile as well, as they can bend? perhaps i just don’t get the main differences between mobility / stability.
what are the advantages of mobility then, or in other words, what benefits will i experience once i improve mobility?
also, is the first stretch a dynamic stretch? and the last ‘drills’ aren’t stretches, so i shouldn’t worry about whether it’s static or dynamic, right?
@Michael
Joints alternate between mobile & stabile. Ankle mobile, knee stabile, hip mobile, lower back stabile, etc. This is simplifying. Your hips is also made for stability of course (you’re standing) but it’s definitely more mobile than your knees (more directions you can move it).
Both exercises stretches your muscles dynamically. Lauren has a post explaining mobility vs. flexibility.
Hi Mehdi,
Great timing. Ever since I started 5×5 (about 1 month ago) my calves have become super tight and recently I tore a muscle in calve when squating (down low near the ankle). I’ve always had tight calves, and I have been squating and working in one form or another for about 3 years, but this soreness and tightness is at a new level now. After some research I decided it was probably due to my not doing adequate warm-up sets. But I’m doing a proper warmup routine now and the tightness is still there…is this a consequence of squating, or something else?
Also, the main reason I wrote is because I wanted to let you know that when I get your emails the words at the far right side of the screen don’t show, and there’s no horizontal scroll bar for me to move the screen over. I can hit the reply button and read it in the reply window or click on the link and read it on your website, but I just thought I’d let you know that it is happening and might be bumming some people out.
Thanks for the great information.
Yours,
Todd
@Todd
Tightness isn’t caused by squatting, rather by your lifestyle/posture. Same reasons why you can have tight hamstrings, tight pecs, etc. Continue doing the stretches once your calf feels better.
I’ll check out the email thing. Thanks for the feedback.