Squatting: Ankle Mobility
Ankle mobility is crucial in being able to squat. When the ankle complex is performing correctly during a squat, it allows your knee to glide to the toe or just over it, and your torso can stay upright under load. If the ankle complex is not functioning correctly, your heels will raise or your knees will not be able to move forward, therefore your torso will fold forward to help maintain the upright position. To see this detailed in video, check out Muscle and Motion’s video here.
First thing’s first, test your ankle mobility with the knee to wall test. You want to get as close to 5 inches of your ankle to the wall as you can. If you start to feel blockage in the front of the ankle, then try a banded ankle mobilization, or the bench pull for stretching the more posterior side of your ankle
You also want to make sure your tibia (shin bone) is rotating both in and out smoothly to ensure good ankle mobility for your squat. You need tibial internal rotation to allow your ankle to dorsiflex (test shown above), to the amount knee so you can squat lower without compensating with your feet splaying out, or rolling way forward at your torso.
After assessing both internal and external tibial rotation, if you found your internal rotation was alot stiffer than the external, then please perform this mobility drill for 20 reps prior to your next squat/workout session.
If you’re still having ankle mobility issues after trying all these, then you can help it out a little with lifters (shoes with an increased heel for lifting), or inserts such as Versa Lifts found on Amazon. This is NOT cheating, it’s simply a way to improve your lifts without killing your ankles, knees, hips, and back while trying to squat under load. Just like if someone was to wear a knee sleeve, or a belt while lifting heavy loads to support their back. It’s not something you want to do all the time, you want to train your foot and ankle to work correctly without help, but it’s definitely a plus when first learning.
If you continue to have issues with your squat, or just have nagging ankle, knee, or even hip stiffness which could be attributed to your ankle mobility, please reach out to us and we’d love to help!
