As a Physiotherapist, a lack of ankle mobility is easily one of the most overlooked root causes of general leg dysfunction.
Do you deal with any form of foot or ankle pain?
Clinically, any number of issues ranging from Achilles tendon pain, ankle impingement, bunions, flat feet, navicular bone dysfunction and even simple ankle sprains can be linked to simple ankle joint restrictions.
The idea here, is that a lack of basic ankle range of motion forces everything around it to be loaded differently as your entire leg compensates. And this sustained change in loading may set that same very tissue up to become irritated, sore, and potentially damaged when exposed to sport and activity.
Furthermore, it may surprise you to know that a large majority of the non-traumatic knee pain that I treat has some link to ankle restrictions. The idea here, is that a lack of range below the knee can force the knee to act and move differently as your entire leg tries to find a way around things once again.
In short, if you're missing any large amounts of your natural ankle mobility, it could be setting your ankle - and everything around it, up for dysfunction.
So with that in mind, it's really important that we each have a specific set of mobility exercises that we feel address our own specific ankle restrictions.
But where can you start?
In this video, I go through 13 ankle mobility exercises that look to address the main tissues that may be stopping you from being able to dorsiflex your ankle optimally.
These range from ankle joint capsule stretches, to surrounding muscle stretches, and even an exercise to help unglue any tight skin tissue!
Have a go and let me know which exercise hit the spot for you!
- Grant
Time Stamps
- 0:00 Intro
- 0:39 Pre-test Baseline
- 2:07 Banded Ankle Stretch
- 4:00 Soleus Stretch
- 5:55 Gastrocnemius Stretch
- 7:15 Foam Roller Calf Mobility + BONE SAW
- 10:53 Banded Deep Squat Practice
- 13:06 Elevated Split Squat
- 15:03 Tibialis Posterior Ball Mobility
- 16:32 Peroneal Ball Mobility
- 17:17 Tibialis Anterior Ball Mobility
- 19:52 Ankle Voodoo Floss
- 22:39 Heel Skin Sliding Surfaces
- 25:55 Lateral Malleolus Mobilisation
- 28:38 The Perils of Heeled Shoes
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If you'd like help trying to uncover the underlying cause of your back dysfunction, consider booking in an online Telehealth consultation with Grant here!
