How To Actually Improve Your Ankle Mobility

[@kmidst_fn5225]

1. Warm up with light cardio 2. soft tissue work on calves with foam roller 3. Stretch ankles with resistance band 4. Assisted bodyweight squat 5. Empty bar squat 6. Workout! I'll try this, it seems straight forward and useful. Can you do one like this for upper body mobility as well? Thoracic spine is the other big mobility road block.

[@Voidrunner01]

Dan John has an excellent movement drill that makes a very notable difference pretty quickly. It's 6 goblet squats, over 3 minutes. Start the time at the bottom of the squat, holding the kettlebell at your chest. One squat, every 30 seconds. Up at the 30 second mark, and immediately back down, so you end up spending almost the entire time at the very bottom of the squat, while under load. This gets extra sporting with a heavy kettlebell, like a 32 or 48 if you're feeling froggy.

[@kilbankilban6465]

Great tip. Dan John is somehow still underrated as a S&C Coach.

[@BMCSW]

Very informative. Thanks. I’m 70; mainly, the u-tube mobility recommendations, have been useful. Pre workout warmup, has become my workout X-20 weeks. Now: Olympic lifts with correct form are possible, and fun. Thanks Siki!

[@eric-running-to-chamonix]

I've seen significant improvements in my ankle mobility from 1) BW squats often, e.g. petting the dog, brushing teeth, getting something low 2) front squats with the proper drop in my shoes for my current range of motion -- not too high, not too low. Progress seems slow, but when I look back, I'm amazed at how far I've come. Aside from improving my lifts, the increased flexibility has reduced injuries in my main sport of distance running.

[@sikastrength]

Running is a killer on anklew and ankle mobility so working on it can be extra tough!

[@LatimusChadimus]

Flossing is one of my favorite ways mainly because of my past in skateboarding with plenty of instances having rolled my left ankle

[@sikastrength]

Flossing is fantastic!

[@reggie7716]

Single leg standing calf raises, toes on a block to drop the heel down at the bottom, helped my ankle mobility and health more than any thing else.

[@kolmogorov4149]

Great video as always- would be cool to make it a series (hips, shoulders, thoracic spine). I know you already covered front rack. You probably forgot to mention it in the video but polka dot socks also greatly increase ankle mobility, there’s at least a few studies.

[@sikastrength]

We'll definitely work our way through, hopefully this one helps!

[@kolmogorov4149]

@@sikastrength it helps more than you guys think. People have a tendency to gatekeep/overcomplicate this type of information, or charge absurd amounts for mobility courses that are half as effective.

[@akaharri_dnb]

This has been the only method of increasing my ankle ROM through the stretching protocol.

[@fabriciusbjerre]

We want one for hip mobility for squats

[@FatalityDiablo]

for me personally the best way is a good warmup on the elliptical ca 15 min, then volume low weight with high effort on good form. I do that once a every couple of weeks or so, whenever I feel exhausted from work or other activities

[@JohnsonTClay]

I've been waiting for this

[@Clincalbeats]

Incredible! Hamstrings next?

[@mcshuffles4032]

Love the videos lads. Sadly my ankles even with the flossing using the bans and stretching daily don't improve past 9cm in the knee to wall test. I've resorted to weightlifting shoes to get to close to parallel but recently I've gone for elevating my heels with a plate and wearing the shoes and I'm able to hit Clarence/Gurph depth. Does it make sense as a volleyball player, to use this strategy for some deep back squatting in the off season and then maybe progress to box squats without the plate elevation in season?

[@BaroqueEnjoyer]

What do you think about calf raises? With a deficit/on a block to get that big stretch at the bottom. The weighted stretch on those is gnarly.

[@No-df2kw]

Unfortunately never found the banded stretch to assist with my right ankle. Got a bony block and first tried it out when I saw Squat University's video on it, but a couple of years later with different band tension/width/positions but it hasn't worked out.

[@Yupppi]

I'm currently struggling to hit the jerk stance. Couldn't make the front leg go far enough to vertical shin/balance behind enough over the whole c&j session. There could be some hip tilt and hip flexor/quad mobility issue (the back leg hip flexor does feel a bit stretched in jerk position), but also I'd had almost 2 hours of judo and was pretty warmed up and stretched. Is there a drill or exercise to teach your body to do it better other than just repeating it over and over again and pausing at the bottom after fixing the position? I think those things might get fixed by itself if I manage to teach it to hit that correct, balanced and strong position I know I can achieve. Relevant to this video, I never knew I was doing ankle mobility work all day long: I always rest my legs over the computer case on the floor so that the calf is on the edge and feet over, one leg over the other. Odd thing: I don't feel anything when doing the half-kneeling split squat with a band in terms of stretch. I don't know where I should feel it. In the right ankle I can just reach some sort of end and no stretch, in the left I used to get a blocking feeling and no improvements, now not much of a block but just ankle pain. That has been getting better from learning to pronate the foot and keeping the knee out. But I do generally struggle to stretch calves, full depth calf raises don't feel like a stretch really, maybe the only one might be pushup position pushing heel back and maybe a leg over another.

[@grumpycroissant8712]

I have uneven ankle mobility, my left is a bit less mobile, I've stretched it for 2 years, and nothing has changed lol maybe the stretching pessimists are right the entire time (I'm above 30. So, yeah) (It's not my achilles, it's the bony blocking)

[@arunabhtripathi5046]

One more underrated things that will make a huge change is check your tibial internal rotation. You can use a resistance band to fix it. Refer a video of tibial internal rotation ( Squat University ). I had bad ankle mobility and pinching pain at top of my ankle at end range. After doing tibial internal rotation work for 2 sets, the pain was gone and the mobility increased 2 times.

[@luuhax]

his squat stance looks so crowded for his body. Just flaring the toes a tiny bit more and maybe 1 inch wider stance wouldn't he drop to the bottom of the squat like a rock?

[@Jo-oe3pi]

Oh this is a lot like the squat university protocol. I can confirm this works great.

[@scheissgeist1320]

1:58 👁👄👁

[@lukasdubb]

dude is literally just existing what do you want from him

[@TheJipino]

Do not dare insult dreamy-eyed fitz

[@TheKupko]

Let ankle pronate... ur welcum

[@holyhero6380]

Unsub a whole lotta yapping

[@sikastrength]

Yeah I know right, 9 mins and 18 seconds. So much yapping. I'm going to unsub too.

[@master0fnone]

@@sikastrength First of all, all vids must be vertical, secondly anything over 30 seconds makes my head hurt. Lastly, 0 memes and loud sound effects.

[@nathans4957]

@@sikastrength microphone didn't even clip at the parts i'm supposed to laugh at wtf

[@imitatsiya]

standard jeff nippard fanboy

[@No-df2kw]

Unfortunately never found the banded stretch to assist with my right ankle. Got a bony block and first tried it out when I saw Squat University's video on it, but a couple of years later with different band tension/width/positions but it hasn't worked out.

[@No-df2kw]

Unfortunately never found the banded stretch to assist with my right ankle. Got a bony block and first tried it out when I saw Squat University's video on it, but a couple of years later with different band tension/width/positions but it hasn't worked out.

[@BlueTac1992]

Same here. Ive tried many variations, with very heavy bands and it never seems the help. Feels like im doing something wrong

[@No-df2kw]

Unfortunately never found the banded stretch to assist with my right ankle. Got a bony block and first tried it out when I saw Squat University's video on it, but a couple of years later with different band tension/width/positions but it hasn't worked out.

[@sikastrength]

Try the soft tissue work before hand and then see if it makes any difference.

[@No-df2kw]

@@sikastrength Thanks for the reply. For context I have had the following routine for my lower body on and off the past couple of years: Foam rolling -> static stretching -> dynamic stretching, with the dynamic part for my calves being the banded stretch. One thing I quickly learnt is that if I was being too stubborn with trying to feel an effect it would just feel as if the front of my foot was getting crushed and I would have no ankle mobility the day after. One thing I've found which helps circumvent the issue, apart from a heeled shoe, is letting my knee divert slightly from straight over my foot as that's where it's worst, and making sure to focus on a lot of ankle warmup drills. My foot position is thus unsymmetric as my right is rotated more outwards. Aiming for a symmetric stance I tend to get a massive hip shift as my left ankle has great mobility and everything just moves to that side. I love squatting, my favourite exercise along with the overhead press, but it's been a pain in the ass since day 1 and it's gone through a million different iterations since I started going to the gym as a serious hobby.