Mobility - Ankle

Feet-Together Squat Ankle and Hip Test

Pistol Shape Ankle and Hip Test

Because of how the ankle joint works, when you are facing the direction where the band is tied, the band must pull above “the ankle bone” to distract the shin forward.

Wen you are facing the opposite direction of where the band is tied, the band must pull below “the ankle bone” to distract the foot backwards.

On some people, top layer of tissues on top of your Achilles can get stuck. Typically we see this in people who have not consistently used their ankles and feet in a fully flexed position in a long time. Shoes with heels, high-heels, but also just regular sneakers, prop up the heel and allow people to go through life, most of the time without needing the end range of that ankle. Because of this the tissues shorten and sometimes get stuck there. The GOOD NEWS is that if this is an issue for you, this mobility exercise is like a magic trick!!!

With your foot flexed, the skin above your Achilles should still be able to move in all directions. We are going to help it move.

1. Flex your foot.

2. Use a lacrosse ball or your fingers to tack down your skin and, then keeping your skin tacked down, make your skin move in every direction. Start down by your heal and hit about 6 spots as you work your way up to where you see the ball in the photo above. You are effectively just grabbing skin and wiggling the ball up, down, left, and right to try and make that top layer of skin move.

   I recommend doing and Air Squat and holding the bottom position just to see what if feel like. Do the Achilles Scrub on one side and then go back to re-test the air squat and see how it feels. Do the other side and re-test again. If this area was an issue for you, the improvement of your ankle range, and therefore how easy the bottom of squat is, can be dramatic.

This is not a mobility exercise you need to do all the time because once you get the tissues moving they tend to stay moving for a while, so once you’ve done this one once, check-in on it every now and then, but you don’t need to continuously do this exercise.