Are you struggling with ankle mobility? If so, let's take a quick test. Drop down into a lunge,
back knee on the floor, and bend your front knee over your big toe, past your big toe,
keep your heel on the ground, and now take a selfie photo. Measure the angle at your ankle.
This is called dorsiflexion and we're looking for a 10 to 20° angle or even more. Now, let's do the
second test. Opposite direction, point your toes, heels together, sit back on your heels. You should
be able to sit comfortably here for at least two minutes, without your ankles screaming at you. Why
does this matter? Well, you probably already know, for a full butt-to-heels squat we need
adequate dorsiflexion. What you might not realize is to get up and down from the ground you need the
opposite range, plantar flexion. See, that pointed toe? And lastly, almost no-one realizes this,
but if you lack adequate dorsiflexion, that's knee over big toe, it can affect your walking and your
running gait, and can contribute to knee pain, hip pain, and even lower back problems. Hey, my name
is Lucas. I'm a yoga teacher and a teacher trainer and I've struggled a lot with my feet and my
ankles. I have really high arches and really tight feet. I struggled with plantar flexion, but even
more so with dorsiflexion, and through my studies, and my teaching, and my own training, I've learned
a bunch of things that I think will be really helpful for you. In this video we'll talk about
the anatomy of your ankle mobility. Number two, we'll talk about the difference between soft
tissue, specifically muscle issues or bony tissue issues. And lastly, we'll look at some specific
exercises to activate those muscles of your lower limbs and also to mobilize your ankle. To support
the channel the simplest thing you can do is hit subscribe down below. It doesn't cost a thing and
you'll get updated when my new videos come out. If you'd like to skip forward to the exercises
we're talking about today, you'll find a PDF in the description down below. Here's the thing
with me. I spent a lot of time working on both ranges of motion with my ankles, I even wore one
of these crazy boots to bed for a long time. In fact, I wore two of them and I was trying to find
the perfect protocol. What I find is that most people online are really confused about what's
limiting or enabling their ankle mobility and they're confused as to how to go about fixing it.
Let's first talk about the anatomy of your ankle movements and to think about where the limiting
factor really is. When you look at your lower leg here, essentially below the knee, we have
somewhere between 11 and 13 muscles, believe it or not. There's some individuality and different
people count differently, but a lot of the muscles are really quite small. We'll talk specifically
today, just for simplicity, about four muscles on the front side, the anterior side, and four
muscles on the back side. I'll get rid of my bones here and we can take a look at my leg. On the
front side of your shin here we have your anterior tibialis. Next to that we have your extensor
digitorum longus. Down below, your extensor hallucis longus. And then a smaller muscle, your
fibular tertius muscle. The bigger ones here, you can feel them, you can palpate them, and some of
them are smaller and a little bit more difficult to feel. But essentially, if you grab the front
side of your leg, these muscles here, when they contract, they pull your big toe, your smaller
toes, and your entire ankle into what's called dorsiflexion. So, they contract to pull your toes
towards your knee and they relax for the other range, that plantar flexion. This sounds obvious,
but it's easy to get confused about what's going on. When we go around to the back side of your
leg, right up from your Achilles tendon is called your soleus muscle. This is a flat, triangular,
wide muscle here down below. And up above, this bulbous muscle is called your gastrocnemius,
and this muscle actually crosses your knee joint. There's also your plantaris muscle up here,
which crosses down below, and then we have your posterior tibialis, which is underneath,
and a smaller muscle as well. So, essentially, four muscles on the front, four on the back,
and then some other miscellaneous smaller muscles underneath. And again, remember, when these
muscles contract, when these muscles contract, what that means is in order to do plantar flexion,
we need this front compartment to lengthen. In order to do dorsiflexion, we need this back
compartment to lengthen, which will become more relevant when we take a look at some postures
here in just a moment. Many people online are convinced that their bony tissues are the limiting
factor and for sure that does happen. It's possible to have bone spurs or osteoarthritis,
you can have osteophytes and actual bone abnormalities or fusions where that would
limit your range. But this is a very, very small percentage of people. For most of us it's those
muscles upstream that are limiting or enabling our ability to move our ankle around. So, how much
mobility is possible? How much gains could you make based on where you're at today? To understand
your potential I think it's helpful to look at the extremes and if you look at weightlifters,
if you look at powerlifters for example, who spend years or even a decade plus with really heavy
weight on their back and squatting full range of motion, often butt-to-heels, even among those
athletes who are very elite, the majority of them are wearing weightlifting shoes, and the average
heel lift is around 2.5 cm, or around an inch. And those are allowed in competition as well,
which tells me that even if elite athletes, some of them, need a heel lift to work around limited
ankle range, probably there's a great deal of bony structure variants that just won't change based on
who you are. However, all of us can re-establish what I call basic range of motion. That means you
can squat bum-to-heels with healthy knees, and hips, and a lower back. That means you can get
up and down from the ground and for sure you can improve your walking and your running gait, so
that you can move with your ankles in a way that's optimal for your knees, and your hips, and your
lower back. Let's take a look at some exercises first to activate the muscles of our lower leg and
then to lengthen those tissues, so we can increase our range of motion. As we discussed previously,
our modern footwear can create a lot of problems down below our knees and one of those is a lack
of mechanoreception, proprioception. We just don't have a really good brain-to-body connection. So,
we'll start off with a quick activation exercise that can help us before we start stretching. Take
a block and put it right between your thighs like this. I'll then turn, I'll use the countertop or
a high chair like I have here, and my front foot, which is my right foot, I will go into
dorsiflexion, so knee over big toe. With my back foot, I'll go into plantar flexion, so on top of
my foot. And then I'll lift up on the ball of my big toe on my right leg and I'll balance here and
breathe. Essentially, what I'm trying to do is activate those muscles and you might feel
some trembling and some shaking, you might feel a little wobbly, squeeze into that block and if
you need support at any time you could use your stool, or your countertop for support. You really
want to fatigue those muscles. Again, because we lack that neuromuscular connection, it can
be hard to stretch that area when everything is dull and has lost sensation because it's been
wrapped in overly padded shoes, in many cases for years or decades plus. Good. Put your hands down,
release your feet, keep your block where it is and we'll switch. So, point your right toes,
your left knee bends over your big toe, and we'll pop up onto the ball of the foot, and again, same
idea here, we want to actively press down your big toe mound, actively press down into the top
of your foot. Steeple your hands at your heart and gaze in front of you on the floor. Some shaking,
some trembling is totally normal. We're looking to fire up and activate those little muscles of our
lower legs before we lengthen them. If you need to, for balance, you could always tap or even hold
on, if you need to. If you don't need to, place your hands steepled at your heart and breathe
here. Good. Place your hands down, place your heels down. From here,
I'll move my stool a little bit forward and we'll move into some calf stretches,
working on the back of our leg. Remember, your soleus is down here and your gastroc is up here.
We stretch our gastroc with a straight leg and our soleus with a bent leg. Here's the setup.
I'll have my right foot forward to start, my left foot back behind me. It's a pyramid stance
and what I'd like you to do is start off with both your legs all the way straight. For now, keep your
back heel down on the ground and you can bend your front knee just a little bit and pause here. Now,
if you look back, most of you will find that your foot has turned to the outside. I'd like you to
make it so that the outer edge of your foot is parallel, so if there were a laser beam coming
out of your big toe on the back foot it would shoot straight forward. Now, you can do this with
your heel up. Take a look but just be careful because that puts a lot more leverage on your
plantar fascia and on your Achilles tendon. So, for that reason, I often do it with my heel down,
because I've had planter fasciitis in the past and I find that this tends to load up my gastroc and
tends to avoid my plantar fascia and my Achilles. My front leg is pretty much useless, which means
if I want to I could even come up on the ball of my foot. And my feet are here just to hold
my body in place, so if it's more comfortable, you could certainly drop down onto your elbows. With a
straight leg on the back, we're prioritizing that bulbous muscle up on top, the gastroc,
and in the second minute we spend in this pose we'll bend our knee, which is coming right now,
and by bending our knee, we'll then move the stretch down. You can see I'm gently bending
my back knee here. I'll move the stretch down below that bulbous gastroc into our soleus muscle,
remembering that those muscles, specifically soleus and gastrocnemius, are largely responsible
for limiting dorsiflexion, knee over big toe. Now, at this point in the pose you should be
at at least a seven out of 10 intensity. If you can, amp up the intensity to about eight out of
10. Really kick back through your heel here as you breathe in through your nose for four
and out through your mouth for eight.
Again, the heel up variation is OK. Just to be conservative, I always do it heel down,
but there's nothing wrong with having your heel up, it just gives you more leverage on those
tissues where you might not want it. Let's switch legs. Shake that one out. Left leg is in front,
right leg's back behind you. We'll start off in that pyramid stance - straight leg. Find
your position, look back, make sure your outer edge of your right foot is parallel with the mat
and your big toe, if there were a laser beam, it would shoot straight ahead. Good. Remember,
my front foot is just here as a placeholder. So, I could pop up on my toes, my arms are just
here for support, so I could drop down onto my forearms, that works just fine as well. You do
whatever you need to do. We'll keep our legs straight to drive the stretch up to the top
of our calf muscle, that gastrocnemius. Let's breathe in through our nose for
four and out for
eight.
Good. Make sure you feel your big toe mound. Make sure you feel your heel back behind you. Good.
We'll move into the second minute of the pose and I would like you to bend your back knee just a
little bit. That'll drive the intensity downward. When you first initially bend your back knee you
might not feel the stretch. You sometimes have to wiggle and shake your hips backwards. There
we go, you have to drive the weight into your heel and into your big toe mound to get that
stretch back into your gastroc. You might need to adjust your front foot by going up on the ball of
your foot or releasing your foot to the ground. Do whatever you need to to drive that stretch
back.
Good. Let's shake out our legs. You can pedal back and forth. Let me get rid of this stool. For our
final pose sit down on your knees, knees together, and your feet apart. You can start off with a
block underneath your bum and your hands on top of your legs. From there, perhaps you move down and
sit a little bit lower on the block and if your knees feel OK and, if your ankles aren't screaming
at you too much, you can potentially free float. That's where you hang over your legs. Maybe
there's a little space under your bum or maybe, maybe your bum drops down towards the floor.
Please be mindful of your knees. You don't have to push very hard to get an intense stretch here
on your ankles and as an added benefit, of course, we're stretching our hip flexors here on the top,
rectus fermoris, and our quadriceps as well. In this posture your objective is simply to relax and
allow your ankles to get a good stretch. You could always do this on top of a bed, or a mattress,
or a soft carpet to ease up that pressure on your ankles a little bit. Unlike other joints of the
body, where we do deep stretching, where we try to aim for seven out of 10 intensity, when we're
working on our ankles we can often take it up to an eight out of 10 intensity, especially in this
plantar flexion range. A couple of things to think about when you're working on your ankle mobility.
You're quite literally working on the foundation for all of your movement, whether that's running,
or jumping, or walking. So, if you're doing anything explosive, lifting heavy weights,
playing pickup basketball, playing pickleball, anything where you're up on the balls of your
feet or sprinting, you need to be really careful. You can dramatically increase the range of motion
of your ankles, but again, remember you're playing around with the foundations of your posture. In
the same way you wouldn't go banging at the foundations of your home without being really
mindful, the same thing is true here. Rather than pushing really hard in a really short period of
time, I'd encourage you to invest a couple of minutes a day, like we just did in these poses,
and take it really gradually, so that you can incorporate your increased mobility in a period
of two to three months, rather than two to three weeks. Inhale through your nose for
four and exhale through your mouth for eight.
Let's just do one more together. Inhale for
four, exhale for
eight. Good. And then slowly move over to your right side, release your legs,
and you can punch out any tension below and above your ankles, and below and above your knees. Hope
you found this video helpful. Remember to grab the PDF download in the description down below. Hit
subscribe to get my next video, which will come out next week. If you'd like to train with me, I
have a daily program of strength, and stretching, and steps. It's called YOGABODY Daily. You can
find all that information at yogabody.com. Thanks for joining me and I'll see you in the next video.