What's up, guys? Jake Hutton from Fitness Culture. So we've been getting a lot of requests for
an ankle mobility video, so today I'm gonna go over just a couple routines that I've
found to be the most effective ankle mobility routines. You can knock them out
really quick before any leg day, and really, your ankle is where it's gonna
start. If you have mobility issues, for a lot of people the ankle is causing
a lot of the problems. So the first thing we're gonna do is show you a good way to
test your ankle mobility, see where it's at, and then we'll get into the routines.
Alright guys, we're gonna be testing the ankle mobility now. The way that I like
to do it, is just a super simple wall test. You basically split your arch away from
the wall, and then you're gonna see if you can get your knee to the wall
without your heel coming up. Instead of doing it from a standing position,
because a lot of the times when you test somebody it's really hard to get there from
just sitting back and basically pushing their knee to the wall,
that's going to make it a little bit easier, and that's not really the same as,
we want to increase your ankle mobility a lot of the time from a lunge position
or for your squat. And so I like to test it from the bottom of a lunge.
Sunny's gonna set up on the wall, and she's gonna be testing her left leg on this one,
so she'll put her right foot toe against the wall, and from there she's
basically gonna take the big toe of her other foot and kind of go right down the
middle of her arch, and just slide a little bit to the front of the arch here, and
then from there she's gonna step back into a lunge position, keep her core tight,
and then the goal here is gonna be to drive her knee into the wall,
keeping her heel down the entire time. It's a super simple way to test your
ankle mobility. It's not going to be perfect, but it'll give you an idea of
your ankle health and how much mobility that you do have. And even if you do pass
the test, then it's still going to be good to work on your ankle mobility.
So now we're going to get into the routines. Alright, so the first part of both of our
routines today is gonna start with some soft tissue mobilization. And the things
that we're going to focus on today are, first we're gonna roll our foot out,
because if you have tight muscles in the bottom of your feet or tight fascia in the
bottom of your feet, you're gonna have a hard time with ankle mobility, and a lot
of people don't address this. So we always start off by rolling out
our foot, mobilizing the foot usually with a lacrosse ball because it's super
simple, or you can even use the bar of a barbell. But today we'll show you the
lacrosse ball. And then we're gonna be rolling out basically our anterior
tibialis or the front of your shin, and then our calf muscles too, so we'll hit
the whole area, and then we'll get into the stretching portion of this routine.
Alright, so this is pretty simple what
we're gonna do right now. We just have a little lacrosse ball right here.
Like I said, you can use a barbell, even a tennis ball. A lacrosse ball
just gets into it pretty good. And all you're gonna do is stand on the lacrosse
ball and basically take as much pain as you can handle. So you can just stand.
Sunny's balancing on our own right now, but I usually just sit by a
rack or grab a box so I can balance, and then just really roll back and forth.
You can go side to side a little bit, and then just roll back and forth and try to
open up your foot a little. So just spend about 30 seconds to a minute on each
foot here, and just really roll it out and open up that tissue a little bit.
The next thing we got is going to be a roller routine. So you can actually
do this on a barbell as well. Sometimes I'll just throw some bumper
plates on a barbell to lift it off the ground a little bit, and then
it'll get a little bit deeper. I mean, we're using a PVC pipe. So you can go
foam roller, if it's not getting really in there you can go PVC, which I like to use,
or you could also move to a barbell. But all we're gonna be doing here is cross
one foot over the other and then basically we'll just roll back and forth.
Spend one to two minutes on each calf, and then you can also kind of go back
and forth. So if you find a spot while you're rolling that feels pretty tight
you can just go back and forth and kind of work some pressure into it.
Now we're gonna flip over and we're gonna hit the anterior side of the lower leg.
This one's a little bit more painful. Basically you can just crack the knee,
and put your full body weight on it, and just roll back and forth like that.
Same thing, a minute or two on each leg, just to open it up, and then when you're
finished with the front of your leg then we're gonna move on to the actual
mobility part of this routine. So now we're gonna get into the mobility section.
So you're gonna need a band, so we've attached the band
to the bottom of a rack, and then we have these nice soft sandbags,
but I usually use a plate on this too, but the sandbag is gonna be a lot more comfortable,
we're gonna be using this to lock your foot into place. So what you're
gonna do is set up with the band right at the bottom of your Achilles, where it
attaches right into your heel right here, and then you're gonna step back and get
as much tension as you can on the band. So really pull back, get some tension,
and then we're gonna use the sandbag to lock her foot into place right here, and then
from there she'll sit back and then work on straightening your knee. We'll spend
some time, really spend some time down there, stretch it five count.
That'll help loosen it up. It's obviously gonna mobilize the anterior side of your
lower leg here. And by using the band you're gonna create some space here
in the ankle and allow you to really push and open that up a little bit more.
I usually just do about ten reps. So I'll sit back, push down, try to
straighten my leg as much as possible, five-second count,
and then come back. So next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna flip
around and go the other way. So what Sunny's gonna do, same band, we're gonna
basically set it at the bottom of your ankle right here,
but don't go right into the crease, get it above it a little bit. She's gonna step
forward and get as much tension as possible, and then from there she's gonna
sit down into a lunge, and basically just push forward and just let it stretch her out.
So she's gonna push forward as much as possible. An easier way to do this as well
is just to grab that same weight and put it on your leg, and let that weight push
you into position. So you're gonna sit here for about a minute or two on each
leg as well. So the final part of this routine, we usually like to do a
little bit of an activation, so actually work your muscle through full range of
motion now that we've opened it up, and for this one we've chosen a seated
calf raise. You can also do a single leg calf raise, double leg, any calf raise works.
But seated is nice because, the same thing, it's more how you're gonna be in a
squat position. So you're gonna come up, and just basically the goal here
is gonna be let it stretch you for a one to two count at the bottom, one, two,
and then squeeze it at the top as high as you can get.
Then back down squeeze, one, two, let's stretch you out,
and then squeeze it all the way up. About 15 reps for this movement.
The second routine is probably my favorite ankle mobility routine because it's super
dynamic, it's just gonna roll out your feet, it's gonna open up your ankles,
and it's really gonna work your foot strength as well. I learned this one
from Sport Science Lab guys when I was in college, because I was looking for
some ways to increase my ankle mobility. So the first thing you're gonna do, we're
just gonna do 20 reps of each exercise. And for this one
you're gonna need a couple PVC pipes or broomsticks, and then some foam rollers,
and then from there we're gonna come all the way in, really try to lock
your toe into the roller, touch the ground here, and then really squeeze
your toe into the roller here, try to get your heels together, and then back out.
That's one rep. The next movement we're gonna flip them around, and we're going
to do opposite that. So we're going to stretch out, lock that big toe into the
roller, and then come back in. 20 reps there. In and out is one rep. Once we're
down there, we're going to flip to the side. You're gonna get a nice wide stance,
bring the rollers together here, try to get that front ankle to stretch
as possible, lock that toe into the front here,
squeeze it down, and then touch that toe right here, and then back.
You're gonna press forward here as much as you can, and then lock your back toe into the
roller here. So 20 reps here in and out is 1 rep, and then obviously we're gonna
switch and get both sides. So 20 reps there, and then once
you're done there we're just gonna finish up with some walking on the roller.
Just roll through your feet, squeeze your toes into the roller,
you'll walk forward for 20 total steps, really work on pressing through, that toe to the
ground when you're rolling, and then you're gonna come back. Squeeze that
big toe into the roller every time on the way back. So this one's more of a routine
that's really good for everyday use. You can come in, pop your shoes off,
it's gonna help warm your groin up and get you going a little bit. It doesn't
take very long, and it kind of gives you everything there. I usually still will roll
out my foot on the lacrosse ball just to get some good work there, and then roll out,
same roller routine for the lower leg, and then just hop right into this.
So 20 reps on each movement and then you'll be done for that for the day.
All right guys, that wraps it up for today's video on ankle mobility. Obviously there's a
thousand more ankle mobility routines out there, but these are just two of my
favorites that you can get in, get out, and get them done quickly. I hope it
helps you guys out. If it does please let me know in the comments, and let me know
what you what you want me to cover next. Thank you.