Ankle Dorsiflexion – Get More!

Improving Ankle Dorsiflexion

Firstly, there are many articles/blogs/opinions on this subject, and I don’t suspect their will be anything ground breaking in the next few paragraphs. What I will aim to do is bring together some of my most used/favourite techniques, stretches and ideas into one location.

As we talked about in a previous post, restriction of ankle dorsiflexion (knee over toe movement) can be a significant problem in how the body moves in a variety of activities and is well worth ensuring equal movement side to side exists.

I will split this into a few sections:

1. Stretches
2. Myofascial techniques
3. Mobilisation techniques

Stretches

If a lack of ankle movement is being caused by tight calf muscles then calf stretches will improve this. I would usually suggested a gentle non-aggressive stretch of 30-40 seconds with 4-5 repetitions and 1 minute rests between stretches.

(A) Gastrocnemius stretch

Keep rear leg straight with the heel on the ground.

Lean forward until stretch felt in calf of back leg.

 

 

 

 

 

(B) Soleus Stretch

In stance for calf stretch, bend knee of back leg. Stretch will usually be lower in calf than regular calf stretch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(C) Wall stretch

Put toes of front leg against wall.

1.         Lean hips into wall and hold
2.          push knee into wall and hold

Keep heel on the ground and toes on the wall.

Myofascial Techniques

(A) Foam Roller

With the foam roller or ball spend 1-2 minutes on each muscle working up/down and across. If you find a particularly tender area in the muscle stop and work on this for 10-20 seconds

 

 

 

 

 

 

(B) Spikey/Tennis/squash ball

 

 

(C) More aggressive techniques

 

I’m going to cheat here and link you to another blog – The Calf Smash

There are numerous other methods of increasing ankle movement on this site so have a search, not for acute injuries but generally mobility improvement. Expect it to be sore!

Mobilisation Techniques

 

(A) Band/Rope mobilisation

Attach a band/rope/belt to something solid, then attach it round your ankle.

The movement is knee over toes, the pull of the band affects joint position and can help increase range of joint motion.

Try different angles of pull on the band and see which help

 

 

 

(B) Dynamic stretches

In the knee to wall position we talked about in the previous post take knee to wall until tightness felt, repeat this 10-20 times with the following movements:

1. Knee inside the foot
2. knee over the foot
3. Knee outside the foot

Links:

http://www.mikereinold.com/2013/03/ankle-mobility-exercises-to-improve-dorsiflexion.html

http://www.mobilitywod.com/?s=ankle+mobility