Transform Your Ankle Mobility with THIS!

did you know your ankle Mobility rapidly declines with age and Ankle Mobility is the foundation of human movement from walking and running to squatting and jumping nearly every lower body activity involves ankle mobility and unfortunately poor ankle Mobility can lead to compensations in other joints potentially causing issues like knee pain hip dysfunction and even lower back problems so keeping those ankles flexible and strong is a gain changer for your overall well-being so if you wobble all over the place in yoga class if your Romanian deadlifts resemble Bambi this video is for you so today I'm going to help you discover if your ankle Mobility needs work and guide you through some life-changing ankle Mobility movements so that you can defy aging better than Paul rud or JLo herself fun fact there are actually 12 muscles that cross your ankle joint 12 so it's no wonder that most of us struggle with tight ankles the good good news is you don't need to know the complex names of all 12 of these muscles to do something about them but it is super helpful to know about just three of them you have your calf muscles on the back of the leg which are made up of the gastrus and the Solus there is a hugely important difference between the two when it comes to improving your ankle Mobility which I'll get to in just a second and then you also have your tibialis anterior on the front of the leg kind of like your shin muscle and simply p the flexibility of the muscles on the front determine how much we can point the foot ballerinas have amazing Mobility here and the flexibility of the muscles on the back of the leg determine how much we can dorsy Flex the foot which is generally the more functional range of motion which we use for walking running squatting and just getting around in everyday life but how do you know if you have good ankle Mobility or not try this simple little wall test to assess your own ankle Mobility come to face the wall and come into a tall kneeling position with your toes right up against the wall you want to imagine a straight line that runs through your big toe through the midpoint of your heel and that line points directly at the wall for most people this means their foot will be ever so slightly turned outward then whilst keeping your heel firmly planted allow yourself to Lunge forwards to see if you can tap the wall with your knee then you want to progressively move your foot a little bit back away from the wall and continue to test your range to see if the knee can touch the wall without the heel leaving the flooor it's considered a good range of ankle Mobility if you can fit one full hand between the wall and your toes and still touch the wall with your knee do you pass the one hand test let me know in the comments below so perhaps your ankle Mobility needs a little bit of work let's now get into my four favorite ankle Mobility exercises first up grab a resistance band and a yoga block or alternatively just something that you can elevate your foot up onto secure the band around something sturdy low down towards the floor and then Loop it around the front of your ankle so now when you step your foot up onto the block the band is pulling your ankle down and back and essentially keeping your heel firmly grounded whilst assisting the movement of the bones within the joint here from there you're going to Lunge your knee forwards just like in the mobility test exercise that we've just done sending the knee as far past the toes as possible you could even add a weight for this one as those 12 ankle muscles are pretty damn strong and your body weight often isn't demanding enough to bring about much change I recommend starting with Dynamic movements for eight repetitions before ending with a passive hold for around 20 seconds this is a great exercise for the Solus muscle which if you remember I mentioned is one of the calf muscles but remember that hugely important difference between the Cal muscles that I mentioned the Solus muscle starts on the back of the shin bone and runs down to the heel so it crosses just the ankle joint but the gastric nemus starts on the back of the thigh bone and runs down to the heel so it crosses the ankle and the knee so if your knee is bent the gastrus muscle is never getting fully stretched you need to add Mobility drills with a straight leg also so next up grab yourself either a couple of sturdy yoga blocks or perhaps the bottom stair of the staircase I live in an apartment with no stairs so this is my best option stand on the elevated surface with just the balls of your feet so that your heels hang off the back I 100% recommend being near something to hold on to for stability as the balance is super tricky here and you don't want to let that balance reduce the effectiveness of the exercise so from there keeping your legs straight allow your heels to drop as low as possible searching out a stretch along the whole back line of that calf then simply perform a cal raise by raising as high up onto the balls of the feet as possible before slowly lowering back to the start position with complete control I recommend taking 15 Dynamic repetitions before holding the bottom stretched position for around 20 to 30 seconds and you can intensify the stretch if you want to by leaning your body weight forwards there's one element of ankle Mobility that seems to be very much ignored in most of the content I see online and is probably the most valuable one for injury prevention but before we get to that one let's target that third muscle that we've already covered the tibialis anterior so stand a short distance away from the wall with your feet hip distance apart before leaning back to rest against the wall from there simply lift your feet slowly upward to point towards the ceiling before slowly lowering them back down these are called tibialis raises and the further away from the wall that you are standing the harder these become so adjust accordingly for your abilities and aim for around 15 repetitions and then finally we've looked at the muscles around the front and the back of the ankle and improving our mobility in that plane of motion but when it comes to instability that causes the majority of injury in regular Hobbies such as walking running yoga or just gym exercises it's the lateral plane of motion that is the biggest culprit people usually phrase injuries here as going over on their ankle so if you're going to give some energy to improving your ankle Mobility you absolutely should not ignore mobilizing the sides of the ankle because strengthening the structures here might just be what saves you from an ankle sprain when your foot lands awkwardly against the ground so for this one you only need a resistance band Loop it back around something sturdy and then sit on the floor hook it around your foot and Scoot yourself back to bring a good amount of tension into the band and then the technical name for the movement that you're going to do is ankle ersion and inversion but the fancy name doesn't matter what I find more helpful is to think of drawing a rainbow shape with the ball of my foot or thinking about pushing the outside edge of my foot away from me followed by the Inside Edge I recommend taking 20 repetitions in total and don't forget to do both sides and as I mentioned earlier your ankle Mobility has a direct effect on other areas of the body such as the knees the hips and the lower back so if you also struggle with tight hips go and check out this video next for some amazing hip mobility drills to solve that for you too

Channel: Livinleggings

Views: 48,167

Keywords: liv in leggings, Yoga classes, Yoga lessons, yoga with liv, ankle mobility, ankle exercises, ankle flexibility, ankle mobility workout, ankle mobility drills, ankle mobility test, ankle mobility drill, ankle mobility routines, ankle mobility for squats

Id: 1uQU0BUKT1Q

Length: 7min 31sec (451 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 30 2024