Why Your Ankle Dorsiflexion Sucks
Ankle dorsiflexion is when the shin travels forward over the foot as seen in a squat or a lunge. Adequate dorsiflexion is also needed in the gait cycle. Some compensations you might see when your ankle can’t dorsiflex are as follows:
1) Foot turn out- During the terminal stance phase of gait, your foot stays flat on the ground and your body moves forward over the standing leg. The ankle dorsiflexes,reaching a peak of about 10 degrees right before the heel rises. If you don’t have any dorsiflexion available at the ankle your foot will turn out and lift early. This may cause you to “swing” the leg around or circumduct the leg instead of smooth propulsion forward.
2) Vaulting gait- During the swing phase, you might rise up on the toes of your opposite foot (vault) if you lack dorsiflexion. This what we will see commonly in “toe walkers.”
3) Forward Trunk Lean- You lean your upper body forward to shift your center of mass ahead of the ankle joint, helping with forward propulsion. This is the reason people feel calf tightness when walking or standing for prolonged periods since the calves are in a constant state of contraction to prevent your body tipping forward.
If we look at the classic knee to wall test for dorsiflexion, we want to be able to get our knee to the wall with the foot completely flat and no arch collapse at least a fist distance away
Luckily if you weren’t blessed with mobile ankles and your squat mobility suffers from it, you can certainly improve your dorsiflexion. The tricky part is navigating mechanical blocks at the front of the joint. If you simply feel a stretch in the achilles or soleus muscle when you move into dorsiflexion, then you can treat flexibility training for the ankles like any other muscle. Do some strength at length- pause calf raises, eccentric calf raises, seated calf raises, static stretching, etc. No reason to overcomplicate it there.
Now when you struggle to feel a stretch on the back of the ankle, you’ll need to go around the road block to improve the sensation of dorsiflexion first. Meaning you can actually feel your plantar flexor muscles lengthening. Continuously jamming into more dorsiflexion won’t help you improve mobility it will just further exacerbate impingement in this instance.
This is the main reason people never improve that pinchy sensation at the front of the joint with dorsiflexion. They only think about working directly on the talocrural joint. Yes… This is the main joint responsible for dorsiflexion. But we cannot forget about the subtalar joint (articulation between the heel bone and the ankle) as well as the mid/forefoot. The foot needs to have the variability to raise and drop the arch. The toes (especially the big toe) needs to be able to flex and extend. The entire ankle needs to be able to invert and evert as well. The gastrocnemius and soleus get all the love but there are other deeper plantarflexor muscles which also contribute to inversion/eversion.
You can learn more about the “forgotten other plantarflexors” in this video
Another common reason people don’t make long term progress in range of motion is they only treat ankle mobility as a warm up. This can be said about improving mobility in any region but the ankles in particular are boring to work on. I have found that dedicated 20-30 min sessions a few times a week significantly improve long term progress compared to a 2 minute dorsiflexion stretch before you squat.
How you will structure a mobility plan for your ankles will come down to your assessment findings and whether or not you experience a mechanical block in the front of the joint.
Luckily, my 3 phase supple soles ankle mobility program has you covered in all aspects of ankle mobility. After going through this program you will develop adequate plantarflexion, inversion, eversion, and dorsiflexion of the ankle. The program contains an extensive amount of anatomy and biomechanics knowledge so you know exactly why you are doing the drills prescribed. After going through an assessment, you will know precisely which phase you will need to start on to maximize results. I am truly proud to release this program as there is nothing like it to my knowledge on the market.
Learn more about the program here