If there's one spot on the body I could pick to have great flexibility, it'd probably be the ankles. Why? The ankles are the number one shock absorber in your body. You will without a doubt drastically increase your risk of injury by having decreased ankle flexibility during activities like running, jumping, squats or truly anything.
But it's a specific kind of flexibility called dorsiflexion that really matters. Dorsiflexion is a fancy way of describing how your foot moves forward and backward at your ankle. If you can really picture it, compare how far your foot can moves forward while running to how much a spring on a shock absorber compresses. The higher the range of motion, the more shock absorption there is = the less stress on your lower body.
Now my fear is that people will read this and think, well I've sprained my ankles a million times so I'm sure the range of motion is fine. Unfortunately that's probably not true. Someone like me, who has sprained my ankles a bunch of time, ends up having more flexibility (laxity we'd really call it) of the side to side motion of my ankles, which isn't helpful, and tighter from front to back. So because of that my ankle range of motion (in dorsiflexion) is decreased. Bottom line = I have decreased shock absorption so when I run a Turkey Trot (5k) which I alluded to in my last post, I'm left with sore calves. And if I ran 30-40 miles/per week like some of my patients, I would very quickly develop a lower body overuse injury.
So what to do?
Come see me! Lol. Or at least get evaluated by a sports medicine professional to see if there are any joint fixations or scar tissue that might be leaving your ankles tighter than they need to be.
There are also corrective exercises that can be done by yourself to increase your ankle dorsiflexion range of motion. Such as:
1) Half-Kneeling (front foot) Ankle Mobilizations
2) Standing Split Stance Ankle Mobilizations
I'd recommend doing a 30 second warm up of one of these before everything your active.
To check out more visit www.Mobility-4Life.com
4 comments:
Great info, Doc! Something I've noticed in many of my patients, and in myself, is motion restriction involving the soleus. Everybody knows about calf stretches, but we often neglect the soleus which can hamper ankle dorisflexion just as much as the gastroc. Have you noticed this, as well?
Yes Jason, i too have noticed that. For ten points let me quiz you. What do you call the combination of the gastrocs and the soleus together as one? The answer is not 'the calf' either. Whoever answers this one will be in my good graces the rest of the day.
Triceps surae? Although technically tri meaning 3 muscles - gastrocnemius, soleus and plantaris, which is a small vestigial muscle. The tendons of all three muscles combine to make up the Achilles' tendon. I came across your page while looking for ways to loosen my stiff ankles. My main problems seem to be with dorsiflexion, and I quite often feel tightness in soleus but it's so hard to stretch!
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