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Episode #55: Using the Low Bar Back Squat to Address Ankle Mobility Deficits
If you’re a weightlifter or powerlifter you may be wondering if your ankle mobility is affecting your squat depth and that it’s something to address before getting under the barbell. For good reason, the internet has been raging about ankle mobility being a major cause of squat depth issues for the last few years. But we’ll argue that your ankle mobility isn’t affecting your squat.
Most people have depth issues related to:
Poor coaching
Poor body awareness
The load simply being too heavy
The leg being in a poor position to allow proper depth
If you can do the following, you have the ankle range of motion to squat to depth:
✅Walk normally, comfortably, without an atypical gait pattern
✅Go up and down normal height stairs
✅Put your feet flat when sitting on a normal-to-low toilet
In the absence of a massive injury, prolonged immobilization of the ankle, or neurological condition affecting tone, the majority of people have enough range of motion to squat to depth without ankle mobility (or hamstring length, since I know you’re thinking that too) causing the issue.
In this episode of the PRS Podcast, Clinical Coach Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC shares her own story of an ankle mobility deficit that didn’t affect her squat. In fact, most people have asymmetries in size and range of motion from side to side and it’s considered normal and generally does not affect barbell training and therefore doesn’t need to be addressed.
However, Dr. Rori shares her ankle mobility deficit story to help you see when and why you might address it and what the best exercises are to address ankle mobility. The ironic thing is that she decided to address her ankle mobility issue because of pain from running and used the squat to address it. Funny how that is the opposite of what most people think.
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Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Progressive Rehab & Strength podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Alyssa Haveson, and I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Rori Alter. Today I will be interviewing Rori on her history of ankle mobility, ankle issues, and how she's dealt with that. We really want to decrease the fear that people have about ankle mobility and issues, especially while they're squatting. Through sharing your story, our goal here is to hopefully decrease that fear and let people know that it's okay to have asymmetries, unilateral ankle mobility, limited ankle mobility on one side, and still barbell train. We'll talk about how you discovered that you were having an issue, what you did about it, and how you're doing now. First, my personal belief about ankle mobility and squatting is really that I think that the ankle and ankle mobility is often blamed for something that isn't related to the ankle. Whether or not there is a deficit in ankle mobility, you can usually still squat just fine. We really don't need to be stepping away from the barbell to address ankle mobility to then get back under the bar. If there really, truly is a deficit in ankle mobility that is affecting someone's ability to squat below parallel, the best thing that they can do is load their body and squat through the greatest available range of motion that they have to improve their mobility and actually use those tissues and load them.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:01:50] Yeah. I'm going to talk about how I changed my motor pattern, so when we have any type of limitation, we kind of make compensations or we develop a motor pattern that accommodates that limitation. I had to take a very mental approach to changing my ankle mobility, and that's really what I'm going to talk about today is that it wasn't that I incorporated all these ankle mobility exercises. I literally used the squat and I used my brain and my daily movements to address and lengthen the tissues in my ankle in order to gain more range of motion. Our belief here at PRS, and I think a lot of the more progressive physical therapists out there will say that blind ankle mobility exercises that aren't followed up closely with strengthening through the full available range of motion after you've done those mobility exercises aren't going to help you. The only way to change the tissue is to load it, because if we could change our mobility and our tissue length that easily, we'd be like spaghetti, you know, like Stretch Armstrong. I'm dating myself here. But anyway, I just wanted to share this story during the foot and ankle month because like we talked about in the functional anatomy episode and we'll have another episode on foot and ankle injuries and how they don't happen in training. It's very uncommon to experience an injury to the foot or ankle in training, like dropping a weight on your toe. That's a common one, but that's a weightlifting injury, but it's not even common. And then also tripping over the platform and rolling your ankle or something like that. They're not even directly related to lifting. They're just kind of weight room accidents, you know?
Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: [00:04:19] Watch where you put your feet and what you put on your feet.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:04:22] What was my point? I forget my point.
Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: [00:04:34] It's not common to have foot and ankle injuries from this sport, but sometimes we might feel like they're affecting our lifting. Whether or not that is truly what's affecting our lifting is another question. Sometimes it might be, but how we deal with it? We don't necessarily need to step away from the bar, but let's talk about you and let's backtrack and go back to the beginning of your ankle.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC: [00:04:56] Well, it started with my mom and my dad.
Dr. Alyssa Haveson, PT, PRSCC: [00:05:02] And after that, when did you first notice you had an ankle mobility deficit, and was it affecting you in any way at that time?