Learn to Load your Ankle Dorsiflexion

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A few weeks ago I posted a video showing a technique you can use to improve your ankle dorsiflexion, which you can find HERE.

The drill shown in that video is a good way to get a temporary increase in your ankle range. A temporary increase.

Most mobility drills give you a temporary increase and not a permanent increase.

That means that a piece of the puzzling is missing.

I have frequently found that the missing component is the athlete, despite having this increased range of motion, doesn't know how to access it under load.

One way to teach yourself and your brain how to access that is by working through the new range in a loaded way, as show in the video.

For this I use a negative calf raise, except once my foot is parallel to the ground, I bend my knee 20 degrees or more to take tension off the gastroc muscles of the calf to allow my ankle to get into more dorsiflexion.

Once I am descending, I think about pulling myself deeper in the joint position. I am not holding the bottom as a passive stretch, I am actively trying to pull myself deeper and control the positions.

If you always seem to need to do ankle mobility drills over and over and over again, try incorporating some loaded range of motion drills to keep access to these positions.

Thanks for reading!

-Ryan