When you are performing strength exercises, it is important to take care of your body when doing so. Squats are a common exercise where you can either squat your bodyweight or add weights to your squats to strengthen your glutes.
When squatting, it is vital that you listen to your body so that you aren’t pushing yourself too hard.
Squats can sometimes be a difficult exercise if you are new to them or if you have recently increased your squatting weight.
A big problem amongst people who find squatting difficult is ankle weakness. Ankle weakness can happen for a number of reasons, but there are ways of fixing this problem so that you can complete squats to a perfect standard.
How do you increase ankle mobility for squats? We have all of the information you need to make sure that your body is as strong as possible so that you can continue working out to a high standard.
How Does Ankle Mobility Decrease?
There are a number of reasons why your ankle mobility may have decreased, but the main reasons are joint stiffness, tight muscles, and muscle tension.
All of these can factor into why you feel like your ankle mobility has decreased, but there are ways you can warm up your ankles to feel more comfortable and less tense.
It is important to address these issues if you want to continue working out as you want to make sure that you are looking after your body and that there isn’t any risk of injury or causing permanent damage to your ankles.
How Can I Increase My Ankle Mobility?
There are many exercises that you can do to increase your ankle mobility. You can do these exercises at home so that you can fit them into your daily routine if you have a busy schedule.
Active Isolated Calf Stretch
Active isolated calf stretches allow you to stretch your whole body and focus some of the stretching on your ankles. Firstly, position yourself in a downward dog pose and cross your ankles so that one is behind the other.
Carefully lower your knees to the floor and then bring your knees back up to the original starting position. Make sure that your heels are touching the ground when you are in the starting position as this will help you to feel the stretch.
Continue this position for 10 reps and then repeat with your ankles crossed the other way.
Half-Kneeling Ankle Mobilization
Half-kneeling ankle mobilization allows you to focus solely on strengthening your ankles. Holding either a broom or a chair, position the supporting object an inch away from you. Position yourself half-kneeling where one foot is in a kneeling position and the other leg is stretched out behind you.
Without taking your heel off the ground, bend forward at the ankle. Bend as far forward as you can without causing yourself any pain or discomfort. Only hold the position for a couple of seconds before returning to the starting position.
Repeat this exercise for 10 reps.
Release Tight Muscles
Releasing tight muscles will cause you some discomfort, but it shouldn’t be so painful that you feel like you are suffering. A foam roller will help you to release this tightness, but you can also a barbell.
Place the foam roller or the barbell underneath your calf and move it around until you find a tight spot. Once you have found a tight muscle, rotate your ankle in circles for a couple of seconds.
If you need to add more pressure, place your other foot on top of your leg to apply more pressure to the tight muscle.
Advantages
There are many advantages to increasing your ankle mobility.
Develop You Strength Training
If you increase your ankle strength, you will feel stronger in other aspects of your workout. If your ankles are strong, you will be able to constantly keep developing your strength training as your ankles will be stronger and able to support more weight.
Increasing your ankle mobility will allow you to feel strong when squatting as your ankles will be able to fully support you.
Decrease Risk of Injury
If you keep trying to squat heavier weights without strengthening your ankle mobility, you will become prone to injuries.
If your ankles are unable to support you, you are in more danger of your ankles falling or twisting during squats. If you are squatting with weights, this could be dangerous for you when falling as you don’t want to hurt yourself.
Become Stronger in Yourself
When you perform the ankle strengthening exercises, you are also giving your whole body a stretch.
As most of the exercises require you to use your arms to support yourself, this can help you to feel stronger in yourself as you will be able to support your own body weight without feeling like you are going to lose balance.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, there is no downside to increasing your ankle mobility. You want to be sure that you aren’t overworking your ankles when training, but it is important that your ankles are strong so that you are able to successfully squat and succeed in other aspects of your workout.
By performing the exercises to help increase your ankle mobility, you will be able to see a difference when squatting.
Squatting heavily relies on strength from your lower body, so by making sure that your ankles can support you, you will be able to gradually increase your strength by maintaining the exercises.
It is important to look after your whole body, especially when you exercise. You must be able to listen to your body and cater to your needs.
By increasing your ankle mobility, you are helping the rest of your body become stronger as you will be able to carry out lots of other exercises that you may not have been able to do before.
Helping your ankles become strong enough will allow you to continue to feel stronger in yourself and keep progressing in your workouts.
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