Ankle mobility issues are one of the most common limitations when trying to achieve perfect squat form. If you know you have these issues, the 5 best ankle mobility exercises for squats will help you improve your ankles for safer and more satisfying workouts.
Or, if you think you have mobility issues with your ankles and they’re impeding your squats, keep reading and learn how to test whether this really is an issue.
Squat University says that when getting into a good deep squat, you must move your knee forward and beyond your big toe. This movement requires good ankle mobility. If you have limitations in that area, your chest will fall forward. If this happens when you’re holding a heavy load, you could be looking at a failed lift at best, and an injury at worst.
Find out what you can do to increase ankle mobility below.
The Top 5 Ankle Mobility Exercises for Squats
- Banded joint mobilizations
- Bench ankle stretch
- Goblet squat stretch
- Foam rolling calf muscle
- Banded ankle dorsiflexion
Banded Joint Mobilizations
How it helps
According to Squat University, the band you use to perform banded joint mobilizations helps to improve your ankle joint’s natural gliding. You also improve your ankle’s natural joint movement by improving the talus bone’s gliding backward against your tibia (long shin bone). This is a good banded mobilization exercise to start with if you want to improve your stiff ankles for better squats.
How to do banded joint mobilizations
- Place a 2.5- to 3-inch resistance band around a rig.
- Wrap the band around the top of your ankle (talus bone).
- Elevate your foot slightly by placing it on a weight, low block, or weighted plate.
- Bend your knee, resting your other knee on the floor, with that foot raised and your toes on the floor.
- Put your hand on your thigh just above the knee of your leg you’re exercising and drive your knee forward beyond your big toe.
- Return to the starting position.
Do 20 reps, holding each for three seconds.
Here’s a helpful tutorial:
Bench Ankle Stretch
How it helps
When you drive your knee beyond your toe in a bench ankle stretch, you get a more intense stretch in your calf’s soleus muscle than you do in your gastrocnemius (the large calf muscle). The soleus often is one of the main muscles that limit depth when squatting. In addition to helping correct limited ankle mobility, bench ankle stretches gradually stretch your soleus muscles, giving you greater depth when squatting.
How to do a bench ankle stretch
- Place your foot flat on a bench or a box.
- Extend your other leg behind you, placing your toes flat on the floor.
- Move forward, driving your knee beyond your toe and holding that position.
- You can hold the bench or box with both hands and use your chest to pull down for a really intense, good stretch.
Try tailoring the duration of your stretches by holding them for between 10 seconds and one minute.
Here’s a helpful tutorial:
Goblet Squat Stretch
How it helps
The goblet squat stretch is a modified squat variation that can improve your ankle dorsiflexion and overall flexibility. Goblet ankle mobility squats use your body weight and the weight of a kettlebell or dumbbell to place tension on your ankles. As you do this exercise for ankle mobility, you move through a whole range of motion, working all your lower body’s major muscle groups, including your calves, hamstrings, glutes, and quadriceps.
Goblet squats also engage your core, your back’s spinal erectors, your forearms, and to a lesser degree, your upper back and shoulders. As a result, you improve ankle mobility and develop a better squat.
How to do a goblet squat stretch
- Use both hands to hold a kettlebell by the handle.
- Position your feet shoulder-width apart, with your feet slightly pointing outward.
- Lower your body into a squat position, opening your legs slightly so that the weight falls in the middle.
- Rest your forearms on your thighs and start rocking back and forth without losing your balance to increase the tension on your ankles. Do this for a few seconds.
- Return to the starting position and repeat the exercise.
A variation on goblet squats is to place the kettlebell or dumbbell on top of one knee instead of rocking back and forth when you’re in the squat position. Keep the weight in that position for a few seconds while increasing tension on that ankle before moving the weight to the other knee for a few seconds. Come back up and repeat the exercise.
Here’s a helpful tutorial:
Foam Rolling Calf Muscle
How it helps
Tight calf muscles are one of the potential causes of limited mobility in the ankle joint. Foam rolling calf muscle exercises are a common form of mobilizing soft tissue. Rather than breaking anything up, the stimulus reduces tension in your calf muscles and fascia. This happens when you apply pressure to your calf muscles, which sends a message to your central nervous system to reduce tension in that area.
The calf foam principle is the same as when physical therapists apply pressure to a trigger point or use instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilization (Graston) to reduce soft tissue restrictions or spasms. You can do calf foam rolling to warm up before or cool down after your workouts.
How to foam roll your calf muscle
- Sit on the floor with your legs outstretched.
- Place your hands palm-down on the floor behind you.
- Bend one leg, placing your foot flat on the floor. Bend the other knee slightly and position the foam roller under that leg perpendicularly.
- Supporting yourself with your foot placed flat on the floor and with your hands, lift your body off the floor.
- Roll up the entirety of your calf, from behind your heel to behind your knee, 3 to 5 times. Alternatively, place the foam roller under both legs, perpendicular to them.
- Start rolling from your Achilles tendon behind your heel and continue slowly up the back of your calf.
Stop at any sore spots (also known as knots) and hold for between 30 seconds and 1 minute until the knot ‘dissolves’ under the roller before continuing up your calf.
Here’s a helpful tutorial:
Banded Ankle Dorsiflexion
How it helps
Poor ankle dorsiflexion mobility can affect your ankles, knees, and hips, resulting in injuries. If you have poor dorsiflexion, you absorb more of the forces that go through your body.
Good dorsiflexion mobility allows your ankle to take more force, placing less stress on your knees and hips. By improving the dorsiflexion of your ankles with banded mobilization exercises, you can make deep squats that are more effective.
How to do a banded ankle dorsiflexion
You will need a belt or a resistance band for this band mobilization exercise.
- Sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you.
- Wrap the band around one forefoot (the talus bone) and attach the other end to a fixed point (such as a rig or table leg) in front of your foot.
- Bend your other leg, placing your foot against the thigh of your extended leg.
- Place your hands flat on the floor behind you. Point the foot with the band away from yourself (toward the band’s anchor) and then slowly dorsiflex by pulling your foot up so your toes point to the ceiling.
Do 3 sets of 10 flexes on each foot.
Here’s a helpful tutorial:
Why Poor Ankle Mobility Limits Squat Depth
As shown in the video above, a lack of flexibility in the ankles can cause athletes to lean too far forward, lose balance, or simply not achieve proper depth when squatting. Ankle mobility determines how far forward the knee can travel and how upright the torso needs to remain during the squat.
Poor ankle mobility can be caused by everyday stress. Little things like wearing high heels or past injuries such as an ankle sprain can cause issues you don’t see, always pick up on, or think will affect a deep squat. If you have stiff ankles, they could interfere with your range of motion when doing squats.
This is most noticeable when you’re at the bottom of a squat. If you don’t have a good motion range in this joint, all the glute strength in the world won’t get you low, and keep your heels on the floor.
When you squat, you first push your hips back and then you bend your knees, lowering your buttocks toward the floor. As this happens, your center of balance shifts back, so you need to stabilize your lower legs to keep your body upright. When you’re at the bottom of the squat, you need to use ankle dorsiflexion to keep your feet flat on the floor.
If poor ankle mobility means they can’t hinge enough when you’re doing your squat workouts, you’ll probably need to lift your heels off the floor so you can get lower—which you should avoid doing.
How to Know if Your Ankle Mobility is an Issue
If you’re having difficulty keeping your feet on the floor or feel a pinching sensation when getting into squats, you might wonder if your ankle mobility is an issue. While ankle injuries and conditions can affect mobility, you may simply need to focus a bit more on this area of your body during your workouts, as it’s been largely ignored.
Use the following methods to test the mobility of your ankle and to measure the degrees of your ankle dorsiflexion.
Knee-to-Wall Test
Some physical therapists recommend the knee-to-wall test (AKA the dorsiflexion lunge test) to check your ankle mobility.
Get into a kneeling lunge position a few centimeters away from a wall. Test the maximum foot-to-wall distance you can achieve while keeping your knee in contact with the wall and keeping your heel flat on the ground.
A 10-15cm distance is normal. You need an improvement of at least 2cm to rule out measurement errors. Anterior pain indicates joint restriction, and posterior pain indicates soft tissue tension.
Shown here:
Use an iPhone to Measure Degrees of Ankle Dorsiflexion
If you have an iPhone, you can use it to measure your degrees of ankle dorsiflexion.
Get into a kneeling lunge position and open the measure app on your iPhone. Line up the line in the app with your shin. When you’ve lined it up perfectly, tap the screen.
Move forward slowly, keeping the phone lined up with your shin and keeping your heel flat on the floor. Measure how far forward you can go before your heel lifts up.
People with good ankle mobility, ankle joint range of motion, joint stability, and at least 15-20° of dorsiflexion can safely do squats with a full or near-full range of motion.
As exhibited here:
Squat With the Heels on a Plate
Some individuals squat with their heels on small plates because it changes their technique. By elevating their heels, their knees push further forward beyond their big, second, or third toe. The result is a deeper squat with a more upright chest.
If squatting with heels raised on a plate immediately helps you to achieve a deeper squat, then ankle mobility is likely a limiting factor in your squat.
As exhibited here:
Ankle flexibility and mobility majorly affect how you perform in a squat workout. With the right mobility work, you can reach a certain point where a deep squat is comfortable, and even deep split squats aren’t out of reach.
It’s simple. Do the work, and you’ll improve your ankle mobility!
