Tight calves and shit squats?
The squat is a popular strength exercise, second only in popularity to the deadlift. However, many adults have trouble performing full range of motion "ass-to-grass" squats because they have tight calves, which limit ankle dorsiflexion.
Not only does this affect our squats, but it also affects lunges, step-ups, pistol squats, and even our forward fold (pike and pancake) flexibility.
If you lack the ankle flexibility to move your knees over your toes when squatting, you will be forced to hinge at the hips so you don't fall backwards. This hip hinge changes the mechanics of the squat, making it more like a good morning, which places more emphasis on the posterior chain and decreases quad strength and hypertrophy gains.
A common workaround is to elevate the heel, which allows us to squat deeper, keep the torso more upright, and target the quads. It stops us from falling over backwards. But it won't fix your tight ankles.
Some "online experts" warn against allowing the knees to move forward of the toes during a squat, claiming it is dangerous. However, this is not true.
It is worth noting that Olympic lifters who solely perform full squats with heavy weights, have the lowest incidence of knee and lower back problems among all track and field athletes.
And guess what?
They push their knee over their toes.
You will need flexible ankles if you want to squat pain-free and increase body strength, speed and power.
How flexible?
We can use the following ankle dorsiflexion test to measure and monitor ankle dorsiflexion flexibility.
At a minimum, you want to have the ability to push your knee over the vertical line of your toes. If you can't achieve this, stop squats and focus your lower body training on unilateral movements like front foot elevated split squats, single leg calf raises, step-ups, and a tone of calf stretches (we will get to these in a minute).
If you can push your knee over your toe, you can still train all of these movements to help increase ankle dorsiflexion. You can also train squats, but you might need to elevate your heels to squat deep with good form.
Having more ankle dorsiflexion will improve the form of many lower-body exercises. This is important because strength is only gained in the range of motion trained. If you're not going into a certain range of motion, you're never going to build strength in that range of motion, which means you're leaving performance on the table and increasing the chance of injury.
Side note: If you can do full-depth pistol squats with good form, you've probably got a decent level of ankle dorsiflexion. I like using the pistol squat as a milestone for lower body strength, balance, and flexibility because it covers everything.
Why single leg exercise and not squats?
It's not uncommon to have one ankle tighter than the other. The human body isn't symmetrical, but we want to do our best to keep the asymmetries as small as possible for structural balance purposes.
An imbalance in ankle dorsiflexion can impact your squatting form in terms of depth and cause some people to rotate or shift their weight over to one side.
Even though you might have trouble squatting below parallel, chances are you can achieve higher hip and knee flexion levels in single-leg movements like front-foot elevated split squats.
Choosing movements that allow you to move into a deeper range of motion will deliver significantly more strength and flexibility gains than doing partial rep squats.
Squats are an easy movement to cheat in terms of depth.
You don't need to look far to find people doing heavy partial rep squats.
It's a shame because full-range-of-motion squats are fantastic for building strong, flexible ankles, knees and hips.
Those reading this post are here to improve their squat and reap the rewards.
How to improve ankle dorsiflexion and fix a shit squat?
Lengthen and strengthen!
The best thing to do is to focus on lengthening and strengthening the muscles of the feet and ankles.
A common misconception that many adults have is that strength training shortens a muscle and can cause it to be tight.
Muscles that feel “tight” do not always need stretching. Sometimes, a muscle is tight because it's protecting another muscle that is in pain, injured, or weak.
Side note: If you have a pre-existing lower body injury (foot, ankle, knee or hip), consider fixing this first.
Short muscles usually require flexibility training.
Tight muscles are often weak muscles or muscles that are being overworked (i.e. overworked through training or overworked constantly protecting another muscle).
Traditionally, we would think of muscles like a rubber band that could be stretched or loosened. We now know that the nervous system controls our flexibility much more than we thought.
A lack of flexibility can be caused by our nerves “putting the brakes on” to protect our tissues from the perceived danger.
This is part of our body’s natural protective mechanism.
Our muscles’ receptors provide feedback to our nervous system and constantly drive a certain amount of tension that resists excessive lengthening.
Our muscle’s ability to produce force decreases as we move close to our end ranges of motion. Therefore, could a lack of flexibility be a lack of strength in the range?
If we're not strong enough to move into a specific range of motions, our nervous system puts the breaks on.
One way to override this protective mechanism is strength training. By progressively strengthening a muscle, we can teach the nervous system to "release the brakes" and allow the muscle to move into a new range of motion.
To improve your ankle dorsiflexion, do more calf raises and emphasise the lengthened position by pausing at the bottom of each rep.
When performing calf raises, you have a few key options to play with:
Unilateral or Bilateral Calf Raises:
Most people go for bilateral (both ankles simultaneously) because it saves time. But, as I mentioned above, we often have strength and flexibility imbalances in our calf muscles.
For this reason, it's best to do unilateral calf raises until you've ironed out the imbalance as much as possible.
We can often lift more weight in bilateral movements, allowing us to overload the muscles to make them bigger and stronger. So, once you've ironed out the imbalances, you can use bilateral calf raises.
Straight Leg or Bent-Knee Calf Raises:
Straight-leg calf raises target more of the gastrocnemius (upper calf muscle), while bent-knee calf raises target more of the soleus (lower calf muscle).
The gastrocnemius and the soleus come together above the heel and form the achilles tendon. You could argue that they are one muscle with two separate heads and a single insertion.
The achilles tendon wraps around the back of the ankles and inserts on the bottom of the foot. Tightness in the achilles tendon limits ankle dorsiflexion.
It’s, therefore important to train both straight-leg and bent-knee calf raises to maximise ankle flexibility.
Foot Position
Feet straight, toes turned out, or even toes turned in are all valid positions for performing calf raises and stretches. By changing the position of the foot, you can target slightly different muscle fibres in the calves.
For some people, the inner muscle fibres of the calves can be tighter. For others, it’s the outer fibres of the calves. It is best to explore all three-foot positions to see what offers the best stretch.
Foot Strength
Our modern cushioned shoe lifestyles have led to weak feet, a big problem. The last thing we want is a weak and unstable base of support.
Building strong and flexible ankles will help, but we want to strengthen the muscles in our feet.
Barefoot jumps, balance drills, big toe stretches, and specific foot strengthening exercises are recommended here.
Calf Stretches
So far, we’ve discussed calf raises as the best option for building strong and flexible ankles. But what about stretching?
Is it worth it?
Yes! Calf raises are great, but you can often benefit from doing isolated ankle dorsiflexion stretches. If you have calf raise machine at your gym, you can use it to perform weighted calf stretches, which are fantastic.
If not, you can get clever with a barbell, kettlebells and even dumbbells.
Here are a couple of variations you can do with minimal equimplent.
Beyond The Squat Rack
A Pistol Squat is one of the best movements or skills to aim for for lower body strength, flexibility and balance.
Squats are easy to cheat. People often load up the bar to feel strong, but fail to take their hips and knees into full flexion.
The result is weak ankles, knees and hips because they never train the full range of motion.
And yet, most coaches allow their clients to get away with it.
Pistol squats aren’t as forgiving. Either you can do them, or you can’t.
Just because you’re “strong” at squats doesn’t mean you can do a pistol squat. But those with pistol squat strength will also be good at squats.
I work with a lot of adults who come to me with tight ankles and a shit squat.
Over the years, I've experimented with many different exercises and ideas for improving ankle and foot strength.
What I've shared with you in this post are some of the exercises I've used to help people improve their squats and unlock more advanced lower body skills, such as pistol squats.
A lot of this is included in the TSTM Unlock The Pistol Squat program.
Summary:
If you've got limited ankle dorsiflexion and a shit squat, here are your takeaways from part 1.
Test and monitor your ankle dorsiflexion.
Stop squatting if you have an imbalance between your left and right ankle dorsiflexion and focus on the unilateral lower
body exercises.
If your ankle dorsiflexion is equally shit on both sides, you might want to stop doing bilateral lower-body movements (like squats) and focus on unilateral movements that can help you build strength and flexibility in a much deeper range of motion (e.g. Front Foot Elevated Split Squats)
Start doing straight leg and bent-knee calf raises, emphasising a pause at the bottom of each rep.
Start stretching the f**k out of your calves
Start strengthening your feet.
If you have any questions about this post, message me here.
Happy Training
StreTch
