SLS/PE2 ankle mobility

Hi all,

 

Just started with SLS/PE2. I'm finding at the bottom of the squat, I go up on my toes. I don't have the ankle mobility to keep a flat foot. This sucks a bit as it feels like it puts all the pressure on my quads and knees, which are already huge (while I have no glutes).

 

I can technically reach mastery on my toes, but concerned I might not be getting the full benefit.

 

I'm thinking either,

1) I should have sorted ankle mobility with PE1>iM.

2) 12 weeks of cossacks should sort out my mobility.

3) The mobility is fine, a bit of going up on toes is acceptable.

 

What do you think?

I'd go with (2). There are some things you can do with foot placement too to help your position though.

- Try putting your feet further apart

- Point your squatting side foot forwards or slightly across your body and the non-squatting foot outwards or out/forwards at 45

- Play with the angle of your hips a bit and reduce the ROM of the squat if necessary to make it more of a stretch than a strength exercise per se if need be; I would expect it to come much faster than 12 weeks together with plenty of Mn>IM and sPL>IM

 

Hope something there helps

Try holding on to something, like doing the squats in front of a post or a doorhandle. Keeps you from falling backwards because of your ankles and gradually gets you more comfortable in the bottom position until you can let go. I could do cossacks but I did this anyway and it helped me a lot. Holding on to something makes it easy to address the weaknesses in the bottom position, moving around, stretching, reaching for the stretched leg with your hand, etc.

I also have used the holding onto something method with students, it's very important to not lean your body forward but rather to pull with your back, and really work into the hips and ankles.

 

The other method that works for some is similar to what some have done with PE1, to start on a raised surface, on that just allows you to keep your heels down.

 

Now, officially, it's not a requirement to keep the heels down, but, those who can should, and it's worth spending some time on IMHO.

Heels off the floor is a lack of calves flexibility, try to improve it by stretching the different muscles fibers of the different fascia. until you reach this goal you can use a weight to counter balance the poor flexibility, is better for the motion pattern in respect to use something more high under your heels of elevate the heels.

 

SLS progression does not fill the gap for calves mobility. for the most average of the people there is no problem to maintain the heels down. in my gym everyone is able to do a full hindu squat with butt on the heels without lift them up.

As an ex football player i have tight calves and this reflect my difficulty at the beginning to perform one leg squat movements.

I've had some serious ankle mobility issues that I'm starting to clear up, mostly using stuff from mobilitywod.com. I think that calf flexibility per se is rarely the limiting factor in ankle mobility, and is often due to structural issues (i.e. physical impingement, often at the front of the ankle) or chronically short achilles tendons (I have both of these problems). From my experience, simply working more squats is a great way to remain frustrated with your ankle mobility, because if achilles length is your main issue, the loads generated from bodyweight squats are nowhere near enough to affect change in a tissue that's can handle hundreds if not thousands of pounds of load. For reference, here's some videos from MWOD to get you're interested:

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2010/09/episode-25-heel-cords-of-a-cheetah-achilles-well-being/

http://www.allthingsgym.com/ankle-range-of-motion-sliding-tissue-work/

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2012/02/case-study-tight-ankles-bad-squatting/

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2013/03/ankle-positional-fault-fix-jill-miller-style/

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2013/03/free-your-heel-free-your-mind/

 

Ido Portal also recently recommended squatting 30 minutes a day for a month if your squat sucks; after trying this for a few weeks, I think a combination of some serious squat time and mobilization a la KStar is the way to go. It might be a lot of time up front, but I suspect it'll pay dividends later when I don't tear my achilles doing something stupid, and can actually get into the bottom of a pistol.

Matt, if you want to see something wicked, like really wicked, roll the bottom of your foot, along your entire calve, on the hamstring, your lower and middle back upto your trapz..roll both side along your spine.

that is some hardcore myofascial voodoo magic right there

I'll try that out, I do all of those things separately but I've never gone for all of it at once. Results to follow...