As you guys are all probably aware of by now, having adequate ankle flexibility is important for achieving a deep squat.  What is important is being able to distinguish between whether you actually have an ankle flexibility problem or not.  Lucky for us this can be done with an easy assessment:

Passed but still can’t squat?  You can be reasonably sure that ankle mobility isn’t the issue.  How about if you failed?  Here are some of my favorite exercises to address that:

Happy Ankling,

Dan Pope DPT, CSCS

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Physical therapist Dr. Erson Religioso has been a huge influence on my career as a physical therapist.  I’ve been following his blog for the past few years incorporating several of his thoughts and ideas successfully into my own clinical practice.  He’s been a major mentor to me over this time periods (most likely without him realizing it).  Lucky enough for me we’ve been able to collaborate some an he’s had some of my articles featured on his site www.physioanswers.com.  Some time back Dr. Erson Religioso gave me a few of his products to try out at my clinic.  Among those were:

The EDGE Mobility Tool

The EDGE Mobility Bands

The EDGE Mobility Balls

Since then, not a day has gone by where I haven’t used one of these products.  I’ve had the opportunity to try several IASTM devices (Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilization).  Some products out there are extremely expensive while others are much cheaper but are not stainless steal and don’t have the same feel of the EDGE tool.  The EDGE tool is a great combination of quality at an extremely reasonable price (Go ahead and search the prices of other stainless steal IASTM tools, I dare you.  Try not the throw up).

The EDGE mobility bands I use frequently for ankle mobility and the edge balls for self soft tissue mobilization.  I’m a huge fan of giving patients the tools to treat themselves and adding …read more

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Tempo lifts require a certain speed during your lifts.  Let’s use squats as a example.  A prescription of 31X0 for a back squat means:

• 3 seconds to lower into the bottom of the squat
• 1 second pause at the bottom of the lift
• X means lifting as explosively as possible
• 0 seconds pause at the top of the lift.

Obviously you can change the speed of the lifts for whatever goal you’re trying to accomplish.  For the sake of this article we’ll be discussing a slowed lowering (eccentric) and pausing at the bottom of the lift.

I used to hate tempo lifts.  I first tried these back when Charles Poliquin was espousing their use back in the late 90′s.  The reason for my hatred was simple, I just couldn’t lift as much weight during tempo lifts.  I thought they were dumb.  Anything that made me look weaker then I was, was immediately thrown in the trash.  Now after about 15 years of training I’ve come around to using it quite a bit more.  Here’s why in no particular order.

1) Technique

Slowing down the movement allows you to practice performing the lift correctly.  You build strength throughout the entire range of motion ultimately helping to promote exercise mastery.

2) Tendinopathy

In the realm of physical therapy, high tension eccentrics have been shown to be an effective treatment for many forms of tendinopathy.  Once we get to a certain age and have had pain for several months it is more likely to be a result of tendinopathy then generic tendinitis.  If we’re slowing down the eccentric phase of our lifts then we may also be improving the health of our tendons along the way.

3) Checking Our Ego at the Door

Tempo lifts require you to lower the weights you normally use for a given exercise.  This may be an ego check for many but …read more

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