I haven’t done a rigorous S&F ankle workout for 2 weeks or so, ever since my soleus calf muscles started acting up. And the soleus is so tightly connected to the ankle, that I’d thought I’d better pause on those ankle drills.
Mind you, every time I walked up the stairs of our house, I took the opportunity to do a couple of heel lifts on one or other step! Or when walking along the first-floor landing of our house, when no one was watching, I tiptoed on bent knees, trying out how my soleus felt.
You probably can tell: I was following my own ‘hacks’ to strengthen my soleus. (See healthunlocked.com/strength... )
But I have started to row again, almost daily, and yesterday morning saw me back to running as well!
So the last thing to get back into is some more workouts for mobility, flexibility and strengthening of my ankles. Also because my 2-week stint on the injury couch have undone my progress made in ankle flexibility! I’m back where I was when starting out on this journey, at 10/12 cm left/right ankle, using the wall test. But I tell myself no worries, I will get there again.
So my whole progress using the wall test (see below for how to do the wall test) looks like this:
★ Week 0: Left/Right 12/10 cm
★ Week 1: Left/Right 12/12 cm
★ Week 2 before run: Left/Right 15/13 cm
★ Week 3 & 4 IC/Rest because of tight Soleus Muscle
★ Week 5: Left/Right 12/10 cm
But as I’m back to running, I can integrate the ankle drills again (Part 1 with first four drills at healthunlocked.com/strength... and Part 2 with another three drills at healthunlocked.com/strength... )
And I’ve found a great little Yoga session, not by Adriene who seems to have ignored an ankle focus, but by Uliana, who has a great little session focussing on those all important little area of your foot. I’ll be doing this one tomorrow, so if any of our virtual workout bodies will be joining me following this little video follow-along, let me know how it went!
Yoga with Uliana (10 min) YOGA FOR ANKLE FLEXIBILITY | Ankle Stretches & Exercises | Yoga with Uliana
And as the original video on how to do the ankle mobility wall test has been taken down, here a new 2 min demonstrator via Physiotutors.
Physiotutors (2 min) The Weight Bearing Lunge Test or Wall Test | Ankle Mobility
To note, around 12 cm is normal. And there is an error margin of ca 1.9 cm. So my progress to 13.9 is questionable but to 15 is firm progress!
So off I am again to get more mobile ankles!
Happy ankles, everyone!
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Part 1: healthunlocked.com/strength...
Part 2: healthunlocked.com/strength...
Part 3: healthunlocked.com/strength...
Part 4: healthunlocked.com/strength...
SOURCE READINGS:
ARTICLE OLYRUN (website) 10 Simple Ankle Mobility Exercises For Runners. olyrun.com/ankle-mobility-e...
