 Today I want to talk about ankle mobility when squatting. So if I want to squat deep or if I want to squat to any degree I need certain motions to happen so that I can get down there, right? I need my hip to bend this way I need my knee to bend this way and I need my ankle to bend this way BAM Okay Couple ways this comes into play right if my ankle doesn't bend today. I really want to hone in on the ankle Okay, if my ankle doesn't let my knee come forward then my weight has to shift forward because I can't maintain my weight on my heels Where the shin bone goes down into? And I have to shift forward That loses leverage whenever I get away from an axis of rotation, right? Here's an axis of rotation Here's an axis of rotation every joint is an axis of rotation, right? Whenever I get away from those then I can't deal with the Force is quite as well. I'm not leveraging my body quite as well It's the same thing if like if you're pressing a weight, right? If I'm pressing Straight up then I have really good leverage, right? The weight right here is all the way down through my arm But if I press up like this and my arm is forward because maybe I don't have the mobility to get back there Then I get a lot of tension on my shoulder up here because it gets really tired because it's disadvantaged It's still working here. It doesn't get a chance to rest up here Same idea with the ankle. I need ankle mobility ankle dorsiflexion To come on down into my squat and to feel my heels and to access my big butt muscles and my leg muscles, right? Those are very important. So How do we get ankle mobility? Well biggest thing in my mind is don't force the mobility that is first and foremost You don't have to squat deep. I don't I don't care what you've read on the internet It doesn't Nobody's going to judge you for not squat or for squatting not deep enough And if they do they're wrong and you can now have this conversation with them and maybe make a new friend, right? Squatting squatting deep isn't appropriate for everyone. Some people don't have the hip mobility to do it Some people get more hip pain when they do it. Some people don't have the ankle mobility to do it I have a friend who broke both her ankles and she can't squat that low, okay? So she just squats to here and it's fine because she loads those muscles still she load She's loading that pattern, right? She can still work her hip mobility in other ways. She can do her deadlifting patterns, right? All sorts of stuff. She doesn't need to squat deep. There are plenty of other things to do So biggest thing don't squat too deep second thing when people don't have the ankle mobility for whatever they're trying to do Sometimes the weight is too heavy and sometimes body weight is too heavy So you may need to unload yourself or you may need some feedback, right? You may need to hold a little weight a candle in this case and Hold it in front of your body so that it shifts your weight Backward shifts your body backward Because if it doesn't shift your body backward you will fall because the extra weight tips you forward Okay, to exaggerate it. Let's extend our arms out so I can show you see how I shift back boom That takes away some of this demand on the ankle in a mobility sense and it even shifts me back Oh, I feel some hamstring. That's good. It even shifts me back onto my heels so that I can access these big muscles and Patterns you into a more effective position so that you can access big muscles so that you can perform good things Third thing that we can say about ankle mobility sometimes if you're like my friend and your ankles are broken And you still want to do some weightlifting or something like that You still want to squat pretty deep get some shoes that elevate your heel Take the mobility demands out of the ankle and then you can hang on to that while you squat down Okay, those are just some tips Hope your ankle mobility increases