Top 5 Fridays! 5 Easy Ankle Resets

Ankle dorsiflexion is often limited, but luckily easily reset if the main motion loss not multiplanar. Here are 5 of my favorite ways to show patients how to rapidly gain ankle mobility.

1) Repeated Ankle Plantarflexion

since most have a loss of dorsiflexion, a novel movement which gets to end range is plantarflexion and inversion
check this video here for an easy demo

2) Repeated Great Toe Flexion

often, the loss of ankle dorsiflexion is accompanied by excessive forefoot eversion leading to the "too many toes" sign when viewed from behind
if there is a loss of great toe extension, the novel direction for reset to get to end range is repeated great toe flexion
if it is painful, try rotating the great toe medially or laterally to make it pain free during the flexion
video here

3) Tibial IR Functional Mobilization

the above "too many toes" sign leads to excessive tibial ER, which then feeds into the knee valgus you see in closed chain activities
to promote both knee flexion and ankle dorsiflexion in closed chain, restoring tibial IR is paramount
the quick assessment is here
video here

4) Repeated Tibiotalar lateral glide

thanks to Chris Johnson for the assessment/idea
the chain of events of forefoot eversion, loss of great toe mobility in extension, tibial IR loss add up to the tibia taking the path of least resistance
when the tibia moves medially relative to the forefoot the talocrural joint often loses tibial lateral glide
here is an easy reset I developed based on Chris Johnson's assessment and mobilization for this

5) Sciatic Neurodynamic/posterior chain mobility

making sure you have enough mobility in your posterior chain also helps or in other words lower limb neurodynamic mobility
here are videos on the my favorite ways to improve this here (treatment) and here (reset)

You do not have to try all of these, one may be enough. These are my favorites to improve this often limited, but easily regained motion.

Keeping it Eclectic....