Podcast 1/4h Neuro
3 proprioception exercises to improve ankle mobility (and find out if they really work on you)
Do your ankle exercises really work? Two home tests, a wall and a pen, and three proprioceptive stimulations to check it on yourself.
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You've been stringing together ankle exercises for months. But have you ever checked, measuring in hand, that a single one of them changes anything on YOUR ankle? Three proprioceptive stimulations, two home tests, and one simple rule: without a test and a retest, you are just guessing.
"If you don't test, you guess": the test, retest principle
A stimulation on its own is worth nothing. It only gains value when set against a starting measurement and an ending measurement. That is the heart of the RNP method, and it is exactly the border between relevant work and a gamble.
The template never changes. You take a baseline measurement, your ankle mobility. You apply a precise sensory stimulation, related to proprioception. You immediately retest the same mobility. The stimulation is judged on one thing only: what it moved in the measurement.
Each stimulation aims to be relevant for one problem and for one person. Without a measured reference before and after, there is no way to know whether you are on target. You are guessing, period.
Here we stay with home tests. You can use video or a goniometer to put numbers on the angles, but it isn't necessary today. A wall and a pen are more than enough.
Testing your ankle mobility at home (2 methods)
No stimulation without a starting measurement. We look at two: an analytical one, targeted on the ankle, and a global one, on a whole movement. Do them as you read, that's the whole point.
The wall test (analytical)
Face the wall, one foot in front. The foot stays completely flat on the floor, the heel doesn't lift. Move your knee toward the wall until it makes contact. If you touch, step back a hair, then go looking for contact again. You refine this setting until you find the maximum range where the knee touches (or brushes as closely as possible) without the heel coming up.
The signal that you've gone too far: if you have to lift the heel to reach the wall, your foot is too far back. Move forward a hair and start again. Once you've found the maximum range, heel on the floor, put your pen on the ground at the tip of your foot. That is your reference mark. You keep it for the whole protocol.
You can also compare right and left. With the pen fixed at the same limit, you place the other foot exactly at the same spot, and you observe. You don't touch: that side is more restricted. You touch without forcing: that side has better mobility.
The squat test (global)
The second test uses a complete movement: the squat, the moment you crouch down. Get into position and go down as low as possible.
During the descent, watch two things. First, the tension at the front of the leg, on the tibialis anterior (the muscle running along the shin): more tension on the left or the right? Then comfort: is one side more restricted than the other?
A nuance to keep in mind. A global pattern like the squat involves far more than the ankle, so other factors color what you feel. It's a useful measurement, to be read with that caveat. The wall test remains the more analytical of the two; the squat gives you the global reading.
Reading the result: improvement, stagnation or regression
After each stimulation, when it's time to retest, there are only three possible outcomes. Not one more.
You improve: you gain range, your knee touches the wall more easily or faster than before, at the same mark. You stagnate: exactly as before, neither better nor worse, nothing moved. You regress: where you used to touch, this time you can't reach it at the same measurement. The stimulation made you lose mobility.
This framework holds whichever test you choose to retest with, wall or squat. Baseline measurement, stimulation, retest, and you file the result in one of these three boxes.
Take a sheet of paper and write it down. For each stimulation: improvement, neutral, or regression. That sheet is what will tell you, in the end, what to keep.
Stimulation 1: motor control by drawing a figure 8
First stimulation, a motor control movement. The idea: to stimulate certain proprioceptive receptors, in particular the mechanoreceptors (the sensors that inform the nervous system about movement and position).
Get into position. Grow tall, tongue pressed against the palate. Lift the leg you are testing, support it by sliding your arm right underneath, and lock it. With the tip of your foot, you are going to draw a figure 8, the infinity sign if you prefer. Free speed, free direction, you can even change direction along the way.
The key instruction: don't force the range. You are looking for the cleanest, smoothest 8 possible. What is being worked here is coordination and control, not the extent of the movement. The most beautiful 8 possible, for 20 seconds.
Once the 20 seconds are over, put the foot down, go back to your starting line and retest, heel still on the floor. You touch more easily: improvement. You can no longer touch: regression. It's identical: stagnation. Write the result on your sheet before continuing.
Stimulation 2: joint rotations in a circle
Same starting position: growing tall, tongue on the palate, test leg raised and supported. This time, no more 8, but a circle, a round shape, with the tip of the foot.
The intention shifts. On the 8, you were looking for motor control. On the circle, you are looking for the greatest possible range. You push on every degree to stretch the movement to the maximum. For those who know the vocabulary, this is controlled articular rotation work. You push like this for 10 seconds, in one direction or the other, it doesn't matter.
At the end of the 10 seconds, retest your ankle mobility in the same position as before. Wall or squat pattern, as you prefer. Improvement, regression or neutral: write it down, then move on.
Stimulation 3: tactile stimulation of the edge of the foot
For the third one, take a pen. Careful: not the one that serves as your reference mark on the floor, otherwise you lose your measurement from the start. Take another one, and close the tip properly (tip retracted, no ball sticking out).
For about 15 seconds, you perform tactile stimulations on the outer edge of the foot. Each pass starts from the bottom, goes up along the whole outer edge and stops at the top. A pass lasts roughly 5 to 7 seconds, which gives you 2 to 3 repetitions over the 15 seconds. Nothing else: the contact of the pen sliding from bottom to top over this area.
When you're done, go back to the starting position and retest. Improvement, regression or neutral: write the result next to the other two.
No magic method: keep what works for you
Take your sheet and look at your three lines. Motor control (the 8): improvement, neutral or regression. Forced joint rotations (the circle): improvement, neutral or regression. Tactile stimulation of the foot: improvement, neutral or regression. Three different people will give you three different sheets. Some will have improved, others regressed, others seen nothing move, sometimes on a single stimulation, sometimes on all three.
The whole message is there. No magic tool, no perfect method. A toolbox, rather, with its different stimulations, its different tests, its different categories of mobility. The real work, valid for your entire practice, is to find the right tool for the right person, in the right context, in relation to a goal.
In practice, the reflex is simple: go first for the stimulations that improved you. Those are the ones that act on your own system.
And if you want to dig deeper, what to do when it regresses, whether it's normal when the result is neutral, an e-book covers this whole protocol and opens up leads beyond this introduction. The link is in the episode description.
FAQ
How do you work on ankle mobility?
Through proprioceptive stimulations, framed by a test, retest. You first measure your ankle mobility (at the wall or in a squat), you apply a stimulation (motor control by drawing a figure 8, joint rotations in a circle, or tactile stimulation of the edge of the foot), then you retest to see whether the measurement moved. You then keep what improved you.
How do you unlock your ankles?
The three proprioceptive stimulations seen here aim precisely at regaining range. The 8 works motor control, the circle forces the range of the joint rotations, the pen passing along the outer edge of the foot provides a tactile stimulation. After each one, you retest: if your knee touches the wall more easily at the same mark, you have unlocked range. And you favor the stimulations that improve you.
Ankle mobility: what exactly is it?
In operational terms, you can measure it with the wall test: it is the range you get by bringing the knee toward the wall, foot flat and heel not lifting. The farther your knee moves forward without lifting the heel, the more mobility your ankle has. You can also compare your right and your left to spot a restriction on one side.
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