Improving Foot Function for Sports Performance Part 2

In the last article we talked about finding your foot tripod. In addition we also laid out a foot strengthening progression aimed at improving your foot tripod and strengthening your arch. This article we will discuss the significance of ankle rocker for sports perfomance and outline a progression aimed at improving ankle rocker (aka ankle mobility) for sports performance.

What is Ankle Rocker?

When we walk we utilize three different foot rockers: heel, ankle, and fore foot. When you walk fist you heel strike. At this point your body rocks over the heel as the foot comes flat on the ground. Next you rock over your ankle joint ad your tib-fib progress past 90 degrees of dorsiflexion (ankle rocker). Finally when you reach the end of your ankle rocker you pick up your heel and rocker over the fore foot and toes.

Why is Ankle Rocker Important?

We all know (or now know) that locomotion is driven by hip extension and your primary hip extensor should be your glutes. If your athlete has insufficient ankle rocker, when walking they will get to 90 degrees (of plantarflexion/dorsiflexion), pick their heel up and use their claves to push themselves through the gait cycle. The person with a gait pattern like this is often referred to as “quad dominant” although the term “push runner/walker” may be more accurate. So rather than extending through the hip and utilizing the most powerful muscle in the body (glutes) they extend through the quad and calf. It is worth noting that this is merely one compensation pattern for getting around a poor ankle rocker and for more information on other ankle rocker strategies please check out the video below.

You should also know that when you lose ankle rocker one of the strategies it to collapse through the arch. This can lead to a number of pathologies including plantar fasciitis, turf toe, bunions, and achilles tendonitis.

When it comes to sprinting, which we all may be more interested in, poor ankle rocker causes other issues. It interferes with the body’s ability to maintain a forward acceleration lean which we all know leads to a lower top speed. In addition, it also interferes with glute function leading to the athlete wanting to push themselves down the field or court using the quads and calves as opposed to pulling themselves down with their glutes (push runner vs pull runner). Try this place your hands on your butt and walk. Note the glute activity. Now pull your toes to your face and walk. Did you notice more glute activity? Of course you did. They muscles used to create ankle rocker are are linked to the glutes through the same neural pool.

For an excellent look at a push runner versus a pull runner check out the videos below. They are the same athlete! The firs video is of the athlete after working with colleague Chris Korfist at the end of the summer. At this point he is a pull runner. You can really see this with the amount of hip extension the athlete achieves at toe off. A nice straight line.

Pull Runner

The next video is of the same athlete after spending a year in his collegiate strength and conditioning program. Notice the angle at the hip during toe off. This is a classic push runner.

Push Runner

This next video is a bit long. This is a video analysis of a sprinter done by Dr. Ivo Waerlop. This sprinter has some ankle rocker issues as well as some others. In it Dr. Ivo points out the issues and describes the implications for performance.

Hopefully by now you can see that ankle rocker deficits can open the door for injury as well as limit speed and on field performance. Now you may be wondering how do we improve ankle rocker?

Ankle rocker has more traditionally been trained using Michael Boyle’s ankle mobility drills seen here

The ankle mobility exercises were an excellent starting point but they have one problem. They only address the posterior compartment. So if tight calves are your problem the drills will loosen your calves but it begs the following question:

Are the calves just chronically tight or are they tight because they are to strength imbalance between the anterior and posterior compartments?

If your calves are chronically tight then the mobility drills above will do an excellent job, however if the tightness is neurological protection due to a lack of anterior compartment strength then stretching is not addressing the root cause of the loss of ankle rocker.

Based on my experience, most of the time the tightness is a symptom of poor anterior compartment strength. So the tightness is because you do not have enough anterior compartment strength to pull yourself through the ankle rocker.

Ankle Rocker Strengthening Progression

Squat with Toes Up on Tripod (see previous article for finding your tripod)

Squat with Foot in Arch Support Position (See Previous Article for arch support exercise)

King Deadlift with the Toes Up

King Deadlift with Arch Support Position

Shuffle Gait

Reverse Shuffle Gait

Both shuffle gait drills can be seen in the videos below:

***Note – Please pay attention to the foot positions next to each exercise. For descriptions on the foot positions please see the previous article***