Mobility is the trendy item of the moment and it looks like the usual suspects of sports performance are at it again at your expense. In efforts to stay cutting edge they share new progressions, foreign exercises stolen from PT, misinterpretation of basic research, or unfortunately original moronic epiphanies. The prime example is dorsiflexion of the ankle joint. Well people the foot has over 30 joints and focusing on the most bang for your buck may help at first or work well with some but is the best way? Factory approaches with fly by night internship programs are addicted to plugging in little corrective exercises as it doesn’t require people to think. Coaches are not drone bees but should be thinking from minute one. Above we have Bill Hartman sharing his way to get better ankle flexibility in some sort of informercial format. Forget cleaning your carpet in seconds you can get dorsiflexion with magic tennis balls. Abracadabra! The approach concerns me as mobility for the masses can be a problem with 3-D ligament grinding routines. I respectively have to disagree with Bill on this one as the most obvious engineering aspect is the thixotropic factors of tissue and the balance of open and closed chain actions to the foot complex. I do agree that some of the motions can help and with today’s situations I use similar procedures. Microstretching the soleus and other tissue methods can’t be replaced with acute and artificial changes with joint mobs. The the real issue is not getting real screening. Not the functional movement screen as the test doesn’t evaluate the STJ effectively so you may have to see a PT and get clinical evaluations. Finish or start your rehab with a problem solving sports medicine professional. Feel free to deform articular structures and get blind dorsiflexion and see what happens a few years later.
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