3-Way Ankle Mobility

To do the 3-Way Ankle Mobility Stretch, stand facing a wall with your hands on the wall for balance or support.

Stand in a staggered stance with one foot slightly in front closer to the wall and your feet no wider than hip-width apart. Make sure your front knee is at least a few inches from the wall. This front foot is the ankle that is being worked on.

Standing in this staggered stance, drive the front knee straight forward over the toe and into the wall while keeping your heel on the ground. Do not worry if your back heel comes up. Focus on that front foot and driving the knee into the wall while keeping the heel down.

Do that 10 times and then take a step out a bit wider to the side and repeat so that your feet are about shoulder-width or wider (second set or line of photos in the picture above). The foot should be pointing straight toward the wall and you want to drive the knee forward over the toe while keeping the heel down. Complete 10 reps, driving the knee forward into the wall then relaxing out of the stretch.

Then step your foot across in front of your back leg (shown at the bottom of the photo) and repeat 10 more knee drives. Make sure that your toe is always pointing directly toward the wall and that you are keeping the heel down as you drive your knee forward.

By making sure that your toe is pointing straight into the wall in front of you, you will hit different aspects of your lower leg to loosen it up.

All three positions will hit the lower leg and ankle from different directions to improve your ankle mobility and dorsiflexion (aka how much you can pull your toes up toward your shins).