Do you suffer from knee, hip or back pain and can't seem to find the reason why?
Have you ever considered your ankles to be the problem?
In many instances, the ankles are highly immobile due to poor motor control and stability that they exhibit on balance.
I highly recommend people train proprioceptive single leg balancing exercises (as shown in this picture) in preventing the onset of such pains from coming in the first place.
The Ankle is a key component in rehabilitating knee/hip problems—because it is often one of the causative factors of knee stability problems in the first place. Valgus collapse and pronation can be results of limited ankle dorsiflexion mobility.
And yet the individual with the limited ankle persists in participating in activities, like squatting, lunging and running, that do require functional ankle mobility.
Click below to watch a quick video explaining an effective solution called The Couch Stretch!
HOW TO DO THE COUCH STRETCH
Always use thick padding under the knee. You may be more comfortable with even more than I am using in the picture.
When this gets easy, you can gradually work against the wall as follows:
1) Start sideways to easily have your knee close to the wall:
2) Then spin around and lean forward so that you can easily slide your back foot up the wall:
3) From here, you can work your hands up your front thigh and then to your hips, thus increasing the stretch (as you are able to comfortably):
4) Your long-term goal is shoulders to wall, and from there, I want you to get comfortable contacting the glute on that side:
Perform 60 seconds per side, being sure to only work at a level you can relax and breathe without pain.
AND WHY
When the quads and hip flexors are tight, they pull the kneecap upward, making you more likely to experience pain in the patellar tendon below:
Additionally, your quads and hip-flexors are the direct opposing muscles to your glutes and hamstrings, which you rely on most heavily when you sprint…
REMEMBER: Strength and flexibility adaptation take time, so acknowledge yourself for every 1% you get better, and you will soon find yourself waking up to a different reality, without ever working through pain in the process.