5 Best Ankle Mobility Exercises for Beginners

Ankle mobility refers to the flexibility of your ankles and its surrounding muscles, tendons and ligaments.

Increased ankle mobility allows you to have a greater range of motion during your activities. Strengthening your ankles can improve your sports performance or everyday tasks.

As there are hundreds of ankle mobility exercises you can do, getting started can be overwhelming. We’ve picked some of the best ankle exercises to help you improve your mobility and take your training to the next level.

Do these ankle mobility exercises in your warm-up, cool-down and throughout the day. To advance, move on to exercises that have resistance (such as using a band), and do more repetitions for each exercise as you get stronger.

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Ankle Mobility Exercises for Beginners

The following five exercises should allow you to regain your mobility and help you start moving about normally again. Start slow, and progress gradually, and you'll be back to your normal activities before you know it. Let's get started:

1) Flexibility Exercises

To increase your ankle mobility, it's important to indulge into some light flexibility exercises, such as the towel calf stretch. This exercise can help you stretch out the front and back muscles of your ankle.

To perform this exercise:

• Sit on the ground, and grab a towel.
• Wrap the towel around your foot.
• Hold both ends of the towel with your hands so that your hands are positioned above your knees.
• Pull back on the towel, gently stretching your foot forward.
• Hold this position for 15-20 seconds, and release.

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2) Ankle Dorsiflexion

Dorsiflexion is the motion of bending your ankle and moving towards your shin. Making this motion can help you regain ankle mobility, allowing you to walk again, if you've had an ankle injury.

To do this exercise:

• Straighten your knee.
• Keeping your ankle still, point your foot toward your nose.
• Keep going till you feel the stretch, or you can't move it any further back. Hold for 15 seconds.
• Return to a neutral position, and repeat five times.

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3) Balancing Exercise

An ankle fracture can be very debilitating, as it affects your balance and makes you less stable. To get back to normal, you need to regain your balance.

One exercise that can help you do that is the single-legged standing exercise, which strengthens the muscles around your ankles to keep them stable. A BAPS board or wobble board can also be used in place of a physical therapist to help with this exercise.

To do this exercise:

• Stand upright with both your feet together, and grab a chair or platform in front of you to provide extra support and stability.
• Keep one foot off the ground as long as possible.
• Place your foot softly onto the ground, and repeat with the other leg.

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4) Strenghtening Exercises

After your cast comes off following an akle injury, and your ankle is no longer immobilised, you may feel you've lost some strength and flexibility in your ankle.

That's common after fractures. Your physiotherapist can suggest exercises to help you regain your strength, such as using elastic bands to strengthen the muscles around your ankle.

To strengthen your ankles:

• Sit on the floor with your back straight.
• Use a rolled-up towel to prop up your ankle.
• Take an elastic band, and place it around the ball of your foot, holding both ends of the band in one hand.
• Gently push forward with your foot, pointing toward your toes.
• Hold this position for 10 to 15 seconds, and bring it back slowly.
• Repeat this exercise ten times.

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5) Resisted Strengthening Dorsiflexion

You should perform resisted strengthening exercises with a band called a Theraband to help improve your range of motion and the strength of your ankles. The Theraband can provide resistance to your movements to work those muscles 10-15 reps per set.

To do this exercise:

• Tie a band around a table leg.
• Put your foot inside the band with the band across the top of your foot.
• Move only your ankle, and point your foot back toward your nose while keeping your knees straight.
• Hold this position till you feel discomfort or can't tilt it back any further.
• Return to the neutral position slowly before repeating.

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Takeaway

Overall, the best exercises to improve ankle mobility rely on you contracting your foot muscles, like your tibialis posterior. Choose between plantar flexion and dorsiflexion with short arc or long arc ankle circles. Finally, foam rolling followed by calf stretches can also helpimprove ankle mobility.

Consider pairing the aforementioned exercises with balance exercises as part of a comprehensive rehabilitation programme. Finally, it's helpful to enlist the help of a physical therapist - someone who's specially trained to treat and rehabilitate your injury.