I’m a tall guy with poor mobility. I’ve been at the gym for a year and working on my mobility every workout. I improved massively in many areas except for my ankle dorsiflexion, which still sucks. While I can go low in the squat, it requires me to lean forward and I get sore (DOMS, not pain) lower back after squatting. Recently I started using slant boards and now I can feel the squats in my quads, and my back doesn’t get sore anymore. But it strains my knees a lot, even to the point of sharp pain sometimes, which prompted me to back off to very light squats for high reps to rehab. My question is, is low back soreness acceptable, or should I stick to the slant boards and strengthen my quads and knees? Any exercise ideas for ankle mobility? I’m doing goblet squats, squat holds for time, banded ankle dorsiflexion and calf static stretches after workouts.
I can post some videos if required.
Not a PT, but I’ve been training in the gym for about a decade, so take this anecdotal evidence with a grain of salt.
Some lower back soreness is acceptable, but still not a great thing. Your core should be strong enough to keep your torso rigid without having to load weight on your lumbar. Try using a lifting belt to help with your bracing. Are you low-bar or high-bar squatting? That will greatly change the position of your torso when you squat down. High bar is more upright and shouldn’t involve your back as much.
If your gym has one, try a safety bar squat. I use that more than a regular barbell now because I have had back issues in the past and I still have shoulder issues that make squatting heavy weight with a barbell hurt my shoulders. The safety bar moves the weight for ward and makes the movement almost like a front squat, really targeting the quads but it keeps your torso almost totally upright and should take your lower back out of the equation.
Not sure why slant boards are causing knee pain, possibly they are causing you to shift your weight and balance too far forward in the squat. I know that when I used squat shoes, I found myself getting pressure and pain in my toes from the weight squishing them into the front of the shoes but no knee pain. I stopped using squat shoes and just focused on form over weight using flat shoes (converse, wrestling shoes, barefoot shoes). Knees-over-toes is acceptable and even good form when you’re squatting, but you should still try to have your balance directly over the middle of your foot and drive through your heels using your hips.
I also personally think that hips parallel with knees is deep enough, and ass-to-grass is only good when you’re flexible enough to get that low without lower back extension. For a lot of newbies I tell them to only squat as low as they can get before the “butt wink.” I also still don’t have great ankle flexibility, it’s a consequence of our sedentary lifestyle and using chairs vs squatting to rest. The flexibility will come with time, and stretching your calves and Achilles tendon is what we need to work on to improve ankle mobility. I know for me, my calves are tight as hell and it’s something I need to be working on more too.
I’m sure you know this already but youtube is a huge resource for lifting knowledge. Squat University is a great channel run by a physical therapist and he has a video on almost every topic.
(Sorry for the essay but I love talking about weightlifting haha)
I’ve only been lifting a couple of years, but I just wanted to piggyback on this comment to provide real life testimony about the magic of a lifting belt for squats.
I always had mind body connection problems on my squats. Doing an honest to God proper form back squat requires you to really be present in your mind for the lift, especially when it’s heavy. I would often have issues with my core “collapsing” on the upward portion of the back squat.
Then I tried a lifting belt and ust having that extra bit of resistance from the belt to “press” against while squatting really helped to correct some form issues for me.
OP mentions ankle mobility issues, which I don’t think a belt would specifically help with? But as a PSA if you’re squatting within 20% of your 1RM and haven’t tried a weight belt I really recommend picking one up and watching a couple videos on how to use it. It really changed squatting for the better for me.
This is probably obvious to most lifters, but if you’re like me and just never thought about it, go give a belt a try.
I’ve been doing “Patrick steps” to work my ankle mobility and knee strength, it seems to be helping. Video
It depends on what you want to train. Eugene Tao has a whole video on this. For decades people have used heel raises to put more quad emphasis into the squat - lifting shoes have heal raises, or you can use 2.5lb plates on the ground or even a piece of wood. You can in fact find old videos of Arnold squatting with a board under his heels.
Heel raises are fine. It all depends on what you’re training the squat for
