Daily Mobility Exercises by Dr. Kelly Starrett › Forums › Foot/Ankle › Short Achilles Tendon

Viewing 0 reply threads
  • Author
    Posts
    • 02/22/2016 at 1:31 pm #71544
      AvatarStuart Wilson
      Participant

      Hi everyone,

      I was born with a short Achilles tendon in the right leg. I had two surgeries to lengthen the tendon – one at the age of 2 months and another one at 10 years (last one was since I was walking constantly with the heel lifted up and not touching the floor). Today I’m 30.
      Regarding functionality, I can do bodyweight squats, back squat and front squat, however I have to constantly focus on keeping my right ankle from rotating outwards by 30-45 degrees. I have the hunch that I am doing some form of compensation, but since my knees don’t collapse and the ankle is kept at 8 to 12 degrees I don’t believe I am doing something terrible, at least to my leg. However, sometimes at intense WODs the concentration wanders away for a few moments and I find myself with a rotated ankle. 
      Overhead squat is out of question (torso collapses forward) and a pistol with that leg is beyond imagination. Also true for exercises that require dorsiflexion (for example warrior poses 1,2 in yoga).
      My power clean landing position is with the right ankle rotated outwards, but I’m not sure if the ankle is to be blamed for that solely since my technique is far from polished.
      Other leg exercises feel OK (walking lunges, box jumps, running, biking etc.).

      I’ve been going through the ankle mobility videos and demonstrations in the book but I’ve noticed a slight improvement only – far from the immediate relative progress I had while I was working on the hips, shoulders, thoracic spine etc. 

      So I’m not sure what exercises should I go for and more important – which process duration to expect. I’ll be glad to get any help.

      P.S sorry but I don’t have the exact clinical details of the surgery with me (not sure if I can dig it up, and if I do it still requires the decryption of doctor’s writing and translation from Hebrew…)
  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 0 reply threads
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.