I did some damage to my ankles throughout junior high, high school, and college, playing various sports and rolling my right ankle constantly.  I had a few rolls on my left ankle, but they never seemed so bad.  A few of my right ankle rolls were so severe that I had to hobble along for weeks (this happened once in high school and once in college).  Stupidly, I didn’t see an orthopedic doctor about these issues when they occurred.  Now that I’m trying to execute proper squat form (bad squat form landed me in a world of hip pain – this led me to read BASL), I decided to go see an orthopedic doctor about my hip and ankle.  The doc couldn’t find anything wrong with my hip (I suspect I just had some really bad impingement – it’s a non-issue now), but he found some major bone spurs in my right ankle after taking x-rays.

I’ve used the test and re-test principles from BASL after completing each mobility exercise, and none of the ankle/plantar mobility exercises seem to help my bottom-of-squat position (tried voodoo banded calf raises and squats, ball whack, and plantar lacrosse ball).  However, in this case, I don’t believe the test and re-test conclusion applies here; test and re-test says (correct me if I’m wrong) that if you are doing a certain mobility exercise, and it doesn’t improve the position you are working on, then move on – that area is not the problem.  In my case, I know that ankle mobility is my problem because of the pistol test and because I have to lift my right heel off the ground to get into the proper bottom-of-squat position.  I also know that my dorsiflexion is the limiter, because I can feel it very clearly.  There’s a hard-stop when I try to move my right foot in dorsiflexion in any movement.

I’m seriously considering ankle anthroscopy to remove my bone spurs.  I really want to get this show on the road and start squatting again (I’ve been out of commission for half a year), and I want to get ready for the ultimate frisbee season.  We Minnesotans live for the few summer months we have.  I don’t think further mobilization exercises will be fruitful.  I guess what I’m really looking for is general advice / experience regarding anthroscopy of bone spurs – specifically regarding the ankle – and maybe some custom-tailored advice taking my whole story into account.  And hope-beyond-hope maybe there’s some mobilization exercise that will fix everything, but I doubt that based on physical bone spur restrictions on my ankle mobility.

I’ve got decent health insurance, so cost isn’t really a problem – I just want to be mobile!