I’ve been working on my ankle for about 2 1/2 years. I’m getting really close to being fixed but I’m still not quite there. Depending on how long you’ve had the problem, an ankle problem can be more than an ankle problem. I’m almost 40 and it’s possible my problems stem from a nasty sprain I had in 4th grade – exacerbated by every other sprain I had since then. I had almost no dorsiflexion in my right ankle. Doing the “knee to wall” test, I couldn’t get my knee past my toes. My right hip was just as messed up with almost no range of motion. They only way I could walk was turning my foot out with a circumducting gait. If my left leg were as bad off as my right leg I would have been completely incapable of walking down stairs. Before I started fixing everything, doing the 10-minute squat test my right foot would turn out and I would fall backward just about the point where my thighs got to parallel with my feet hip width apart. Now I can almost get into the deep ass-to-heels squat with toes and heels touching. 

The heel will remain inverted in relaxed calcaneal
stance, which may predispose to inversion sprain of the
ankle and hyperkeratosis over the lateral border of the heel.
In an attempt to stabilise the foot, the first ray plantarflex-
es to make ground contact, giving the foot a high arch pro-
file. Alternatively, hallux flexus progressing later into a
hallux rigidus may develop. As a result of the lack of STJ
pronation, the foot assumes a rigid posture with the MTJ
remaining locked from the beginning of the stance phase of
gait. This diminishes the shock absorbing function of the
foot and problems affecting the knee, the hip and the lower
back may arise. The lack of STJ pronation also causes an
abductory twist to assist in the transfer of weight from the
lateral to the medial side of the foot. This may cause
hyperkeratosis over the medial aspect of the hallux and may also cause a heloma durum
over the plantar aspect of the fifth metatarsal head. 

I had good success recently attacking the medial side of the lower leg. I can feel tension all the way from the calcaneous to the knee. Keep working on the ankle, but go after the hip joint also and go after the soft tissues of the upper and lower leg. Do some wide squats to open the hips and work on your splits. If, like me, your foot has been turned out for decades the soft tissues are going to be twisted around the tibia and femur. You can’t fix that overnight. One last piece of advice, do yoga. Yogis have ways of stretching you out in ways would never dream of. Different instructors have their own things they like to do so go to a variety of classes led by different instructors. Even the right cue in Warrior 2 might cause a stretch in your back foot that will improve ankle function. 

Those pictures look familiar. Does your right leg swing to the side (circumduction gait) as you walk? Do you have problems walking down stairs? Can you keep your heel planted on the back foot as your reach down to the next step without the knee collapsing in? Any stiffness in the big toe? Those are the biggest problems I noticed with everyday activities before I started fixing my problems. 

There is definitely a connection. If you can’t get into the position you can’t activate, thus strengthen, the muscle fibers to get you out of the position. Using a TRX you can kind of work on strength and flexibility at the same time. I would prioritize on flexibility. 

Sounds like my back was pretty similar to yours. I always got spasms on my right side and it felt like my traps and rhomboids were stuck together. For starters, you need to attempt to always maintain good posture. When I first found this site a year and a half ago the lacrosse ball became my best friend. I rolled around whenever I got the chance to work out the tightness in my back. Sometimes I laid on the floor and sometimes I would lean up against a wall. After a couple days of really working at it I literally felt 20 years younger. I was able to stand up straight and maintain a posture I didn’t thinkI was capable of. I obviously did more than just roll around on a ball. I also fixed my frozen shoulder on my left side.

This might be the video you are referring to, can’t remember for sure and I don’t have time to watch it again. http://www.mobilitywod.com/daily/tuesday-july-16th-2013/

Everything is connected. It’s entirely possible something as far down as your big toe can impact your neck. I’ve read somewhere that compensation to an injury can become permanent after two weeks. For example, you sprain your ankle. You can’t dorsiflex because of the injury so you walk like a duck. Twenty years later you still walk like a duck although it healed years ago because you didn’t do the proper rehab. Now you might have some hip dysfunction, be leaning to one side, pelvis tilted, crooked spine, etc… I’m over-simplifying this because I don’t fully understand it all myself. I just know I feel like I’m playing whack-a-mole when trying to fix all my problems. It seems like one dysfunction re-enforces another. 

I have some constant tingling/numbness in my left hand which I’m pretty sure is caused by my tight pec minor on that side. (Might be tight bicep problem too) Looking at the anatomy at http://www.zygotebody.com/ it looks like the nerves run under the pec minor. You might be compressing the nerves. Try coming at it obliquely by laying on your side or leaning into a door jam with the Gemini.