Squats w/ a bad ankle.

[Buffalohed]

I have injured my right ankle many times over the years. I sprained it twice in middle/high school and sprained or rolled it many many times while hiking in the military. It is at the point where it doesn't hurt, but the range of motion is very limited in the direction of pulling my toes up towards my shin. I have had Xrays multiple times on it and all sorts of therapy but the range of motion still sucks.

The only time this really affects me is during squats. When I get about 80% of the way to parallel my body starts to turn to the left because my left knee can keep bending towards my toes, but my right leg is stopped. So I can only go down so far unless I put my legs really wide.

Over the years this has resulted in some minor pain in my left knee, and my outer thighs are significantly bigger than my inner thighs.

What kind of heavy exercises can I do to substitue for deep squats, and still get similar benefits without needing any ankle flexibility? Alternately, if I keep doing squats, should I just stick to a wide stance and go deep and heavy with that, or should I do a shoulder-width stance and go down to a little above parallel?

Thanks for reading this bros.

 

[DOGMA]

Have you tried Hack squats with a smith machine. This movement should keep your ankle and foot at allmost 90 degree's at all times even super low. This way you can bring your stance closer together and hit those weaker area's of the quads. I cant believe I just recomended the Smith machine, I hate it. But for hacks it works well.

 

[big_byrd52]

u can do a wider stance and really force ur knees out hard. this will limit the ROM needed to squat to parallel since the shin should not move at all. it will or should reamain 90 degrees to the floor. it will take practice and u may be weaker at first, but the load will shift and strength will come back and then some. u can also do close or moderate stance squats with a plate under ur heals. hack squats are great, i love them, and will raises actual squat weight dramatically.

 

[Buffalohed]

Thanks for the advice.

I haven't done hack squats in forever, but I will give them a shot during my next leg day and see how I can incorporate them into my routine.

I'm pretty happy that you said I can just do wide squats instead... I've always liked doing those more and honestly I'm sick of trying to do close stance squats with a shitty ROM, just because I had the idea you need to do them close to make gains.