Corrective Exercise Strategies I Use

Although it has been nearly three years since my surgery, I still must do some exercises to maintain ankle flexibility, proper hip mobility and functional lower body biomechanics. Here are some of the techniques I use frequently to try and keep my body functioning as best it can:


Thorough Dynamic Warm Up
Warm ups are important and I have found no substitute for a good dynamic warm up. I perform my version of a dynamic warm up 4-6 days a week depending on how many days I work out. I'd like to note my flexibility using these techniques is at its best and I have the best joint range of motion I've had since my ankle surgery without EVER doing any traditional static stretching.
I use these exercises to take my body through a full range of motion warm up, some of which are in place to alleviate muscle imbalances I personally have:

Lunge with upper body twist, lunge with hip flexor stretch (corrective), walking high knee pulls, walking quad pulls, lateral adductor lunge (corrective), frankenstein stretch, leg swings, over-under hurdle walks (corrective), A-skips, high knees, butt kickers.

Single Leg Stability & Strength Work
Some of you may recently remember me talking about trying to work through some knee pain I was having. It turned out I was suffering from patella-femoral syndrome in which the knee cap tracks laterally and out of alignment. This was stemming from some internal rotation of my upper leg caused by an imbalance in my hips which came from the fact I've been doing squats pretty regularly with a slightly less mobile left ankle. Now you are seeing how it is all connected! To fix this I eliminated ALL bilateral leg exercises and stuck to unilateral training for about 2 months. Since the knee pain came from a grinding of the knee cap, I had to perform a lot of foam rolling to release the tension in muscles that were causing the knee cap to track funny. I also performed single leg stabilization exercises daily to keep my muscles active and firing while not placing the knee joint under any significant load. Even though my knee pain is gone now, I've stuck to mostly unilateral exercises and multi-directional movements to work on ankle mobility and to eliminate bilateral compensations.

Foam Rolling
I try to foam roll daily, but typically I will get four or five days in even if it is only for five to ten minutes. Foam rolling is an EXCELLENT corrective technique that can alleviate tension in overactive or shortened muscle bellies. Muscles that are overactive or too tight account for much of the shoulder, hip, low back and knee pain people experience. By releasing the knots or tightness in muscles directly above or below a joint you can eliminate much of these pains with the use of a simple foam roller which is pictured at the top of this article.

Why Athletes Shouldn't Train Like Bodybuilders...

One of my favorite training quotes ever comes from famous bodybuilder Milos Savic regarding a time when he was asked whether or not bodybuilders were athletes and he replied, "We are not athletes, we are athletic mannequins." I was first exposed to this little gem when reading a book by renowned strenth coach Robert dos Remedios. To simply answer the question, "Why should athletes not train like bodybuilders?", you must look no further than Milos Savic's quote. Athletes are physically functional specimens: running, jumping, weaving, ducking, dodging, diving, cutting and the list of movements goes on. Bodybuilders are physical specimens in a visual sense. Underneath the rippling veins, perfectly sculpted muscular cuts and nearly zero body fat is a body that can't run fast, jump high, accelerate, decelerate or rotate in space. Bodybuilding is NOT FUNCTIONAL.

Athletes on the other hand are functional. A player's success in competition is determined by their ability to execute complex maneuvers with cunning precision in random, unpredictable and largely uncontrollable environments. Most sports require athletes to produce force and power in short amounts of time whether it be a running back breaking through a linebacker's tackle, getting the bat around on a 90 mph fastball or going up for an alley-oop slam. These tasks cannot be completed using isolated movements, seated exercises, exercise machines and working for "the pump". Pump, schmump - most bodybuilders couldn't run across the room to answer the phone let alone spike a volleyball, make a diving catch or snap off a wicked slap shot. Anything explosive or unpredictable about a set of 21's? I didn't think so either...

The moral of the story for all you young athletes, college athletes, pro athletes, recreational athletes - training like a bodybuilder is COUNTER PRODUCTIVE if you are an ATHLETE. You need to use closed chain movements (feet on the floor), explode, sprint, cut, plant, push, pull, rotate, anti-rotate, stabilize, squat and lunge your way to athletic superiority. If you goal is performance, injury prevention and function then stop doing seated workouts, stop breaking up your workout into "one muscle group a day" routines and for crying out loud - stop looking at yourself in the mirror so much and let your performance do the talking.