If you ask someone over 40 which joints give them the most trouble, you’ll hear plenty about knees, hips and lower backs. Ankles rarely make the list. And yet in the clinic, restricted ankle mobility is one of the most common findings we come across — and one of the most consistently underestimated. It doesn’t announce itself the way a sore knee does. It just quietly limits what everything above it can do, often for years, without ever really hurting.
The specific movement that matters most here is called dorsiflexion — the ability to bring your shin forward over your foot while your heel stays flat on the ground. It sounds like a small, unremarkable range of motion. But dorsiflexion is involved in an enormous number of everyday and exercise-based movements, and when it’s restricted, the body doesn’t simply do less. It compensates, borrowing movement from the knees, hips and lower back to make up the difference. Those compensations are where problems tend to start.
This post looks at what ankle dorsiflexion actually is, why it becomes restricted, how that restriction quietly shows up in your squat, your stairs, your gait and a surprising number of daily movements, and what you can do to get it back.
What dorsiflexion actually is
The ankle joint allows movement in several directions, but dorsiflexion is the one that matters most for lower-body function. It’s the movement of your shin travelling forward over a planted foot — the position your ankle needs to reach when you squat deeply, walk up a hill, climb stairs, or land from a jump.
A healthy ankle should allow somewhere around 15 to 20 degrees of dorsiflexion with the knee bent, measured from a neutral standing position. That might not sound like a lot, but it’s a critical range. Without adequate dorsiflexion, your shin simply can’t travel far enough forward over your foot to support the deeper, more stable positions that many everyday and exercise movements require.
A simple way to think about it: your ankle is the foundation joint of the entire lower body chain. Everything above it — your knee, hip, pelvis and spine — depends on the ankle being able to move through its available range so that load can travel efficiently up through the leg. When the foundation is restricted, the structures above it have to find another way to get the job done. And “another way” usually means compensation, and compensation, sustained over years, tends to produce wear, strain and eventually pain somewhere else in the chain.
Why ankle mobility becomes restricted
Ankle dorsiflexion restriction develops for a combination of reasons, several of which are extremely common in adults over 40.
Footwear plays a bigger role than most people realise. Years spent in shoes with any degree of heel elevation — including many standard running shoes, work shoes and dress shoes — gradually shortens the calf muscles and Achilles tendon. The body adapts to the position it spends the most time in, and if that position involves a slightly raised heel for most of your waking hours, the tissue at the back of your lower leg adapts to that shortened length over months and years.
Old ankle sprains are another major contributor, and one that’s frequently overlooked. Most people who’ve rolled an ankle at some point in their life — often decades ago, often considered fully healed — never fully regained the ankle’s original range of motion. Scar tissue, altered joint mechanics and protective muscle guarding around a previously injured ankle commonly leave a lasting mobility deficit that goes unnoticed because the pain resolved long ago, even though the underlying restriction did not.
Prolonged sitting contributes here too, in a similar way to how it affects the hips. Sitting places the ankle in a relatively neutral or slightly plantarflexed position for hours at a time, offering little stimulus for the joint and surrounding tissue to move through its full range. Over years of desk-based work, this steady lack of demand contributes to a gradual loss of available motion.
Reduced activity levels in general, particularly a decline in barefoot walking, uneven terrain, squatting and other varied movement patterns that were far more common in earlier, more physically active decades of life, mean that many adults simply don’t ask their ankles to move through a full range very often. Like any joint, the ankle responds to the demands placed on it — and demands have quietly declined for a lot of people as daily life has become more sedentary and structured.
Structural and joint-specific factors, including bony changes at the front of the ankle joint sometimes referred to as anterior ankle impingement, and tightness specifically through the calf complex — the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles — can also directly restrict the available range, and these are worth a professional assessment if the restriction seems particularly stubborn or is associated with pain rather than just stiffness.
How restricted ankles show up in your squat
The squat is one of the clearest places to see ankle mobility restrictions play out, because the movement has such a direct and unforgiving relationship with dorsiflexion.
To descend into a comfortable squat with the torso reasonably upright, the shin needs to travel forward over the foot to a meaningful degree while the heel stays planted on the ground. If the ankle can’t provide that range, something else has to give, and the body typically resolves this in one of a few predictable ways. The heels may lift off the ground as you descend, shifting weight onto the toes and compromising both stability and the ability to load the posterior chain effectively. Alternatively, the torso may lean forward excessively to shift the centre of mass and compensate for the shin’s inability to travel forward, placing more strain through the lower back. Or the knees may collapse inward as the body searches for an alternative way to achieve depth, a pattern that places unwanted stress on the knee joint itself.
None of these compensations are inherently dangerous in isolation, but repeated over hundreds of squats across months and years of training, they contribute meaningfully to knee discomfort, lower back strain, and a squat pattern that never quite feels efficient or comfortable, regardless of how much strength is developed. This is one of the more frustrating experiences we see in the clinic — people who are strong enough to squat well, but whose ankle mobility is quietly capping their technique no matter how much they work on other aspects of the lift.
How restricted ankles show up on stairs
Stairs demand a similar, though less extreme, degree of ankle dorsiflexion, and restricted ankles show up here in ways that many people notice without ever connecting it back to the ankle joint itself.
Climbing stairs requires the ankle to dorsiflex as the trailing leg pushes off and the leading leg accepts weight on the step above. When this range isn’t available, people often compensate by leading more heavily with the hip and knee of the trailing leg, effectively hauling themselves up the stairs using the upper leg rather than allowing a smooth, coordinated push through the ankle and foot. Over time, this shifts a disproportionate amount of load onto the knees and hips, contributing to the sense that stairs feel more effortful and occasionally uncomfortable than they should.
Descending stairs relies just as heavily on controlled dorsiflexion, as the ankle needs to allow the leading leg to accept body weight smoothly while controlling the descent. Restricted ankles here often show up as a slightly stiff, cautious or tentative gait pattern on the way down stairs — something many people over 40 notice in themselves without quite being able to explain why stairs, particularly descending them, have started to feel less confident than they used to.
How restricted ankles show up in your gait
Walking and running both depend on a phase of the gait cycle where the ankle needs to dorsiflex as the body’s weight moves forward over the planted foot, just before push-off occurs. This is sometimes called the terminal stance phase, and it’s a critical part of an efficient, powerful stride.
When ankle dorsiflexion is restricted, the body typically compensates by shortening the stride on the affected side, rolling excessively onto the outer edge of the foot to find an alternative path forward, or increasing hip flexion to compensate for the lack of ankle range further down the chain. Over the tens of thousands of steps taken each week, even small compensations of this kind accumulate into altered loading patterns through the knees, hips and lower back — patterns that are frequently implicated in the kind of chronic, low-level overuse complaints so common in adults returning to walking or running after 40.
For runners specifically, restricted ankle mobility has also been associated in research with reduced running economy — meaning more energy is required to maintain the same pace — and with a higher rate of overuse injuries including shin splints, Achilles tendinopathy and plantar fasciitis, largely because the compensatory movement patterns that develop from ankle restriction place additional strain on these structures.
The daily-life movements you might not have connected to your ankles
Beyond the gym and beyond exercise altogether, restricted ankle dorsiflexion quietly limits a surprising number of ordinary daily movements that most people never think to trace back to their ankles.
Getting up and down from the floor, a movement that becomes increasingly important to maintain as a marker of functional independence with age, relies heavily on ankle dorsiflexion to allow a controlled, efficient transition between standing and kneeling or sitting positions. Restricted ankles often show up here as an awkward, effortful process of getting to the floor and back up again, frequently relying more heavily on the arms and upper body to compensate for what the ankles and hips should be doing.
Gardening, a genuinely popular and valuable activity for many people over 40, involves prolonged periods of squatting, kneeling and crouching that place real demands on ankle mobility. Restricted ankles here often translate into needing to kneel rather than squat, or experiencing discomfort through the knees and lower back during and after a gardening session that could otherwise be avoided with better ankle range.
Getting in and out of a low car, reaching into a low cupboard, picking something up off the ground while bending the knees rather than the back, and even a comfortable standing posture at the end of a long day, all draw on the same underlying ankle mobility that shows up so clearly in a squat. Because these movements are so embedded in daily life, restrictions here often go completely unnoticed as a mobility issue — they just feel like normal, unavoidable stiffness that comes with getting older, when in a great many cases they’re actually a specific and addressable restriction in a single joint.
How to assess your own ankle mobility
A simple, well-validated self-test can give you a rough sense of where your ankle mobility currently sits. Kneel in a half-kneeling position facing a wall, with your front foot flat on the ground a comfortable distance from the wall — start with around ten centimetres. Keeping your front heel firmly planted on the ground, drive your front knee forward, aiming to touch the wall with your knee while your heel stays down. If you can comfortably touch the wall with your knee while maintaining a flat heel, your ankle mobility in that position is reasonable. If your heel lifts before your knee reaches the wall, move your foot slightly closer to the wall and try again, noting the distance at which you can just manage to touch the wall with the heel remaining down. A distance of around ten to twelve centimetres from the wall is generally considered a reasonable benchmark for healthy dorsiflexion, though this varies somewhat between individuals.
Testing both ankles is worthwhile, as it’s common to find a meaningful difference between sides, particularly if you have a history of ankle sprains on one side. A significant side-to-side difference is often more clinically relevant than the absolute number itself, since it points toward a specific, addressable asymmetry rather than a general limitation.
Exercises to improve ankle dorsiflexion
The encouraging news is that ankle mobility responds well to targeted, consistent work, and meaningful improvements are achievable within a matter of weeks for most people, provided the restriction isn’t driven by a significant structural or joint-specific issue that requires more specific clinical management.
Knee-to-wall mobilisations, using the same position as the assessment described above, are one of the most direct ways to train dorsiflexion. Set up in the half-kneeling position at a distance where you can just touch the wall with your knee while keeping your heel down, and perform slow, controlled repetitions of driving the knee toward the wall and back, gradually working to increase the distance from the wall over successive sessions as your range improves.
Weighted or banded ankle dorsiflexion mobilisations add a more targeted stretch to the joint capsule itself. Looping a resistance band around the front of the ankle joint, anchored behind you, and performing the same knee-to-wall movement against the gentle pull of the band can help address restrictions coming from the joint capsule rather than purely from muscular tightness, though this is best introduced with guidance to ensure correct set-up.
Calf stretching, targeting both the gastrocnemius with a straight-knee calf stretch and the soleus with a bent-knee version, addresses the muscular component of ankle restriction that’s extremely common in adults who spend a lot of time in supportive footwear. Both variations held for 30 to 60 seconds, performed regularly, can produce a meaningful improvement in the muscular contribution to dorsiflexion restriction over several weeks.
Elevated heel squats and goblet squats performed with the heels on a small wedge or a couple of weight plates are a useful interim strategy while working on genuine ankle mobility improvements, and can also serve as a diagnostic tool in themselves. If your squat depth and technique improve noticeably with your heels elevated compared to flat on the ground, that’s a strong indicator that ankle mobility is a genuine limiting factor in your squat pattern, and it’s well worth investing time in improving that range directly rather than permanently relying on heel elevation as a workaround.
Barefoot walking on varied surfaces, where safe and appropriate to do so, gently and progressively reintroduces the ankle to a broader range of movement demands than the flat, supportive surfaces most people spend the majority of their time on. This isn’t a substitute for targeted mobility work, but it’s a helpful complementary habit for maintaining the range you’ve worked to regain.
When to seek a professional assessment
Most ankle mobility restrictions respond well to a consistent, well-designed mobility program. But there are situations where a professional assessment is genuinely worthwhile before diving into self-directed mobility work. A significant difference between your left and right ankle, particularly following a previous injury, deserves a closer look to understand whether the restriction is coming from soft tissue, the joint itself, or old scar tissue, since each of these responds to a different approach. Pain, rather than simple stiffness, during ankle mobility testing or squatting is worth having assessed properly rather than pushed through. And if you’ve been doing consistent mobility work for several weeks without any noticeable improvement, it’s often a sign that something more specific — a joint restriction, an old injury that never fully resolved, or a movement compensation elsewhere in the chain — needs a more tailored approach.
How an Exercise Physiologist can help
Ankle mobility is one of those areas where a proper assessment makes an enormous difference to how effectively it can be addressed. An Accredited Exercise Physiologist can assess your dorsiflexion range on both sides, differentiate between joint-based and soft tissue-based restrictions, identify whether an old injury is contributing to the current limitation, and build a targeted program that fits within your broader training or rehabilitation goals.
Just as importantly, addressing ankle mobility rarely happens in isolation. It’s usually integrated into a broader program that also strengthens the muscles now able to access a fuller range of motion, ensuring the improved mobility translates into genuinely better movement quality in your squat, your gait, your stairs and your daily life, rather than simply a better number on a wall test.
At Inspire Fitness in Balwyn North, ankle mobility is one of the areas we assess as a matter of course for clients working on squat technique, returning to running, or managing knee, hip or lower back discomfort, because so often the real story starts further down the chain than people expect. If stiffness, discomfort or a sense that your squat, stairs or walking just don’t feel quite right has been bothering you, it might be worth having your ankles looked at specifically.
Sometimes the smallest joint in the chain is the one holding everything else back.