Nick Lancaster - Sports Scientist

☝️Ankle Mobility
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Many things can be limiting ankle dorsiflexion and mobility which can ultimately limit and impact the way we extend our hip!
The two most common being 1️⃣Calf muscle tightness or 2️⃣Ankle joint restrictions. If you have been stretching and rolling your calf for weeks with no improvement in range, more than likely you have a joint restriction.
🔥Try this banded ankle mobilisation technique.
1️⃣Tie asuperband around a pole and put your foot through it with the band underneath your malleoli and on your shoe laces.
2️⃣From here make sure you have a box with some height to provide the joint with some distraction as we are going to be actively stretching the joint capsule ultimately allowing us to acquire more range.
3️⃣Now keeping your heel on the box push your ankle into dorsiflexion.
⏰Mobilise for 45 seconds 15-20 reps. Remember after mobilising you need to follow it up with movement that uses your new range. If your limitation was through a squat drive your ankle into as much dorsiflexion as possible.

Building strong and stable hips👉🏻
🍑This is one of my favourites for improving hip stability and function. This gluteus medius wall lean will mimic the single leg stance required for functional movements through walking, ambulatory stairs and running. When the gluteus medius is weak it can lead to injuries such as IT band syndrome, medial knee pain, trochanteric bursitis, low back pain, achilles tendinopathy, shin splints and plantar fasciitis.
1️⃣Start with your feet hip width apart.
2️⃣With your knee closest to the wall elevate and push your knee into the ball.
3️⃣Avoid leaning over to your stance limb allowing your trunk to be in a neutral position.
The stance limb will fatigue and feel the burn first, give it a try it is more difficult than it looks!

🙌Hands down one of the best lower body movement patterns from both a lean tissue and strength perspective🙌
Can be regressed to any split squat variation and progressed to any deficit or barbell. Either as an accessory to your compound lifts or use it as your main lift and focus on tempo and mechanical stress.
From a programming perspective through size, strength and mobility it would be to prioritise these at the forefront.
Today instead of doing 12 per side I did 2 cluster sets of 6 to keep reps more consistent allowing greater loading capacity.

🍑Why perform Glute Isometrics?🍑
Why should we train the glutes isometrically❓
Not only will this help increase your corticomotor excitability but it will also increase area in the primary motor cortex which is the area of the brain we use to activate muscle fibres.
Here are 3 non-weightbearing exercises improve your glute activation!
1️⃣FireHydrant
2️⃣Side lying hip abduction
3️⃣Clams
Hold each for 2 x 30 seconds and you will feel the burn! This is also a great way to start a patient on a lower extremity strengthening program prior to loading in a closed chain position.