Physio360

Physio360 Highly specialized, comprehensive PT to help restore movement and empower you to perform.

06/08/2026

Most ankle mobility drills focus on one thing:

👉 Forcing the talus backward.

And sometimes that works.

But if you’ve been stretching, banding, and mobilizing your ankle for weeks without seeing meaningful change, the problem may not be the talus itself.

During dorsiflexion, the talus doesn’t move in isolation. It relies on the calcaneus being able to evert, plantarflex, and internally rotate beneath it. As the calcaneus moves, the talus can glide down and in, creating space for the tibia and fibula (medial and lateral malleoli) to move around it.

If the calcaneus is stiff, the talus may have nowhere to go.

So instead of endlessly cranking on a banded ankle mobilization, ask yourself:

🦶 Does the heel actually move?
🦶 Can the calcaneus evert?
🦶 Is the rearfoot able to absorb and adapt to load?

Sometimes the ankle isn’t lacking mobility.

Sometimes it’s missing the movement underneath it.

Stop chasing ankle mobility.
Start restoring foot mechanics.
Teach the foot to be a foot.

05/11/2026

Most people understand this instinctively as kids:

If the bottom blocks aren’t stable, the tower has to compensate somewhere higher up.

But for some reason, rehab often ignores this concept.

We chase the symptom:
• the knee
• the hip
• the back

without asking whether the foundation is actually accepting load well.

Your body is a stack of interconnected segments constantly transferring force into the ground and back up the chain.

So if the foot can’t absorb and transfer force efficiently, something higher up has to change:
→ the knee rotates differently
→ the hip stiffens
→ the pelvis shifts

The body will always find a strategy to keep the tower standing.

The question is whether it’s an efficient one.

Sometimes improving movement isn’t about “fixing” the painful area.
Sometimes it’s about improving the quality of the blocks underneath it.

If you’ve been dealing with recurring tightness, pain, or movement limitations that never fully resolve, there’s a good chance the issue isn’t only where you feel it.

05/06/2026

A lot of people try to “fix” hip loading by cueing the hip itself.

But sometimes the problem starts much lower.

When the foot can’t pronate and absorb force efficiently, the body has to find another way to create stability.
One common strategy?
Shifting load up into the hip.

In this squat, notice how the hip struggles to load cleanly on that side when the foot stays rigid.

Then we place a SoleStrong wedge under the foot to help facilitate pronation and improve the foot’s ability to accept load.

Suddenly the hip has a better foundation to work from.

Better foot mechanics → better force absorption → cleaner hip loading.

The body is one connected system.
Sometimes changing the input at the foot changes everything upstream.

05/05/2026

This wasn’t a strength problem.
It was a load acceptance problem.

Left Image:
• Limited ability to absorb force at the foot
• Trunk shifts to compensate
• Increased stress through the knee and calf

Right Image:
• Improved foot mobility
• Better force acceptance
• Reduced need for compensation

Result:
• Decreased knee pain
• Reduced posterior calf tightness

Nothing was treated at the knee.
But the knee improved.

That’s what happens when you address
where the problem actually starts.

Most rehab chases symptoms.
This is about changing the system.

If something keeps coming back,
there’s usually a reason elsewhere in the kinetic chain.

04/22/2026

Most people think overpronation is the problem.
But what if the issue is how you’re pronating?

When the subtalar joint isn’t moving well, the talus can’t glide the way it’s supposed to.
Instead of smooth, controlled pronation… you get a blocked system.

And that’s when you’ll often see:
• Compression through the lateral ankle
• Poor force absorption
• Compensation up the chain

True pronation isn’t collapse—it’s a coordinated, triplanar motion.
When you restore subtalar mechanics and give the talus space to move, everything changes:
less compression, better load distribution, and more efficient movement.

If your ankle always feels “pinchy” on the outside, this might be why.

04/20/2026

Anterior shin pain isn’t always a shin problem.

Watch what happens on her more symptomatic side:
➡️ As she loads, her hip shifts laterally

That’s not random.
It’s a compensation.

When the foot doesn’t absorb force well,
that load has to go somewhere—so the body shifts to find it.

In her case:
Foot → less force acceptance
Hip → picks up the slack

After intervention with our SoleStrong Wedges, you’ll notice:
✔️ Reduced lateral hip shift
✔️ Improved load acceptance through the foot
✔️ Decreased shin pain

Same runner. Same day. Different strategy.

This is why I don’t just chase symptoms.
I look at how the system is handling force.

If something feels off when you run, there’s usually a reason.

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