Ankle, Knee, and Hip Stability - Exercise Routine & Deep Dive
So you’re looking to gain some stability at the ankle, knee, and hip as these joints may be feeling funky due to a previous injury you had in the gym or playing sports. Or maybe you’re noticing those legs of yours kinda “flop” around whenever you walk or move. Well, don’t you worry because I have the perfect routine for you!
But first, we should define “stability” and figure out WHY you’re having trouble with it (if you’re into that) because this understanding will allow for way better exercise selection. I mean, the goal is for these exercises to help, right?
“Stability -
the quality, state, or degree of being stable: such as
a: the strength to stand or endure
b: the property of a body that causes it when disturbed from a condition of equilibrium or steady motion to develop forces or moments that restore the original condition
c: resistance to chemical change or to physical disintegration”
So the definition of stability really hits home that an object needs to resist change, prevent movement, etc. which is great for defining objects like a building, a bridge, etc.
But in relation to the human body, a conscious, organic, semi-ridged water sac built to traverse the earth in countless methods of propulsion… It may not be the best term to utilize in terms of semantics, or we can sort of change the contextual mindset in which we think “stability” for the body or a joint.
Hear me out, so we can agree that the joints are meant to move and that if they don’t bad things happen, right? But you’re here because you have an ankle, knee, or hip or whatever combination of these joints that have TOO much movement thus causing an “instability” presenting as your knees collapsing into a valgus position, over pronating at the foot and ankle, snapping IT bands, hip impingements, and so on.
“Instability -
the quality or state of being unstable.”
What a riveting definition…
So the joints you have need to keep moving and we don’t want to lock them up completely to make them “stable” but we also don’t want them flopping around in a state of “instability.” We want to then “control” the range of motion you have available at a joint. Control is a better term as it allows for a more dynamic mental imagery over a joint that should have movement capabilities vs. just thinking a joint needs to stay rigid and stable.
Now, I could care less if you say, “I need knee stability, bro.” Who cares? Just add into your definition of stability that the joint still needs to move but whilst under control.
“Dynamic stability” of sorts.
Okay, now that we’ve cleared away the semantics, let’s dive into WHY your ankle, knee, and hip may be unstable.
Why Your Ankle, Knee, and Hip is Unstable and Why traditional “stability” exercises suck
Knee Valgus (middle)
So I’m sure you’ve already tried some “stability” exercises for your joints and maybe they’ve worked or maybe they haven’t. If they didn’t really help, well this section should explain why.
So the above section where I spoke about “floppy” joints with knee valgus, pronation, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, there is a common theme to these instability symptoms that present in the lower body (and upper body too but that's for another time). They are symptoms of the body not having control when “falling” forward. Let’s use knee valgus as an example.
Knee valgus is a completely normal part of humans and will occur with all sorts of activities like running and jumping but will typically occur at the landing or “loading” portion of these movements.
“Too much” movement can occur when we lack control over the joint.
But why?
The typical reasoning that you hear from fitness and rehab professionals is muscle weakness, where they just can’t handle the demand of the activities thrust upon them.
Again, back to our knee valgus example, the glute medius muscle gets picked on for being weak, thus professionals shout, “strengthen it!”
But, I have to disagree. Yes, weakness can be a thing, but I have spent 10 years in rehab and fitness and at least 6 of those years attempting to “strengthen” stabilizer muscles on clients, patients, and myself, unfortunately, end in subpar results. It was always hit or miss. Yes, the muscles may have gotten stronger but the transition to using that strength in a dynamic context was still lacking. People were still “unstable” or “flopping” around (including myself).
So, I finally came to the conclusion that I wasn’t addressing the root problem of the ankle, knee, and hip instability issues. It wasn’t strength or motor planning, but I found that subpar positioning of joints in relation to gravity was the messing link.
Basically, people are falling forward from a postural sense and having trouble controlling an increase in the falling forces i.e landing from jumping or running. So you can strengthen the h3ll out of your stabilizer muscles (glutes, quads, calves, soleus, etc.), do plyometrics (depth jumps, ladder drills, etc.) but if you’re in a poor postural alignment to gravity…
It’s like you’re filling up a bucket with water but the bucket has holes in it. It will kind of fill up but it’s not going to do the job as effectively as it could. So, let’s patch the holes!
Repositioning the Pelvis and Ribcage Before Strengthening
So we know that instability is coming from you falling forward in relation to gravity a bit excessively to the point that you can’t control the range of motion you have at the ankles, knees, or hips and I just hated on strengthening exercises for the stabilizers. No, I promise I don’t hate the movements, we just need an extra step before strengthening in order to take full advantage of the exercises.
So we’re going to start by Bringing the pelvis and ribcage back in space via the breath. If you’re not familiar with this concept, I would recommend you check out my blog post over on Reddit called “Getting More Out of Your Posture Training,” where I discuss its full effects, but we’ll hit the high notes.
As the repositioning exercises bring you back in relation to gravity overtime via breathing or pressure management, you’ll then find an increase in control and strength over what were unstable ankles, knees, and hips. This is due to the improved postural positioning allowing for optimal muscular leverage. Think of doing a clamshell exercise and only feeling your hip flexors… yeah, that’s your pelvis in a subpar positioning.
Five Exercise to Improve Your Ankle, Knee, and Hip Stability
Below is the full routine to start improving both your lower body’s stability and your posture’s relationship to gravity. Not to mention, you’ll get some novel, really fun strengthening exercises to challenge you.
Ankle, Knee, and Hip Stability Summary
Thank you for reading this post! I hope you found it entertaining and useful in your posture and movement endeavors. Note, that in order to improve your stability AND mobility, you must look at how your posture is in relation to gravity. Gravity dictates everything.