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Bodyweight Pistol Squat - Ankle Mobility

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Dayz

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Hi guys,

I am trying to learn how to do pistol squats. I'm using the GTG method to practice partial pistols at low intensity frequently. I'm also using the advice and ideas in this article: One Good Rep: How to Perform the Perfect Pistol | StrongFirst

Watching Karen's video, it's clear I have two huge issues:

1. Too immobile. When I descend, I eventually start to fall backwards because my ankle cannot flex forward enough. It's worse on my left ankle which I broke about five years ago in an accident

2. Too weak. When I descend onto a box (which I am using given my lack of mobility), I struggle to reverse the motion and get up due to weakness

I am using the stretches, toe/heel walks, ankle prying and foot rolling suggested by Karen in the tutorial.

I have two questions:

1. Does practicing pistol squats regularly improve mobility in and of itself?
It seems like it would, purely because doing the movement often is equivalent to 'flossing' that range of motion often (hope that makes sense). I'm hoping my ROM can improve from the (partial) pistols alone

2. Does anyone have any other advice about what has worked for them to a) improve their mobility, b) go from not being able to do pistols, to being able to do them?! :)
 
Well, I practice Pistol GTG for a while, and what I could tell you is yes, practicing it regularly improve mobility, and strength. What would help me is mobility techniques from Kelly's book, and YT videos (and there are lot of them).
For practice I set up ROE, which are:
  • 2-5 reps per set if the set consists only BW reps,
  • 1-2 reps per set if the set consists reps with weight (I use 16kg bell)
  • number of set is always in range of 5-10
  • rest between sets at least 10 mikes, preferably 60 and more mikes
 
One thing you could try is raising your heel. There are lots of ways to do it -- wearing lifting shoes or other shoes with a significant heel, putting a block, board or weight plate under the heel, or using a wedge or slant board.

Raising the heel decreases the ankle mobility demand of the pistol and gives you better leverage so you should be able to get a better (if not full) range of motion. Once you can get full range of motion with a heel lift, you can decrease the heel lift. But it's actually perfectly fine to use some heel lift forever. It's a bit of a crutch, but you still get basically the same benefits of the exercise.

Personally, I prefer using a heel lift and/or counterweight (for most people bodyweight pistols are harder than weighted pistols, up to a point, because the weight acts as a counterbalance and reduces the mobility demand) and/or a support (door frame, power rack upright, rope or suspension trainer) to achieve an assisted full range, rather than doing partials or using a box.

IMO, partials or partials using a box encourage sitting back with the hips in way that is counterproductive to achieving a full range. If you initiate a pistol by sitting back too much, it is much harder to get all the way down. Your center of gravity gets too far back and makes it hard to go below parallel without falling backward. You end up practicing the top part of the range in a position that doesn't carry over to the full range.

By using assistance, you can use a groove closer to the unassisted full range, and I find it has better carryover. For this reason, assistance that lets you practice freestanding (heel lift and/or counterweight) has better carryover than assistance using external support (holding onto a doorframe, power rack upright, rope or suspension trainer).

I also recommend doing some bottom up work. Practice the bottom position, using assistance as necessary to achieve it. You can just hang out in the bottom position and get comfortable with it, and/or practice rising from the bottom to the top. Another thing you can do to get comfortable in the bottom position is to squat down all the way on two feet (feet close together), with assistance as necessary, and then extend one leg in front of you to assume the bottom position of the pistol. You can then do a bottom up rep if you can, or you can bring the extended leg back into a two-footed squat, then extend the other leg. Once you get more comfortable with the bottom position and can do the positive part, "down on two, up on one" is great drill.

In my experience, practicing partials is often a dead end. You just end up practicing up to the point where you would fall backward, but without really changing where that point is, because you aren't really using a groove that would allow you to go deeper.

BTW, I used to be really good at pistols -- I could do full bodyweight pistols the first time I tried and trained them regularly for years using up to 32kg. But age and accumulated ankle injuries from playing basketball have made them much harder (impossible on one side), so I no longer practice them. I honestly don't miss them one bit.
 
Last edited:
Hello,

Dayz said:
1. Does practicing pistol squats regularly improve mobility in and of itself?
Click to expand...
Yes it will. I would not rush the process. Progress slowly by gradually increasing the ROM. This will not be done overnight though.
If you put "kelly starrett ankle mobility" you will find plenty of video for assessing and fixing ankle mobility and flexibility topic.

Dayz said:
2. Does anyone have any other advice about what has worked for them to a) improve their mobility, b) go from not being able to do pistols, to being able to do them?!
Click to expand...
The Naked Warrior will give you the different moves to get to it.

Kind regards,

Pet'
 
@Dayz, I recommend you focus on an easier squat, and a StrongFirst staple, the goblet squat. If you could post a view of that, it's a fine place to work on some of the attributes of the pistol squat without nearly the strength, mobility, and stability requirements.

-S-
 
Steve W. said:
One thing you could try is raising your heel. There are lots of ways to do it -- wearing lifting shoes or other shoes with a significant heel, putting a block, board or weight plate under the heel, or using a wedge or slant board.

Raising the heel decreases the ankle mobility demand of the pistol and gives you better leverage so you should be able to get a better (if not full) range of motion. Once you can get full range of motion with a heel lift, you can decrease the heel lift. But it's actually perfectly fine to use some heel lift forever. It's a bit of a crutch, but you still get basically the same benefits of the exercise.

Personally, I prefer using a heel lift and/or counterweight (for most people bodyweight pistols are harder than weighted pistols, up to a point, because the weight acts as a counterbalance and reduces the mobility demand) and/or a support (door frame, power rack upright, rope or suspension trainer) to achieve an assisted full range, rather than doing partials or using a box.

IMO, partials or partials using a box encourage sitting back with the hips in way that is counterproductive to achieving a full range. If you initiate a pistol by sitting back too much, it is much harder to get all the way down. Your center of gravity gets too far back and makes it hard to go below parallel without falling backward. You end up practicing the top part of the range in a position that doesn't carry over to the full range.

By using assistance, you can use a groove closer to the unassisted full range, and I find it has better carryover. For this reason, assistance that lets you practice freestanding (heel lift and/or counterweight) has better carryover than assistance using external support (holding onto a doorframe, power rack upright, rope or suspension trainer).

I also recommend doing some bottom up work. Practice the bottom position, using assistance as necessary to achieve it. You can just hang out in the bottom position and get comfortable with it, and/or practice rising from the bottom to the top. Another thing you can do to get comfortable in the bottom position is to squat down all the way on two feet (feet close together), with assistance as necessary, and then extend one leg in front of you to assume the bottom position of the pistol. You can then do a bottom up rep if you can, or you can bring the extended leg back into a two-footed squat, then extend the other leg. Once you get more comfortable with the bottom position and can do the positive part, "down on two, up on one" is great drill.

In my experience, practicing partials is often a dead end. You just end up practicing up to the point where you would fall backward, but without really changing where that point is, because you aren't really using a groove that would allow you to go deeper.

BTW, I used to be really good at pistols -- I could do full bodyweight pistols the first time I tried and trained them regularly for years using up to 32kg. But age and accumulated ankle injuries from playing basketball have made them much harder (impossible on one side), so I no longer practice them. I honestly don't miss them one bit.
Click to expand...

Just came across this thread as I recently started learning the pistol. Your suggestion that assisted pistols (box, band, upright...etc) and partials are counterproductive and the bottom-up approach is a productive one rings true to me as it relates clearly to how I failed for years to get my first pullup.

Chair assist, band assist and machine pull downs never did it for me. What worked, and pretty quickly, was a top-down approach, where I used a prop to get to the top then release or tuck in the legs and eccentrically lower myself slowly. I can only imagine the bottom-up pistol approach will work equally effectively, and will definitely try it for a while.
 
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