Surely in the gym you will have seen people placing small discs under their heels when it comes to squatting. Is it good to do it? What advantages can this gesture have? As one of the readers, oswaldounitec, has asked us about this issue in the section answers, we take this opportunity to discuss it more extensively in this article.
Placing discs under your heels when doing squats has a lot to do with our flexibility in the ankles, with the care of the technique in this basic exercise and with the biomechanics of our body. We explain to you what it is for and when to do it.
The main reason for placing discs or supports under the heels when squatting is the lack of dorsiflexion in the ankle. That is, that the joint has a small range of motion that does not allow you to bring the instep towards the calf and, in this way, does not allow you to go down a lot.
By placing the discs under the heels that range of motion increases, so it will be easier to reach a deeper squat. This is not achieved only by placing the discs under the heel: weightlifting shoes usually have a heel in the heel that keeps it slightly raised with respect to the tip of the foot.
So, are the discs a good solution?
Is it a good solution to use discs under your heels? It is a temporary solution, a patch. The ideal would be to perform different exercises to improve dorsiflexion of the ankle and be able to go down to where we consider adequate without external aid. If our weak link is the ankle, it is best to work on it to not depend on the discs.
To start improving your ankle dorsiflexion, you can give other use to those small discs that you were going to put on the heels: unbalance and place them under the front of your feet , more or less at the height of the first metatarsal, and slightly flex the knees.
Also the myofascial release of the twin through massage with a foam roller or foam roller can be very useful.