This personal trainer’s yoga block trick fixes tight ankles and stiff joints during squats
A personal trainer recommends using a yoga block under the heels to improve squat depth for individuals with tight ankles. This technique helps front-load the exercise to target the quadriceps while allowing the hips to sit back deeper without compromising form. The article explains that elevating the heels can mitigate mechanical issues caused by limited ankle mobility, such as pelvic tucking.
- ▪Placing a yoga block or weight plates under the heels elevates the feet to assist with squat mechanics.
- ▪This method helps individuals with tight ankles achieve greater depth without experiencing the 'butt wink' phenomenon.
- ▪Elevating the heels front-loads the squat, shifting the focus of the exercise to the quadriceps.
- ▪Tight ankles can create a chain of compensatory movements that affect the knees and pelvis during squats.
- ▪The trainer advises stopping the exercise if pain occurs and consulting a professional if working with existing injuries.
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Record
| Original publisher | Tom's Guide |
| Canonical URL | https://www.tomsguide.com/wellness/workouts/this-personal-trainers-yoga-block-trick-fixes-tight-ankles-and-stiff-joints-during-squats |
| Publication time | Sat, 26 Sep 2026 08:15:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-26T08:21:02.600Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-26T08:21:02.600Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | -X1ERSzywp7g · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Wellness Fitness Workouts This personal trainer’s yoga block trick fixes tight ankles and stiff joints during squats Features By Sam Hopes Published 26 September 2026 Try this hack When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Copy link Facebook X Reddit Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter I love a yoga block; it can make an exercise more challenging (try putting a block between your thighs during chair pose) or easier, depending on what you need it for.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Tom's Guide.
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