"Floating Heel" Exercises: The Why & How

With foot and ankle complex training becoming more and more popularized each year, you've heard it before: the foot is instrumental to athletic performance because it is literally the first interaction with the ground on most sporting movements. And as you well know, shoes can and will not only kill our chances of developing a properly-functioning foot, but make it difficult to mitigate this issue with training. So we need very targeted methods in our training arsenal. There are seemingly endless ways to train this foot-ankle machinery as simple as warming up and/or training barefoot, to barefoot proprioception, to towel foot curls, and none of them are wrong, but one way that's been gaining some traction in the performance world is the "floating heel." 

How does the ankle/foot complex interact with the ground?

Take a look at essentially any explosive movement in basketball. Do you see the heel interacting with the ground? Deceleration, yes. Of course.. But acceleration? More slight changes of direction? The block foot in a bilateral jump? Max speed sprints? That heel, hopefully, won't touch the ground. If it were to touch the ground, the stored energy in the achilles tendon and connective tissue will be immediately lost, and that movement is going to become quite less explosive and much more taxing.

If we don't have the ability to lock up that ankle complex and keep it stiff throughout these movements, the force being generated up the chain is damn near insignificant. It's not going to matter how much force you're generating in your hips. The force coming from the knee extension is pointless. Why? Because it can't be applied into the ground efficiently. And if the force isn't applied into the ground, you're missing out.

What is a "floating heel?"

Floating heel exercises include essentially any exercise in which the heel is in the air, not supported by the ground or an object. Makes sense, right? Don't get these mixed up with "heel elevated" movements, in which the heel is placed on a short object (like a 10 lb weight plate, for instance) to lift it above the toes and assist ankle mobility in a squat, etc. So, the originators of the floating heel concept had to get a bit creative. Anyways, there are a ton of ways that I could see this concept being used, and that I've been playing around with myself. They include, but are not nearly limited to:

• Isometrics: holding this position will facilitate a constant tension in the foot-ankle complex that will create a pretty good adaptation for any athlete, but especially with one who is new to training this way. I'd definitely start most out with this. Plus, isometrics have such a wide range of benefits that we're not solely targeting the ankle and foot. Whether you're doing isometrics for tendon health, to accumulate time under tension, or for another reason, you can do those while you train the foot-ankle complex. I also love overcoming isometrics with the heel elevated as a great option for training stiffness.
• Kill two birds with one stone: time and effort are of the essence for most athletes, so doing more with less exercises is most times a great thing. Looking to accumulate a lot of volume and don't want to spend the end of the workout isolating the foot and ankle? Use a floating heel with your RFESS, split squat sets, or other knee-dominant unilateral work that can be paired with a floating heel. However, keep in mind that the heel is a very powerful tool for us in the weight room, and by keeping it off the ground, you're likely not going to be able to put as much force into the ground. So, I wouldn't chase 1RM's, lift heavy, or do extremely taxing lifts without that heel to push through. 
• Drop catches: this is where I'll actually apply this trained stiffness into a situation that applies to sport. In a drop catch variation, you'll essentially relax, let yourself fall, and catch yourself in the bottom position, keeping your ankle robust as you accept that force. We're really training our ankles to resist movement here. We can also really begin to load this to challenge the stiffness of the ankle as we progress. Check out an example of this in the video below.

Benefits of floating heel exercises:

I find the benefits of floating heel exercises to be three-fold. I'll keep them pretty brief!

1. Ankle stiffness: creating structural adaptations primarily the soleus and tibialis anterior to pull on that achilles tendon and lock it up, so that it can be used as a force transmitter into the ground. If our ankle gives out under high forces, we lose that stored energy and with it, most of our subsequent force production.
2. Foot training: notice in the video below how my foot is working to remain arched in all of these exercises. By now, we all know how important restoring function to the foot is, and this is one of many ways to go about it. 
3. Neural adaptations (stability): by this, I mean that we're ​teaching our mind that we can resist this load and keep the ankle stiff. We can do all the cold raises and tib anterior strengthening that we want, but if we don't tell our brain "look how robust and stiff the ankle can remain," it's not going to be applied to the way we move. I don't have any evidence behind this, but it's just the way I think about it and seems pretty intuitive. Plus, we get a proprioceptive challenge when we're unstable without that heel on the ground. Just another box we can check off!

Conclusion

The floating heel, like every other concept employed by S&C professionals, isn't the magic wand on an athlete. It's a tool. If you use it, you'll probably get some benefits. If you don't, there are other ways to get these same benefits too! In terms of how to use them, I don't have much experience using them with athletes because they have somewhat recently come to the forefront and I am experimenting on myself first, but I'd begin with the isometrics, include them here and there with your accessory hypertrophy work, and eventually progress to loading them or using the drop catch option. Just my thoughts. Feel free to let me know in the comments where else you see opportunities for this concept to be used, if you've ever used them, or even call me out on bullshit! Any conversation is welcome. Stay safe everyone.