Beginner roller skating

Wobbly Ankles Are Almost Never Weak Ankles

If your ankles collapse inwards on skates, you have almost certainly been told your ankles are weak. You probably tightened everything as far as it would go and started doing ankle strengthening exercises. And nothing changed.

Nothing changed because it was never a strength problem. It is an alignment problem, and it has a name: the ankle drops inwards and leaves you sitting permanently on an inside edge. A permanent edge is not a wobble you can muscle your way out of — it is a position, and positions are fixed by changing the position.

Three things cause it, and none of them is muscle. Ankle straps left too loose, so the boot cannot hold the alignment it was designed to hold. Boots that are simply too wide for your foot, which leaves the foot room to roll inside the shell. And not enough knee bend, or a body position that puts the weight in the wrong place.

The last one is the one people refuse to believe, so here is the check that settles it. Speed skaters have powerful legs. They did not get them by isolating ankle muscles — they got them from a deep knee bend held for hours and correct alignment through the whole leg. The ankle is downstream of the knee, not the other way round.

So work in this order. Tighten the straps properly. Check whether the boot is too wide for your foot, because if it is, no amount of technique will fix it. Then work on the knee bend, which is the part that takes actual time. Inline technique, from Asha Kirkby of Skatefresh, an instructor certified by the Inline Certification Program. She teaches inline skating, and that is the discipline this page is about.