The purpose of this article is to be able to evaluate an individual’s mobility in their ankles using the tools we have available to specifically the use of the Cossack squat in the evaluation process. The Cossack squat is a unique closed-chain movement where an athlete brings their hips down and shifts from side to side, targeting the tissue of the lower body in the frontal plane.
Before getting into using the Cossack squat in an athlete evaluation, we can first discuss a holistic approach to a lower body evaluation. It has become fairly common knowledge that issues at the knee can be caused by other areas of the body most commonly the ankle and the hip.
When approaching an evaluation, I start with the overhead squat to guide my direction. When doing an overhead squat if an individual has an excessive forward lean in the torso, heels coming up or foot flattening, turning out, those are indicators the lower leg may be in charge of the dysfunction showing up in the overhead squat. These issues can be observed in other weight room instances as well, especially under higher loads. On any squat pattern, these types of issues can be observed in the ankle/foot. If an athlete is doing a moderately heavy squat, you may notice feet flatten or an excessive forward lead at the torso or a small amount of heels rising off the ground. Feet flattening can also happen on trap bar deadlifts. If you work with a high volume of athletes and don’t have time to perform a baseline movement assessment and plan on incorporating some kind of squatting pattern in their training, this could be a tool for understanding if they have any lower body movement patterns that call for further screening. If the athlete is showing a lack of ability to find the positions after providing cues on a traditional squat pattern, I would suspect the same issues will show up in a much more significant way during a overhead squat assessment and likely more so when screening the individual joints in question. The quick way to confirm the analysis is to block off/elevate the individuals’ heels.1 If this action clears up the movement issues, you can be fairly certain that the dysfunction is being created by the lower leg.
A evaluation can and probably should include a mobility test for ankle dorsi flexion, plantar flexion and inversion and eversion. These will likely show up as a lack of of range of motion and can be a good indicator of what tissue should be addressed. It is worth screening the knee for flexion and extension and screening the hip for flexion, extension, internal rotation and external rotation as a precaution and to understand the individual’s biomechanics.
Use pain as an indicator
Pain in joints can be viewed as an indicator of what tissue should be addressed or what biomechanical movement is causing the pain. If a person has pain in the ankle or the knee that has gone unidentified by PT, AT or the coach’s previous evaluations, these can be used as tools to understand the individual circumstances and make adjustments based on findings.
For example, if a movement (goblet squat, back squat, front squat, single leg squat, etc.) is causing pain in the knee, ankle or spine, it is a good idea to block off the ankle with a slant board and see what its effects are on the pain and biomechanical positions. What you are doing here is artificially giving the athlete a greater range of motion in closed-chain dorsiflexion. If this clears the pain, it would be a good idea to collaborate with a chiropractor, athletic trainer or physical therapist to address this range of motion problem or provide guidance on self-mobilization with a roller and static or dynamic stretches. I would never recommend a strength coach do soft tissue work on an athlete unless you are a dual practitioner (AT, DPT, LMT, DC, etc.)
If a loaded lateral movement (lateral lunge, Cossack If a loaded lateral movement (lateral lunge, Cossack If a loaded lateral movement (lateral lunge, Cossack squat, etc.) is causing pain in the ankle, knee or back, a different protocol would be implemented. The Cossack squat brings the ankle into dorsi flexion in a less extreme position than a sagittal plane squat, but it brings that ankle into much greater ranges of inversion and eversion than a sagittal plane squat. If pain only occurs with loaded lateral movements, it is likely not an issue of dorsi and plantar flexion but of inversion and eversion. Taking the side experiencing pain and putting the athlete in a greater range of inversion or eversion will either make pain worse or eliminate pain based on which movement there lack of range is in. Using a slant board to put the ankle in a fabricated range of inversion and/or eversion in a similar way to how we used the slant board with a traditional squat pattern to screen the ankle’s involvement will tell us if the ankle needs work on the tissues related to inversion and eversion.
If the back is giving an individual pain while squatting either on a lateral movement or a traditional squat, this could indicate the cause of central back pain. Looking at positioning is important; if the athlete is not able to keep the torso vertical, the pain could be coming from the torso dropping forward in the lower portion of the squat. The reason the torso is falling may be coming from the lack of ankle mobility so instead of moving at the ankle, the individual will just dump the chest forward to fabricate a lower feeling position. I have seen changing the ankle position with a slant board not only immediately change biomechanical positions of an individual but also erase the pain they were experiencing before the change in ankle position. I say all this to provide context to the next sentence, which is if someone is presenting with this back pain while squatting in a traditional or lateral pattern and the positioning of the movement looks funky, it is likely a bilateral dysfunction. Meaning you will be able to observe a similar active range of motion on both sides.
Ankle or knee pain
Pain in the ankle or knee typically presents on one side of the body only although it would be more thorough to evaluate both sides to get a greater context of the individual. I have especially noticed this in return to play for knee/ankle injuries, where things feel good until they move in the frontal plane and then lateral movement presents as pain in the area of concern. Individuals with chronic ankle sprains and/or consistent knee pain with lateral movements would be populations for whom this screen could be useful to confirm suspicions on the origins of pain. Most of the time if pain is occurring during a lateral movement, putting the affected side in either inversion or eversion will clear pain and or movement issues.
- How to teach the Cossack squat for this function
- Feet: Stay flat to the ground during the entire movement
- Knees: 90-100 degrees of knee flexion to almost full extension
- Hips: Stay low entire time
- Torso/shoulders: Upright torso position
- Head: Ear in line with shoulder or just slightly in front
Note: Many allow for excessive movement in the Cossack squat by allowing the foot with less load on it to rotate up toward the sky and come off the group. I find this to be less beneficial for using the movement as an evaluation. Often when this happens, the torso will drop and or rotate. The hip will externally rotate, and the range of motion of the more loaded leg will have a slightly greater range of motion. I tend to lean into weight room movements with fewer moving parts to create consistency and to run a smoother session, as I typically am dealing with large teams. So for consistency and evaluation purposes I prefer to coach this movement with both feet on the ground.
Note: It is important to view the movement from an anterior standpoint and a lateral standpoint at least. Posterior doesn’t seem necessary, but it could be given the specifics of the case.
The following are two ways to implement these pieces of information:
- Fixing the moment strategy by addressing the restricted tissue and strengthening the weakened tissues will allow the athlete to move without restriction through the required ranges of motion and no longer cause biomechanical faults and or pain. This is the better option and allows for a more permanent solution. This also takes a lot more time and dedication from the athlete and practitioner.
- Just continue to use a slant board while doing movements requiring ankle mobility they are deficient in. Although not the ideal solution, it will keep the athlete out of a poor position and pain while in the weight room. Simple, easy and leaves the problem unaddressed, but gets the athletes out of poor movement and or pain.
Cheat sheet
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Final thoughts
Movement issues can be multifactorial and complicated to understand. I have noticed changing ankle position almost solely resolves someone’s biomechanical faults and resolves the pain they experience with certain movements. However, there are other cases where it may reduce the biomechanical glitch or ease the pain without fully fixing either one. This would indicate there is more than one issue at hand and would warrant further investigation upstream. The other consideration is with athletes that have a young training age or are new to the weight room. I would not recommend to jumping to conclusions when using loaded movements as a primary assessment technique as there limited exposure to training will likely leave them less skilled to know where the body should be in time and could allow for some faults that could be coached out of them fairly quickly.
Note: All pictures and videos have been taken with people wearing shoes. This is fine if it is clear you’re on the right path. It is always better to take the shoe off and see what the foot is doing during these movements.
Graham Sokol, MSc, is currently the assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of Texas at Arlington. He previously spent mmore than three years as the head of athletic performance for Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. He has spent time at different organizations working in strength and conditioning, with stops at the University of Louisiana, University of Florida and Northwestern State. Sokol has also spent time working in a physical therapy setting and coaching youth track. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Louisiana in exercise science and a second master’s from Northwestern State in adult learning and development. For more information, visit simplifaster.com/articles/author/grahamsokol/.
Reference
- Bell DR, et al. Two-and three-dimensional knee valgus are reduced after an exercise intervention in young adults with demonstrable valgus during squatting. J Ath Train. 2013;48(4):442-449. https://brookbushinstitute.com/articles/research-review-exercise-to-reduce-knee-valgus-in-squat. Accessed May 8, 2026.
