The effect of ankle posture on sit-and-reach test performance

It has been found that when using a passive straight-leg raise (SLR) to measure hamstring length, subjects did significantly better when the ankle joint was allowed to passively plantar flex as opposed to being in fixed dorsiflexion. Because the SLR test has been used as a criterion measure in research involving the sit-and-reach (SR) test, it was desirable to learn whether ankle posture similarly affects performance on the latter. Subjects, 105 university students (46 M, 59 F), were tested on a single-leg extended SR test in which the feet were fixed in dorsiflexion; they were also tested using a modification of the same SR box that allowed them to plantar flex the foot of the extended leg into the box. Both genders performed significantly better on the SR test when the ankle joints were permitted to plantar flex.