Slant Ramps: Highly Adjustable - Highly Versatile

Incorporating adjustable squat wedges like the Slant Ramps into your strength and conditioning program can significantly enhance your overall performance and long term fitness. These versatile tools offer numerous benefits, including greater squat range of motion, increased quadriceps activation, reduced shear stress on the lower back, and targeted strengthening of the knee joints. By integrating them into your routine, you can achieve greater overall fitness, athleticism, and resilience.

Enhanced Squat Range of Motion

One of the primary advantages of using adjustable squat wedges is the enhancement of squat depth. Elevating your heels with squat wedges compensates for limited ankle dorsiflexion, allowing for a deeper squat position and larger range of motion in the squat pattern. This increased range of motion leads to greater muscle engagement and development. The Slant Ramps are designed to be adjustable, enabling you to customize the incline to suit your flexibility and training needs.

Many athletes and lifters struggle with limited ankle mobility, which can negatively impact their squat mechanics and overall performance. By utilizing the Slant Ramps, you can gradually improve your ankle dorsiflexion over time by lowering the incline as motor patterning and mobility improve, leading to better, more efficient movement patterns and a reduced risk of injury. Used judiciously, a strategy like this can be a highly impactful way to improve squat patterning without the ramps.

Additionally, deeper squats performed through a larger range of motion simply have a more profound impact on the body. The greater muscular stretch on the glutes and quadriceps generates a more potent training effect, which yields greater hypertrophy and enhances overall strength in the lower body to a larger degree.

Increased Quadriceps Activation

Elevating your heels during squats shifts a greater emphasis onto the quadriceps muscles. This adjustment can lead to greater muscle activation in the front of your thighs, promoting balanced lower body development. The adjustable nature of the Slant Ramps allows you to fine tune the angle to target your quadriceps in the most effective fashion for you.

Greater quadriceps activation is particularly beneficial for athletes who rely on explosive lower body strength, such as sprinters, jumpers, and weightlifters. Stronger quads contribute to improved acceleration, jumping ability, and overall power output. Furthermore, incorporating squat wedges into unilateral movements like Bulgarian split squats or step ups can further isolate the quads, addressing any muscular imbalances and improving overall symmetry in strength.

Bulletproof Knees

Training with The Slant Ramps can have profound benefits for knee strength and long term joint resilience. By allowing for greater tibial inclination, The Slant Ramps enable the knees to travel further forward during squatting and lunging movements. This increased forward knee travel places a deeper stretch on the quadriceps and applies greater controlled stress to the knee joint, which, when utilized properly, can lead to stronger, more resilient knees over time.

Many athletes and lifters struggle with knee weakness and/or instability due to underdeveloped quadriceps, especially the vastus medialis (the “teardrop” muscle). By progressively strengthening the knees through controlled, full range of motion movements, these issues can be mitigated. The increased demand placed on the knee joints by squatting with heel wedges stimulates adaptations in the tendons and connective tissues, improving durability and reducing the likelihood of knee related injuries. For individuals looking to build robust knees that can handle intense physical activity, training with The Slant Ramps can be a highly valuable addition to their regimen.

Improved Squat Patterning

Lifters who struggle with “staying on the quads” during their squats (hips shoot up before the shoulders) can benefit from performing supplemental, low-moderate intensity squat work with a heel wedge, such as The Slant Ramps. By elevating the heels it becomes easier to shift the knees forward and feel the tension on the quads, which can help with patterning a more desirable squat pattern when the wedges are removed as once the body is exposed to something like this it becomes easier to recall it after the fact as well.

Further, this work will also go a long way towards actually strengthening the quadriceps muscles to a large degree. Stronger quads will make it easier to keep the hips down by default as one of the primary reasons the hips shoot up in the first place is because that is the body's way of trying to avoid the quadriceps. It senses they are not strong enough to get the job done so it runs them out of the equation and instead shifts the stress onto the stronger muscles of the posterior chain.

So using The Slant Ramps as a supplemental squat tool can provide a double whammy effect towards improving squat patterning by providing exposure to more optimal positioning more often, and cementing that exposure by strengthening the quads in a squat specific fashion.

Reduced Lower Back Strain

Using squat wedges promotes a more upright torso position during squats by allowing the knees to shift forward to a greater extent, which can reduce the stress on your lower back. This positioning can be helpful for those who are recovering from back injuries or who are looking to limit the total volume of shear stress they expose their back to.

The Slant Ramps' adjustable feature enables you to find the ideal angle that supports an effective and optimal squat pattern for you. For individuals with pre-existing lower back issues, squatting with elevated heels can be a very helpful tool to have in their arsenal. By using the Slant Ramps to elevate the heels, you can easily and instantly reduce forward torso lean, and therefore instantly reduce shear stress on the spine as well. For those who struggle with “buttwink,” i.e. lumbar flexion at the bottom of a squat, elevating the heels can be a simple and pragmatic way to alleviate this issue in the short term while squat mobility is improved.

Versatility in Training

The Slant Ramps are not limited to just squats. Their adjustable design makes them suitable for a variety of exercises. You can use them for calf stretches, lunges, and other lower body movements that benefit from an inclined surface or greater tibial inclination. This versatility allows you to incorporate them into different aspects of your training program, enhancing overall fitness and athletic performance.

For example, incorporating the Slant Ramps into lunge variations can significantly increase the stretch on the rear leg’s hip flexors, as well as the degree of knee bend and subsequent quadriceps stretch (and engagement) on the front leg. Similarly, using them for standing calf raises can provide a much greater range of motion for the ankles to work through, leading to improved ankle strength and stability, as well as bigger, more powerful calf muscles. Further, elevating the forefoot during hamstring stretches is a viable way to dramatically increase the intensity of the stretch on the hamstrings, while also stretching the calf muscles and Achilles tendons. Whether you are focusing on strength training, mobility work, or injury prevention, the Slant Ramps offer an adaptable tool to elevate your workouts.

Portability and Convenience

The Slant Ramps are designed for easy portability. They fold flat, making them convenient to carry in a gym bag or store at home without taking up much space. This feature ensures that you can maintain consistency in your training, whether you're at home, in the gym, or traveling.

Having access to a compact yet highly effective training tool allows you to stay on top of your fitness routine no matter where you are. The Slant Ramps provides all benefits of a slantboard, and much more, without being at all cumbersome or space consuming. Their easy portability ensures that you can seamlessly integrate them into warm ups, strength workouts, or rehabilitation protocols without disruption.

Incorporating Slant Ramps into Your Training Program

To maximize the benefits of the Slant Ramps, consider the following strategies:

1. Warm Up: Use the Slant Ramps during your warm up routine to perform calf stretches and ankle mobility exercises. This practice can prepare your lower body for the workout ahead, reducing the risk of injury. Improved ankle mobility leads to smoother and more effective squats, ensuring that you can move with smooth mechanics throughout your session.
2. Mobility Enhancement: Start with a higher incline and gradually decrease the angle as your mobility improves over time. This progression allows for continuous challenge and adaptation, leading to long term gains.
3. Exercise Variations: Incorporate the Slant Ramps into different exercises such as goblet squats, split squats, and calf raises. The adjustable incline can add a new dimension to these movements, engaging muscles in different ways and enhancing long term growth. Experimenting with different angles can help you find the most effective positions for targeting specific muscle groups while maintaining optimal biomechanics.
4. Load Management: The Slant Ramps allow you to modify a variety of squat and lunge patterns to reduce shear stress on the spine while enhancing muscle engagement in the legs. This is a viable strategy both for injury recovery as well load management, especially in advanced lifters who are very strong and may need to give their backs a little bit of a break from time to time.
   

Final Thoughts

By integrating The Slant Ramps into your strength and conditioning program you unlock new levels of performance, resilience, and versatility. Their adjustability and versatility make them a valuable addition to any workout routine. Whether you're chasing personal records, recovering from an injury, or simply looking to move better, these adjustable squat wedges can transform your workouts. Elevate your training experience, push past your limits, and build stronger, more resilient knees with the Slant Ramps.