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You don’t want to be one of those guys who skips leg day. But, at the same time, leg day is often extremely painful. What to do? Consider a slant board.
Slant boards are wedges used during a variety of lower-body workouts. They’re meant to provide users with greater range of motion and help people with less ankle, knee, and hip flexibility. Here’s how they work, and which to buy.
LEG BUILDERS
What Is a Slant Board?
Weightlifting aid
It’s a wedge made out of rubber, wood, or metal that elevates your heels during squatting motions. If you’re wondering how heel elevation would improve a squat, try this: try squatting flat-footed as you normally would, then stand on your toes and squat. The latter will be significantly easier for almost everyone. Raising your heels lessens the importance of ankle, knee, hip, and back flexibility on squatting movements. This means folks with limited flexibility—or very long femurs, which can make squatting with proper form more difficult—can achieve fuller ranges of motion, and hit depth more consistently.
The idea of elevating the heels to improve leg workouts isn’t novel. Weightlifting shoes almost always have some kind of heel-raising wedge built into them. You might have seen people at your gym squatting with weight plates under their heels, too. Slant boards, lifting shoes, and plate-assisted squatting all aim to do the same thing—allow you to get deeper into a squat without risking form failure. It also shifts more of the focus of the squat to the quads and away from the glutes.
Stretching tool
You might spend more time using a slant board as a flexibility exercise or stretch tool than you will for weightlifting support. Pop the slant board under your desk at work and plant your feet on it for a light-but-constant calf and ankle stretch. Do this consistently and over time you may see marked improvement in ankle mobility.
The Best Slant Boards for the Money
Slant Board Guy Slant Board
The best-known slant board you can buy comes from a The Slant Board Guy. It’s made of sturdy wood and is rated to carry up to 880 pounds on it. The angle is a fairly sharp 30 degrees, which is a bit more dramatic than other slant boards you might find on the market which are typically angled between 25 to 28 degrees. Start using Slant Board Guy’s board as an under-desk and pre-workout stretching tool before using it as a weightlifting wedge. Doing so will allow your body to adjust to the incline before forcing it to perform heavy weighted movements unprepared, which may increase the risk of injury.
The Tib Bar Guy Slant Board
Made with an exceptional anti-slip grip and designed to carry up to 700 pounds, Tib Bar Guy’s slant board leans more toward a weightlifting focus. Its 28.5-degree angle is slightly less than Slant Board Guy’s 30-degree angle, which makes it a little more stable and easier to use in the gym. It’s also light enough to move around without much issue, but not so light that it doesn’t feel secure underfoot. Generally, if you’re looking for a gym accessory rather than a stretching tool hybrid, the Tib Bar Guy’s slant board is the way to go.
Shogun VMO Board
Made of heavy metal and offering a rare and useful feature, this sub-$100 slant board from Shogun Sports is an excellent option for those who appreciate progression at the gym. Instead of a fixed incline, the VMO board can shift angles from 20 to 40 degrees. This is huge for those who should start with less incline, or simply need a build-up phase before going full send with wedged exercises and stretches. The downside of this design is that it’s just not as secure as a fixed slant board is. The brand says it’s safe to use up to 450 pounds of load, which is significantly lower than any fixed slant board used for exercise purposes.
