I'm a tall guy with poor mobility. I've been at the gym for a year and working on my mobility every workout. I improved massively in many areas except for my ankle dorsiflexion, which still sucks. While I can go low in the squat, it requires me to lean forward and I get sore (DOMS, not pain) lower back after squatting. Recently I started using slant boards and now I can feel the squats in my quads, and my back doesn't get sore anymore. But it strains my knees a lot, even to the point of sharp pain sometimes, which prompted me to back off to very light squats for high reps to rehab. My question is, is low back soreness acceptable, or should I stick to the slant boards and strengthen my quads and knees? Any exercise ideas for ankle mobility? I'm doing goblet squats, squat holds for time, banded ankle dorsiflexion and calf static stretches after workouts.
I can post some videos if required.
I've only been lifting a couple of years, but I just wanted to piggyback on this comment to provide real life testimony about the magic of a lifting belt for squats.
I always had mind body connection problems on my squats. Doing an honest to God proper form back squat requires you to really be present in your mind for the lift, especially when it's heavy. I would often have issues with my core "collapsing" on the upward portion of the back squat.
Then I tried a lifting belt and ust having that extra bit of resistance from the belt to "press" against while squatting really helped to correct some form issues for me.
OP mentions ankle mobility issues, which I don't think a belt would specifically help with? But as a PSA if you're squatting within 20% of your 1RM and haven't tried a weight belt I really recommend picking one up and watching a couple videos on how to use it. It really changed squatting for the better for me.
This is probably obvious to most lifters, but if you're like me and just never thought about it, go give a belt a try.