The 7 Best Slant Boards for Strengthening Your Knees and Calves

As runners, we have loads of reasons to thank our legs. They carry us through every stride, whether they like it or not, and they experience thousands of impacts with the ground every time we lace up our trainers and tap out a jog. Ultimately, those impacts add up over time. And if you’re not taking time to strengthen key areas like your calves, ankles, and knees, you might end up with some underdeveloped mobility, which isn’t ideal if you’re a high-mileage runner. If avoiding injury is a goal of yours, try a slant board: a multi-use tool for your gym that can yield more targeted gains from your leg workouts.

Often simple in their construction, and sometimes made up of only wooden boards and some triangular wedges, slant boards provide an angled surface that you can stand on to place your calves or shins in a more stretched-out position. In turn, this extension allows for a more well-rounded activation of your lower leg muscles’ full range of motion. And more range of motion is often a good thing—it can help you yield more power from your running form.

Download Your Runner’s World+ Training Plans give your calves an extra stretch at the end of your run, slant boards are straightforward but effective tools that function as intuitively as they look. Surprisingly enough, however, some brands achieve far more than others, with boards like StrongTek’s Professional Slant Board outperforming some competitors at a near-identical price. So we’ve found you the boards that best take advantage of their inherent simplicity and will find a natural home in your gym routine.

The Best Slant Boards

• Best Overall: The Fitness Tribe
• Best Budget: StrongTek Portable Slant Board
• Most Adjustable: MR1NF1N1TY X Shogun VMO Board Pro
• Best Traction: Slant Board Guy Standard Slant Board
• Shoes & Gear: StrongTek Portable Slant Board

What to Consider When Buying a Slant Board

Size and Adjustability

You’ll notice that there’s a considerable range of slant board sizes to choose from. The smallest on the list (A Part of Hearst Digital Media) has half the surface area of the largest (the Wolf Wedge Squat Wedge). It’s crucial to keep in mind that some of them won’t be big enough for workouts that require a wider stance, such as some squats. That said, there’s also the issue of storage, which I encountered when I had six of these boards piled up around my desk one day. If you’re short on space, like I was, a smaller board (especially one that folds) might be a more enticing choice.

Slant boards come in two distinct varieties, as well: adjustable and non-adjustable. They tend to float around the same price range, but the former’s selling point is the ability to change the incline of your board to better optimize your stretching angles and gradually ramp them up. A benefit of solid boards, however, is that they tend to feel more stable. And it’s much easier to find a large one at an affordable cost—there’s much less material and engineering involved.

Material and Grippiness

The most popular materials for slant boards are wood and metal, which can run you all the way up to $200. But there are also some less expensive boards made of plastic or cork that sit comfortably around the $30 mark. Good plastics and corks perform well for a much cheaper cost, but they’ll wear more quickly. Wood and metal are also heavier, which tends to translate to improved stability and sturdiness. But that extra weight isn’t entirely conducive to having a slant board you can take on the go—and you’ll notice that brands tend to advertise plastic and cork boards as “portable” options. If you’re bringing your slant board to the gym with you instead of keeping it at home, this is a critical consideration.

Almost all slant boards come with some sort of sandpaper, rubber, or other gripping surface to help keep your feet in place, which is especially helpful if you’re maxing out an adjustable board’s angle and relying more on friction to stay standing. Not every tape is going to perform the same, though, with most cheap options offering little in terms of traction. On the other hand, some of the higher-quality grip tapes can also be incredibly abrasive. So perhaps avoid some of the coarsest ones if you’re hopping on one of these boards in your nice trainers right after a run.

Some boards, like the StrongTek Portable Slant Board, don’t even use grip tape, but rather have heel supports that jut out perpendicular to the board’s service, giving you support from a secondary platform instead of friction. These supports can feel a little precarious if you’re standing on your board with your toes facing downward, especially in the steeper settings. But for most other applications, this isn’t as much of a concern.

How We Selected

As a cyclist-turned-runner, I often struggle with lower leg pain when I transition to more running miles, and I have my relatively weak calves to thank for that. Now, with the New York Marathon on my calendar, it was my mission to find a remedy to this long-time annoyance by working calf and knee exercises into my training.

In the process, I tested several top-rated boards with stretching before and after all my runs, as well as in separate workout sessions. I evaluated them based on their sturdiness, grip, size, adjustability, portability, and price, and collected a handful that truly stood out from the crowd. And for the boards I wasn’t able to test on my own, I looked at expert input from fellow reviewers on sites like Gear Patrol and The Fatigue Resistance Tip Runners Often Overlook, give your calves an extra stretch.

These slant boards are the best. I’ll bet my aching legs on it. Read on to see which we think you’ll love in your gym setup, as well as why we liked them ourselves.