I Suck At MN/PE1: Tuck-Up

For some reason this exercise is tough for me to keep my balance while trying to bring my knees to my chest.  Is the genetic position of the sit bone a factor here?  Also, my knees flail out to the side as I bring them closer to my chest.  I need to slide a Perform Better band over my legs just above my knees to keep them close together.

I can hold an L-sit for 30 sec, but for some reason I suck at the Tuck-up.  Which muscles are weak here?  Will any supplemental exercises help?

I think a video would help everyone give you better advice .

I've had a similar problem where my knees don't keep together.

What helped my case was simply slowing down the tempo of the exercise. Really focus on this exercise and try to hold the position where your knees are at your chest and get a feel for the balance. Starting at week 1 also ensures that doing it with a slower tempo is doable and that you are concentrating on position.

Hope it helps.

I had a little trouble here in the first couple of weeks as well. In addition to what is mentioned above, I found concentrating on keeping the feet together & pointing the toes really helped with my lower half coordination as it engages my core. Also, keeping the back of the arms & hands flexed & as flat against the ground as best as possible before moving into position really helped me properly initiate the exercise.

I think sometimes if we're not contracting the correct muscles in movements like this it is quite easy for us to lose balance. We will probably learn to not tighten up or contract as much as we get better at the exercise but perhaps just like handstand work it's better to concentrate on contracting everything to begin with & then learn to relax as necessary as we become more fine tuned.

I know how you feel though, I can manage five consecutive muscle ups with adequate form & when it comes to something as simple as this it's like you're brought back down to square one. I suppose that's the whole point though 

dritar said:

I've had a similar problem where my knees don't keep together.

 

What helped my case was simply slowing down the tempo of the exercise. Really focus on this exercise and try to hold the position where your knees are at your chest and get a feel for the balance. Starting at week 1 also ensures that doing it with a slower tempo is doable and that you are concentrating on position.

 

Hope it helps.

Thanks.  I was going slow, but the balance problem with knees spread persisted.

rynski said:

I had a little trouble here in the first couple of weeks as well. In addition to what is mentioned above, I found concentrating on keeping the feet together & pointing the toes really helped with my lower half coordination as it engages my core. Also, keeping the back of the arms & hands flexed & as flat against the ground as best as possible before moving into position really helped me properly initiate the exercise.

 

I think sometimes if we're not contracting the correct muscles in movements like this it is quite easy for us to lose balance. We will probably learn to not tighten up or contract as much as we get better at the exercise but perhaps just like handstand work it's better to concentrate on contracting everything to begin with & then learn to relax as necessary as we become more fine tuned.

 

I know how you feel though, I can manage five consecutive muscle ups with adequate form & when it comes to something as simple as this it's like you're brought back down to square one. I suppose that's the whole point though 

Thanks.  Keeping everything tight i.e. arms, lats, core, legs, feet pressed together, etc seems to help.  I was making it more of a core exercise before, but turning it into a core + total body tension exercise really helped to stabilize my balance.  Still have a ways to go, but I think I'm headed in the right direction.  And I'm  probably still training my central nervous system to get used to the movement.

Don't know why I didn't think of all this before because I have utilized Pavel's total body tension techniques in the past.

This exercise made me find a weakness in my hip flexor strength right in the last cm of the ROM. I hope that towards the mastery of this, my V-sit is really getting there.