Manna: MN/PE1: Tuck-Up

Need clarification on proper form:

1.  Do the feet and knees need to be touching when bringing the knees to the chest?

2.  Do the knees need to actually touch the chest?

3.  Should the legs (femur) be near vertical at the top position?

There are videos, which are meant to be emulated. If you look like the athlete, you are doing it right. If not, you are doing it wrong.

if you feel it in the core, you're definitely doing it right. 

KeilaniG said:

if you feel it in the core, you're definitely doing it right.

Took me 9 weeks to feel it. But then again, I have a 4 minute forearm plank

Aadil Siddiqi said:

There are videos, which are meant to be emulated. If you look like the athlete, you are doing it right. If not, you are doing it wrong.

I cannot tell from the video if the athletes knees are actually touching at the top of the movement and I cannot see if his knees actually touch his chest.  Thus, I'm wondering if there is some allowance points based on the build of the individual athletes.

The movement is meant to build up pike compression, so knees and chest come as close as possible

Aadil Siddiqi said:

The movement is meant to build up pike compression, so knees and chest come as close as possible

Well, I'm having great difficulty keeping my knees together and bringing them close to my chest.

I utilize my hip flexors in hanging leg raises, standing wheel roll outs, one arm push ups, etc although I realize they may be used somewhat differently in the manna.

Are there mobility drills that I can use to improve flexibility for this movement?  I need to find out if it's a strength or mobility or both issue.

The paired IM is designed to improve mobility for this movement.

Also, while the hip flexors will come into play some, you really need to activate the abs on this movement as well (and should be doing so strongly when performing hanging leg raises, ab wheel exercises, 1 arm push-ups, etc...). You want to think of curling your back up and around your legs using the abs, some people have also found that contracting their glutes helps them maintain a Posterior Pelvic Tilt (PPT) while doing this.

Hope that helps.

The movement is made unnecessarily harder if you don't lead with your arms. In essence, the head is only raised of the floor once the arms travel past it. Maybe you don't have the required coordination between your upper and lower body.