Doing F1 without SLS?

Hi all!

I'm new here, just started with F1/HS, so a few words about me. I'm already 45, never did gymnastics before. I'm in not too bad shape, although I have a record of injuries I accumulated over the years.

My question, I had a knee surgery approx. 2 years ago, my medial meniscus was torn and the back half of it needed to be removed, and the remaining rest is not in the best condition, so I have to be very careful with the knees.
I started a weight lifting program in a commercial gym a year ago, mainly to strengthen my knee by building the muscles that stabilize it, then I started to enjoy it and extended it to a full body routine. It works quite well, with (lightweight) barbell squats slightly below parallel and some supplementary exercises I'm painfree now some 95% of the time. I'm back to my full range of motion again, I can sit on my heels until my feet fall asleep without any knee pain.
This week I started F1 and everything went well (besides the problems in the medial epicondylus with the pulling exercise, but that's another story that is extensively covered on the forum), only the SLS/PE1 (the Deck Squat) gave me quite some pain in the knee. I can do it, but it hurts. I think the problem is, that the moment when I shift the bodyweight onto the legs, the leg is bent almost ass to heel and that gives a lot of pressure to the menisci. I know that standing up from that deep squat position is the most common situation in that people tear their meniscus.
So I think now it would be safer for me to stay with my barbell squats for some more time and give the SLS progression a try later.

Is it possible to work through the F1 with skipping the SLS or will this affect the other exercises?

Any comments appreciated.

Can you squat ass to heel without any weight at all?  That should be the minimal ROM for your hips and ankles.  Usually, if you cant squat just below parallel, but not the last degrees, it's usually an ankle mobility issue.

The SLS progressions and the barbell squats have two differing goals.  SLS is to strengthen your joints and increase your mobility, whereas barbell squats are to build strength and mass.  The SLS progressions is more likely to help you than barbell squats (as long as you work it up slowly).  There's a saying in the PT world which goes "Don't add fitness to dysfunction."  If you continue to barbell squat, you're still going to have the same issue with coming up from Deck Squats because you're most likely ignoring the last few degrees of range of motion that affects your meniscus.  So simply barbell squatting isn't going to fix it.

I would recommend finding a PT to help you work up to being able to do deck squats. The SLS strength exercises and mobility drills are invaluable for building strong knees - much moreso than any barbell program. If you continue with the barbell program, your leg muscles will continue to get stronger but you won't have addressed the underlying issue of weak tendons in the knee - you'll be an injury waiting to happen. 

I did my knee ~10 years ago, broken ACL and chipped off meniscus.

It took me 8 months to go back sprinting and hopping and a total of 3 surgeries in a 2 years time span.

When I told my physiotherapist I wanted to go back to jumps he said I should have forgotten that. "You can do normal sprints and jumps again, no problem, but no crazy stuff or funny landings".

Needless to say I disregarded all advices    It took me one more year to go back to the "crazy stuff" and even though there's a couple of times a year my knee likes reminding me who's in charge (swollen and mildly inflamed, ice therapy and it's ok) it never showed major issues.

I regularly train max ROM long frog jumps, depth jumps, ATG weighted squats and straight leg jump kicks.

It works fine.

But it means I need to take additional care of it.

I'm not saying you should go into SLS straight away, careless of any pain or discomfort, but just don't give up because of this episode. If it happened it means that was a weak spot (my one was clearly even weaker), so rather than protecting it by not moving it, you should protecting it by giving it the right tools to develop the correct strength/mobility/tissue resistance, IMHO.

Try and find someone that can train you and have you doing the right pre-hab work, develop your proprioception massively and work on stabilizing. I'm pretty sure you'll be totally able to do deck squats with no problem.

Thanks for the replies.

To answer some questions, yes, I can do deep squats ass to heel without any issue, I just don't do it with weight because my lower back starts to round somewhere below parallel and I don't want to ruin my back for the sake of a lower barbell squat.
I don't think the problem is a lack of flexibility, I think it's the pressure on the scar tissue in the knee that gets too high in the moment of weight transfer.

Finding a PT (physical therapist I assume) to work on deck squats is here where I live like finding a unicorn. Any PT will always argue that it's not necessary to be able to do deck squats and if it hurts don't do it. I know because I've been doing a lot of rehab the last years, with different PTs.

To be clear, I don't plan to give up on the SLS program forever, just for the moment I think it's safer for my knee to stay with my barbell and stabilizing exercises (didn't mention that in the original post, but I'm still doing the stuff the PTs showed me, like balancing on a hemispherical device, lunges etc.).

I still would like to hear opinions if it is possible and sensible to progress on the F1 program excluding the SLS progression and start with that let's say a year later or if there is some interconnection with the exercises I don't see yet.

You might want to take a look at this book. Even though it is written for specific problem Patellar Tendonitis it is total knee rehab problem and can be aplied to the whole range of knee disfunctions. And guess what is the main exercise... SLS. But this progression done in very different way as it is designed for people with knee problems.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_12/175-9360074-6728526?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=beating%20patellar%20tendonitis&sprefix=beating+pate%2Caps%2C179&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Abeating%20patellar%20tendonitis

It is a LOT of work though.

Wieland Gmeiner said:

Thanks for the replies.

To answer some questions, yes, I can do deep squats ass to heel without any issue, I just don't do it with weight because my lower back starts to round somewhere below parallel and I don't want to ruin my back for the sake of a lower barbell squat.

I don't think the problem is a lack of flexibility, I think it's the pressure on the scar tissue in the knee that gets too high in the moment of weight transfer.

Finding a PT (physical therapist I assume) to work on deck squats is here where I live like finding a unicorn. Any PT will always argue that it's not necessary to be able to do deck squats and if it hurts don't do it. I know because I've been doing a lot of rehab the last years, with different PTs.

 

To be clear, I don't plan to give up on the SLS program forever, just for the moment I think it's safer for my knee to stay with my barbell and stabilizing exercises (didn't mention that in the original post, but I'm still doing the stuff the PTs showed me, like balancing on a hemispherical device, lunges etc.).

 

I still would like to hear opinions if it is possible and sensible to progress on the F1 program excluding the SLS progression and start with that let's say a year later or if there is some interconnection with the exercises I don't see yet.

If you're going to postpone the SLS progressions in favor of your current barbell work, you should have a plan for working up to deck squats. E.g. perhaps for now you can do deck squats off of a mat (placing your feet on a surface below your hips) to decrease the pressure in your knees to a safe level?

Can you progress through the other movements in Foundation without SLS? Probably, but the lack of leg strength+mobility will likely hamstring you when you get into the later parts of the movement series and eventually to Hungarian. 

Joshua Slocum said:

If you're going to postpone the SLS progressions in favor of your current barbell work, you should have a plan for working up to deck squats. E.g. perhaps for now you can do deck squats off of a mat (placing your feet on a surface below your hips) to decrease the pressure in your knees to a safe level?

 

Can you progress through the other movements in Foundation without SLS? Probably, but the lack of leg strength+mobility will likely hamstring you when you get into the later parts of the movement series and eventually to Hungarian. 

Thanks for your advice. I just finished a workout and found a way how I might get into the deck squats. I warmed up my legs a lot before with bodyweight deep squats, lunges and balancing exercises and then supported the critical moment of the deck squat with my hands to get off pressure from my menisci. That worked so far.

One more question, what is Hungarian (hard to find on Youtube  )

Wieland Gmeiner said:

 

Any PT will always argue that it's not necessary to be able to do deck squats and if it hurts don't do it. I know because I've been doing a lot of rehab the last years, with different PTs.

 

As said I had the same problem with doctors.

I'm not saying you should disregard any (pseudo)medical advice, I just wanted to give you my experience. I ignored it.

This doesn't mean I'm not taking extra care of my knee now, I had to study stuff by myself and even asked professional sportsmen who went through the same problems how they did it; it's just that sentences like "you won't be able to jump anymore" or "if it hurts don't do it" sometimes don't apply... I mean, FL/PE5 hurts a lot at fifth set!

Wieland Gmeiner said:

One more question, what is Hungarian (hard to find on Youtube  )

Its the name of an upcoming GB course. 

I will chime in. I have a terrible knee. Tore ACL and meniscus in 1991 (there goes senior year of college b-ball...). Did ok with high level recreational sports until about 1998, when it just started to degenerate. Now a bunch of stuff later, no meniscus, ACL partially intact, arthritis setting in.

I have been working on leg strength and mobility mostly with kettlebell work for a few years, so this isn't coming from nothing, but after playing with my technique, I am pleasantly surprised at how my knee feels today after 4x12 deck squats. I find if I drive my hands forward and exhale hard, I get into a stable position, then can stand up thinking about driving through the hips. If come up knees and hips simultaneously (or worse, knees first) it's trouble.

Hi Wieland, just thought I would add a few thoughts. I'll start by stating that I'm a physio working with musculoskeletal problems like yours and all advice, mine included, needs to be taken with a degree of caution as none of us have seen you perform the exercises or assessed your current capabilities with regard to your knee. That said, I will offer a few bits of advice.

With regard to the deck squats the roll to squat position allows momentum to aid you to rise from a full squat position. Unfortunately, whilst reducing the strength component, this momentum will translate to an increase in joint forces in the knee at the full squat position, particularly on the posterior meniscus where tears tend to occur and more specifically where your surgery was.

I tend to be quite aggressive with my patients in that I will often expect more of them than some other members of my profession. Please don't think this relates to 'beasting' you, but more that with appropriate progression of loading you MAY be able to do deck squats. This principle is no different to the rest of F1. One option may be to perform controlled 'bounces' in a full squat position with gradually faster speed. This progression of speed should be undertaken over a period of 3-4 months minimum as cartilage cell turnover for a single turnover cycle is this long!!

The other option is that you may never be able to do a rapid end range knee flexion with bodyweight loading due to your previous injury and surgery. This may be an unfortunate reality but to be honest I don't think this will prevent you from necessarily continuing with the rest of the SLS series as they are slower movements.

One final note would be listen to your knees on some of the iM's as irritated meniscus tissue really hates rotational shear movements, so don't worry about spending a long time and progressing really slowly in terms of depth, speed, etc.

General knee health tip would be use cycling as your aerobic fitness tool of choice, no impact and large range of movement to hit a large surface area of cartilage tissue to stimulate cartilage builder cell (chondrocyte) activity

My overall opinion would be take it slowly, enjoy the ride and see where it takes you.

Hope that is of some help, feel free to critique and question anything I've put down, I always relish a good debate ;-),

best regards,

Craig