Deck squat woes - feedback appreciated

Hello all,

I'm trying to get the hang of the deck squat but have the usual problem of not being able to maintain the knee flexion necessary to keep my feet close to my butt for the roll forward.

A MobilityWOD video on Youtube has the demonstrator holding his legs at the ankle, and just rocking as far forward that way to build the mobility.

Is this a useful way to overcome this limitation?

There are a few ways you can do assist yourself:

1) perform the deck squats on a slightly raised surface so you are not so deep in the squat. Over time decrease the height you are perfoming them on.

2) Increase the amount of momemtum used roll up and over time decrease momemtum

What I did was to try to roll up as much as I could and over time increase the quality of the deck squats. I also did this in conjunction with pre-hab/ re-habing my squat. Initially I used Ido Portal's squat clinic but Kit Laughlins new series on ST for GST is awesome for improving your squat. After using it mine is the best it has been.

Hey DBeckerman, I bought Kit's squat series too but I haven't found the time to get into it yet.  Just curious when did you do it? How long did it take? How often did you go through it?

I do F1 3 days a week, squash once or twice a week, I coach my 4 year old and 6 year olds Hockey team twice a week and I work full time.  So its tough to find the balance my F1 goals with every thing else .  I was thinking that I could do Kits squat course one day a weekend.

Hi Ryan, I started off doing just the limbering stretches and over time I narrowed it down to a few exercises I constantly feel tight in. Also active flexibility was a huge weakness of mine so I concentrate on that for pike flexibility.

I did sacrifice done foundation time but I was happy to do so as mobility was a big issue. I did try and spend 30 mins a day doing Kit's limbering. Hope this is helpful!

DB

I did what DBeckerman suggested... started using a mat to roll off of and onto the floor. I also used my hands to tuck in my ankles towards my butt. Over time I used a lower and lower mat, and eventually stopped using my hands to assist.

I have long limbs too, and doubted that I could do these, but after lots of practice they have become easy (took my about 3 months to get mastery, and I'm 6.5 months into the program now).

For me now, my main mental cue is to just keep my knees tucked in to my chest as much as possible. My ability to do this was much improved by all the ab work in the FL and MN progressions (I do deck squats for warm up now, and I find they continually get easier and easier)

I know that for some guys, the limiting factor is ankle mobility. For that I would suggest sitting in a squat position, as low as you can go, for time. Slowly work up to 10 minutes. In the past, this helped my ankle flexibility a great deal. Instructions for the 10 minute squat sit can be found here:

Hope this helps!

Cam

Wow. Thank you Cameron Williams. I used this video and did 5 sets of 60-90sec holds. Immediately attempted a deck squat and I was able to do it. Trying this helped me realize that my hip flexors aren't really tight but actually pretty weak. I'm definitely going to keep these up. Smiling ear to ear right now.

Some additional feedback from today's session. First, these squat holds really helped. I could feel a lot of weak spots. Second, I did my first deck squat on a thick rug over a wood floor. Much better than the thin carpet on my basement floor. Lastly, I'm starting to look more at myself as an individual than a group member. Sure I'm a desk jockey but I've always been active and do a lot of hiking. I assumed my hip flexor had to be tight since I read that somewhere. Not the case. Just weak and underdeveloped.

Awesome news

Keep it up!

DBeckerman said:

There are a few ways you can do assist yourself:

 

1) perform the deck squats on a slightly raised surface so you are not so deep in the squat. Over time decrease the height you are perfoming them on.

If you have a stepper, that will do the trick.  It helped me Master Deck Squat and I'm just busy doing DS as a warmup now.  

Perform the bottom of a deck squat static. Hold on to something to not fall on your butt, always lean forward to work on ankles.

With time your hip flexion and ankle mobility will improve. It's that easy.

Are you performing the front split stretch series?