SLS PE 1 + iM

Continuing my initial assessment of F1 work, thanks in advance for the feedback! Here is SLS PE1 +iM. Clearly deck squat mastery is not around the corner...

it may help for you to have your feet off the rug when doing deck squats.  the rug sliding will hamper your attempts to get up a lot.  I noticed id fall back wards as i got up sometimes just because of a slight movement in the rug as soon as my feet went to the hard floor i had no problem getting up every time.

On the PE it looks to me like your technique is off, which is throwing your balance off.

You want to think of these like:

-squat as low as you can

-roll backwards into your upper back

-roll forwards back onto your feet

-stand up

in order to make this as efficient as possible you need to be round when you roll. Kicking your legs is flattening you out and making you roll much less efficiently, and also forcing you to pull your knees/feet in violently to try to get them back underneath you (which is knocking you backwards and killing your momentum).

Instead try to keep your knees pulled to your chest/chest pulled to your knees throughout the duration of the roll. You can pull your heels in as far as you can right before they are about to hit the floor, but again staying round (knees to chest) is the most efficient way that I have found to do these.

Hope this helps.

Thanks a lot Andrew and Keegan! Good point about keeping the feet off the rug, but for sure my form also needs fixing. I noticed looking at the video that kicking with the legs did not actually seem to help, but did not make the connection with the flattened back, thanks for that.

Any comments about the mobility?

Guido -  

It doesn't look to me like you're getting enough depth on the iM. From the focus points: " 2) The glutes should lower to approximately knee height. "

As mentioned, in order to smoothly roll, you need to have a round back. A sheet of plywood doesn't roll well, but a log does

In order to get round your hips will need to be higher in the air, and the weight will come onto your upper back.

So looking at your video, your knees always stay well in front of your head, now look at the demo video, see how his knees are directly over his head? Next time you try this, as you roll back try to see your knees right over your face while you are looking straight up. From there keep that shape tight, and let gravity roll you out, with the assistance of a little flick of the arms.

Today I tried a few deck squats following Keegan and Cole advice, especially focusing on keeping my knees over my head, and it was soooooooo much better! Taking a video may be a hassle, but it is so much worth it!

And today for a few reps I was kicking again, uff! It was less noticeable and I think I was doing it to help me roll back up. After you are done rolling back, do you let yourself roll forward just following gravity or also get additional momentum by using some muscles (which muscles then?)?

As soon as I hit the "back point" in my roll and my hips start to fall back to earth (as I roll back forwards) I think of almost trying to do a tuck-up (except trying to keep my chest pulled to knees the whole time) while also making sure to keep my lower back round. This allows you to most efficiently utilize the kinetic energy/momentum created by your body falling back to earth to help you roll forwards onto your feet.

Hope this helps.

Guido - I definitely use my core to generate a bit of momentum for the forward portion of the swing. For me it feels a lot like a hollow body rock variation because the body remains generally rigid in that knees tucked position, but I'm still trying to create a rocking forward motion using the core.

A quick flick of the arms, or legs is perfectly fine to help generate momentum. This is different than a hollow rock in that you have to roll all the way up onto your feet, so that means you need to add energy to the system. The quick flick will do that for you.

Thank you everyone, good suggestions. I'll see what I can make of them and post a new video soon.

Here we go

I must say that today was a good day for these!

Great, you're getting up now.

Try using your arms just a bit more, and work on getting steady as you stand up, so you don't take any extra steps. 

Nice job!

Thanks Cole, good advice from you, Douglas and Keegan definitely helped me a lot! Will work on those points.

Just a check along the way, how does it look?

At some point I realised that I open a bit the angle at the hips before standing up, so I tried to keep it closer (second video). I think the execution is smoother, what do you say?

Thanks a lot for the feedback.

The 2nd video is good to go.

Sometime you tend to put the feet on the floor on a different point, one feet more forward compared to the other, try to fix this.

41 minutes ago, Alessandro Mainente said:

Sometime you tend to put the feet on the floor on a different point, one feet more forward compared to the other, try to fix this.

Thanks Alessandro, I think the movement you see is because when I start the squat my feet are completely close together (touching), but when I come back up there is a narrow gap. I move the foot intentionally to close the gap before starting the next squat. Is a small gap between the feet when coming up fine or should I focus to come up with feet completely close together?

Feet together, we do not want to create imbalances up in the hips.