Mark Cheng: Half-kneeling Rotation
Mark Cheng explores the benefits of half-kneeling. It’s often underestimated and not necessarily easy, but it may be where learning can happen.
Excerpted from Mark Cheng: Prehab Rehab 101
Learning is done best when you’re not operating into massive fatigue. If you train clients and they’re already smoked, they’re not learning much. Be sensitive and aware of that.
I’m not saying as soon as they’re starting to slightly break a sweat they need to take a break. That’s not it at all. You need to see what their body is capable of in terms of form and coordination.
When coordination goes, so does alignment.
This is what we’re going to work on in half-kneeling. You’re going to turn to one side and then the other. Just reach out and then come back.
Hands in the center. Turn to the other side. Reach out and then come back. Each time as you do this, you’re trying to keep your torso long and keep that pelvis quiet.
From the waist up, it’s dynamic. From the waist down, it’s static. You want to set-reset each time. Tilt and tuck. Make sure the top hip goes down and the pelvis tilts forward.
If you have someone work on a more advanced pattern when they don’t own the prerequisites, the body is not learning the lesson they need it to learn.
Now, switch. If they’re good on one side and not so good on the other, you need to figure out why. Working with the FMS or the SFMA will help that. Be diligent on the setup. You know the bullet points: Balance over the base knee, almost not using your front foot at all.
The spine is tall.
The neck is loose.
The chest is wide.
The pelvis is tucked.
As you’re reaching, try to take your eyes all the way toward your back finger. Chest wide and shoulders down, so especially at the end range where you’re just trying to drop your shoulders and spread your chest.
Jimmy just took the time to recalibrate the hips before doing the next repetition. That’s important. The repetitions you do above a weak or unstable or an incorrect platform just reinforce bad habits.
Long neck . . . Reach . . . With the eyes, try and sight your fingernails on the backhand.
That’s a smoker, especially for your clients who aren’t used to it, who are very quad-dominant, very unused to training the posterior chain or even stabilizing like that. That will fry them. Don’t underestimate how easy this looks compared to maybe doing box jumps or kettlebell snatches.
This is work.
Continue with Mark Cheng in Prehab Rehab 101
Mark Cheng on failure and success in training: The Trail of Bread Crumbs
