Chapter 25: Ground Movement 2: Sitting, Kneeling, Getting Up - The Practice of Natural Movement
By Erwan Le Corre
Bipedal motion is the most fundamental aspect of human movement, as well as one of the main features that make us humans. However, there is a wide range of movement patterns that we must acquire before standing is even possible. Those movement patterns are part of the foundational development that we all go through in infancy before we can stand and walk. This chapter covers ground positions that you hold, for the most part, with your torso erect as you work up to elevating the body to be standing on your feet in a Deep Squat position.
As I’ve mentioned in other parts of the book, our modern lifestyle has significantly narrowed the variety, frequency, and range of motion of the movements we do every day. Sitting, kneeling, and getting up suffer from the same limited range that other movements do. You might find yourself rediscovering some positions and movements that you haven’t used in decades, which will lead you to realize the tremendous movement and health potential these basic movements represent.
Therefore, before we seek efficiency when standing tall on our feet, we need to recover function and movement quality with a “from-the-ground-up” approach. I teach you to progressively elevate your body from sitting to kneeling then to getting up and standing by gradually building your positions and movements toward a bipedal stance.
Unlike other natural movement skills, such as jumping and climbing, most of the movements in this chapter are inherently low-intensity. For the sake of increasing intensity, you can eventually repeat the get-ups at high speed or add a load; otherwise, the difficulty and value of these patterns resides in mobility, stability, postural integrity, breath control, relaxation, and fluidity.
Because these movements aren’t flashy and are low-intensity, most fitness programs completely neglect them; people don’t see these patterns as belonging to the “workout” category. At best, a small number of the movements are used as a supplemental set of “mobility” drills, but the perception is that sitting, kneeling, and getting up are not supposed to get you “results.” Well, in my opinion, regaining the ability to sit on the floor, squat, kneel, and get up and down with ease is a kind of result that health-wise matters much more than losing an inch off your waistline. Do you agree?
Sitting, kneeling, and getting up are natural movements we should never abandon, and we should continue using them daily as we progress into our advanced age. As a matter of fact, the results you get from practicing all the movements in this section are vital to health and well-being. Brazilian researchers did a study that showed that the ease or difficulty middle-aged and elderly people have with sitting on the ground and getting back up without support is a predictor of longevity. Those people who needed to use both their hands and their knees to get down and back up were nearly seven times more likely to die within six years. The study also showed that this movement ability wasn’t just a matter of lower-body strength; it was a matter of mobility, stability, balance, and coordination.
NOTE
If you’d like to read more about the study from the Brazilian researchers, read “Ability to Sit and Rise from the Ground as a Predictor of All-Cause Mortality” at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2047487312471759.
Consequently, a big part of this chapter is dedicated to diverse strategies for getting up and down, starting with easier movements that involve your knees and hands and progressing to the more challenging patterns that use no support other than your feet. However, getting up and down starts with being comfortable with the lower-level positions of sitting and kneeling.
The positions and movements in this section are apparently easy, but you might be surprised by how much some of them will challenge you. You need frequent practice and patience to restore great posture, balance, relaxation, and fluidity in all these movements. Remember, ease in getting down and back up is a factor in your longevity, so engaging in consistent practice every day helps conserve your freedom of movement and ensure a lengthy life.
Sitting
Is sitting worse for your health than heavy smoking? Probably not, yet scientific studies are gathering increasing evidence of the link between sedentary physical behaviors, such as prolonged sitting, and deleterious health outcomes.1 People who sit hours a day have higher mortality rates than those who do not. The link between heart disease, diabetes, depression, and sitting is now scientifically well-established. Prolonged sitting is even linked to brain thinning, which is a precursor to cognitive decline.2 You don’t need to be launched into space to be affected by the adverse physiological effects of a zero-gravity environment, such as loss of bone density and muscle mass. All you need to do is to stay put in a chair, move very little, and have little movement interaction with gravity.
We eat meals, study, work, read, and play games while sitting still on elevated seats such as office chairs or couches; our legs are extended below our bodies with our feet resting on the floor. When we travel, we sit. When we’re waiting for something, we sit. Even when we work out in big commercial gyms, we mostly sit at exercise machines! Sitting is what most of us do every day, most of the day, mostly in the same position, which is usually a bad position—and it is killing us.
Throughout the history of mankind, sitting hasn’t always consumed as much of our time as it does today; it’s quite a recent phenomenon. There are still many countries where people do not spend most of the day sitting; when those people do sit, they do it quite differently than we do in the industrialized world. They sit directly on the floor or ground to work, rest, wait, talk, play, meditate, and pray, and they use diverse stances and usually display great posture.
Unfortunately, we cannot significantly offset the negative impact of sitting too much by exercising. Standing all day is not an effective antidote, either; the adverse effects of prolonged standing are well known. But we can look at the bright side of sitting and approach it in a healthier way whenever possible.
Let’s consider the positive aspects of sitting:
• Sitting is a practical movement ability that allows you to take a break and rest, wait, observe, or work.
• Sitting can help improve or restore your mobility if your body has gotten stiff over time; sitting also helps you maintain mobility.
To become functionally beneficial, you should frequently sit by assuming diverse positions at ground level. The more comfortable you are sitting in natural, ground-level fashion, the more comfortable you will become for getting up from sitting to standing positions and getting down to sitting from standing positions.
Variety in sitting positions is important for two obvious reasons:
• From a practical standpoint, one sit position may be more appropriate for a given surface or use than other positions.
• From a functional standpoint, you should be able to hold any sit position comfortably.
Practice
Technically, sitting is a position supported by the buttocks or thighs. Your legs can be bent or unbent, parallel or crossed, and your feet level with the rear (unless you’re seated in a raised sit). Your torso is mostly upright; sometimes you’re leaning forward, backward, or sideways, and sometimes your arms also support you.
In this part, you’re not going to learn any “sit” technique, but you will rediscover the great variety of sit positions available when sitting directly on the ground. I also give suggestions of how you can make it a mindful, beneficial, healthy practice. You might notice that the more sit positions you practice and the more frequently you practice them, the better your mobility gets.
You’ll also see immediate benefits to other movement skills, including squatting.
First look at the many sitting positions I cover. To name them I have used terms that are relatively self-explanatory and describe the position of the legs such as long (extended on the ground), bent, closed (close to each other), open (apart), crossed, or side.
Start with any position and hold it a few seconds before slowly transitioning to another one. This simple practice immediately turns sitting into a movement more than a stationary stance. Unless you are meditating, are in pain, or have no other choice, you should never sit too long in one position. You may transition more dynamically as you feel more comfortable. Don’t hesitate to lean forward or sideways and use some support from your hand or the tips of your fingers if a position is challenging to you. The idea is to shift some of your body weight to another body part for scalability. Over time you will gradually become able to hold more erect sit positions without support from your arms. Resist the temptation to turn sit positions that are difficult for you into a stretching workout by forcefully holding it for minutes in a row while neglecting the other positions. Instead, keep transitioning through various sit positions and go back to the more challenging positions more frequently. You also can hold the challenging position a little longer than you hold the others. For instance, you might target a challenging sit position by holding it a few seconds, switching to another position for a moment, and reverting to the challenging position. Continue alternating the positions in this way.
“Perfect” Is Meaningless
Remember that no position is “perfect” or set in stone; like any natural movement, natural sit positions are adaptable. For instance, I don’t make it mandatory that all sit positions should systematically display a “perfectly” vertically aligned posture from tailbone to neck. Some do, and some don’t. However, if by default your back is rounded and you cannot intentionally align it vertically, you lack mobility. Except in cases where the position is intentional, a rounded lower back when you sit on the ground shows that the pelvis is tilted in posterior position. If you are unable to tilt it to the front (anterior tilt) or at least to neutral, then this is a limitation you need to work on. Therefore, it’s important to practice specifically to improve postural integrity while sitting, and the position of the pelvis is as important as the alignment of the upper back. Remember that your ability to maintain postural integrity more than a few seconds lies in muscular endurance, which requires regular practice to develop; but if you are fighting against a lack of mobility, it shortens how long you can hold erect alignment.
To make the sits even more engaging and beneficial, practice the following movements as you sit:
• Sitting with upright tall posture for a few seconds, relaxing to a rounded back position briefly, and then holding an erect posture again.
• Maintaining tall posture as you lean forward, backward, and sideways. When you lean forward, bend at hip level (anterior tilt) while maintaining a tall posture.
• Shifting body weight to each buttock alternately.
• Tilting the pelvis (anterior, posterior).
• Undulating your hips and pelvis. This means that you make your hips and pelvis move in a wavelike motion.
• Undulating your spine all the way to the neck (it can be done together with the hips and pelvis).
• Reaching your arms in many different directions. This is a fantastic way to open up the upper body (shoulders, scapula, and thoracic-spine) because reaching isn’t achieved through the arms alone. You can reach in many positions beyond ground positions, and it helps with skills such as catching, climbing, grappling, or striking. When you practice arm reaches, always imagine that you are trying to grab something that is almost out of reach because that thought pushes you to extend as much as you can and immerse yourself in a practical mindset. Make sure that you reach with both arms alternately and do not hold your breath.
Just explore, explore, explore! It’s even more fun, practical, collaborative, and engaging to combine sitting with throwing and catching a light object (ball, stick) with a partner while both of you constantly switch your sit positions. Whichever way you choose to practice your sits, always maintain breath control.
Surfaces
You can practice your sits anywhere that is flat and allows you to switch freely from position to position. If you need a bit of cushioning, a mat, thick rug, folded blanket, bolster, grass, or sand will give you the comfort you need. Avoid surfaces that are too soft because they give you a false assessment of your mobility and ease and prevent your joints from truly benefiting. Avoid surfaces that are too hard—unless you feel sufficiently comfortable on them—because they might hurt your bones and discourage you.
When to Practice
The best way to practice is to substitute conventional and functionally detrimental sitting with natural, healthy sitting as often as you can. Try sitting on the floor or ground whenever possible to eat, read a book, work on a laptop, watch TV, and so on because these are times that you would normally be sitting anyway. When you’re practicing a series of diverse natural movements, you may use sit variations as part of a routine that emphasizes mobility, or you can add sits between high-intensity movements that you’re doing in intervals (you spend the low-intensity intervals practicing sit positions). Once you have acquired ease and comfort in most or all sit positions, keep practicing your sits regularly as an integral part of your Natural Movement lifestyle.
In the Open Bent Sit, both feet are placed in front of your pelvis; your soles are against each other.
The Cross Open Bent Sit position might be the most common sit position across all cultures; it’s also known as “tailor” or “Turkish” style. In Japan it’s called agura, and it’s considered to be a position that’s exclusively for males. Each foot is placed underneath the thigh of the opposite leg.
In the High-Cross Open Bent Sit, rest each foot on the opposite upper thigh so that the soles of your feet face up. A variation involves having only one foot resting on the opposite thigh while the other rests on the ground. This position is best known as the Lotus.
In the Side Bent Sit, your base can be wider with your front foot and back knee apart, or the base can be narrower with your back knee resting on your front foot.
Below are examples of sit positions that have been more or less modified for practical or practice purposes or for the sake of comfort.
Raised Sit
Most elevated surfaces can be used as seats for humans, whether they are man-made specifically for sitting, such as chairs, stools, and benches, or natural items like dead trees and rocks. An elevated surface by itself doesn’t make a raised sit; indeed, you can sit on an elevated surface while keeping your feet at the same level as your rear as if you’re on the ground.
In most cases, what constitutes a “raised” sit is the fact that your legs are extended down away from your rear and below your body, usually with your feet resting on the ground. (Of course, there are differences in how you can hold your legs—for instance closed, open, crossed, forward, backward, feet at ground level, feet elevated on a footrest, or feet dangling.) This form of sitting isn’t “unnatural” per se, and it’s not bad in any way if you do it for relatively short periods of time with good posture.
NOTE
An alternative form of raised sitting is straddle sitting on a low-elevation surface with your legs bent and your knees and feet above the ground or very lightly resting on it.
Remember, it is the way we sit—raised and with a rounded posture and poor breathing for extensive durations—that is harmful. The problem with the raised sit is that mobility is in no way necessary in the same way it is when we sit directly on the floor or ground with our feet level with our rears. For instance, prolonged raised sitting causes overall muscle tightness, including shortening the hamstrings. The result is that over time it becomes difficult to sit with comfort on the ground, and we experience mobility and function issues that decrease overall movement performance. Also, most people end up rounding the whole back and having slouched shoulders, which in turn impairs breathing and has numerous physiological consequences. If you are going to be in a raised sit position for long periods, you won’t be able to avoid the negative physiological consequences of almost complete physical idleness, but you can at least reduce the negative consequences of prolonged rounded back and poor breathing by ensuring the best position you can.
NOTE
If you spend hours sitting and could use a way to mitigate some of the negative impact of it, you can regularly press down on your flat feet as if you intend to stand up. You naturally start pressing down on your feet to ground yourself and start contracting your legs and rear, which also lengthens your spine. You can go as far as tensing your muscles enough to actually lift your rear for a brief moment. This would be some very beneficial movement if you could do it every few minutes. A “hidden” benefit of doing this is that it makes you physically want to stand up and move, as that’s the reflex grounding your feet triggers.
Side Bent Sit Reverse
The Side Bent Sit Reverse is a good example of one of those sit transitions I have encouraged you to do to turn sitting into a movement practice (in this case though, the position itself is the same, just held on the opposite side). Switching the Side Bent Sit directly from one side to the other is a fantastic hip opener movement.
1 Start in Side Bent Sit (or, if you start in the Bent Sit, you need to move your legs sideways to the side stance). Rest your hands on your knees. Let your knees naturally reach the lowest position without forcing them down with your arms.
2 Lift your legs off the ground. You initiate the motion from your hips, or “core,” not the legs.
3 As soon as you reach the neutral Bent Sit position, look to the other side and keep focusing on driving the motion through your hips, not your legs.
4 Depending on your mobility, this is maybe the lowest point you will be able to reach without discomfort and without trying to force your legs down by pushing them with your arms. Accept whatever range of motion you can reach. Just try to relax tension that you feel. Exhale longer to help release muscular tensions. Another way to help progress is to post one arm for support and to lean back on it to allow your hips more space to move until you gain the mobility you need to do the movement without arm support.
5 If possible, reach the full range of motion with both legs touching the ground while keeping an erect posture as much as possible. Maintain abdominal breathing always, spending more time on the exhale.
Kneeling
Kneeling is most often held with the whole body resting on both legs, which are bent under the body, and the rear sitting on the heels; it’s primarily used as a rest stance. (See the photos on the opposite page.) But kneeling in Natural Movement involves many more variations—used to wait, work, listen and/or observe, meditate or pray, and even hunt or fight—beyond the neutral “kneeling” stance everyone is familiar with.
With Natural Movement variations, kneeling means any position where most of the body weight is supported by both knees, or even a single knee, while the rear is or isn’t resting on the heels; the position may involve diverse leg positions (especially with half-kneeling positions). Clearly, this makes kneeling more than a rest position; it’s a varied set of highly adaptable positions with many practical uses, such as staying low and close to the ground to stalk, wait, observe, work, paddle a canoe or raft, and transition to crawling, squatting, or standing.
To name the positions and describe their distinctiveness, I have used simple terms:
• Tall: The position is elevated with the rear away from the heels.
• Half: One leg is being supported by the knee, and the other is supported by the foot.
• Split: One knee is in front and the other is behind.
• Open: The knees are wide apart.
• Open-Foot: The foot is externally rotated and resting flat on its inside.
• Flexed-Foot: The ball of the foot is resting on the ground.
• Single: Standing on one foot or one knee only.
• Extended: You’re in a half-kneeling position with your hips driven all the way forward toward the front foot.
• Long and side: The leg is positioned or oriented in a certain direction in half-kneeling positions.
As I’ve previously mentioned, none of these positions is a “pose” to be exactly replicated with “perfect form”; they’re natural, adaptable positions that are subject to endless modifications for the sake of practicality, comfort, or specific mobility benefit.
To start practicing kneeling positions, review the “When to Practice” and “Surfaces” sections for the sit positions (see here).
In kneeling, which is known as senza in Japanese tradition, your knees can be closed or wide open, feet crossed or apart, neutral or internally/externally rotated. Your body weight is evenly distributed between your knees, shins, and the tops of your feet (although the distribution of body weight can vary).
Kneeling Movements
If you’ve practiced several of the kneeling positions I’ve described, you have already been practicing kneeling movements, which implies entering and exiting kneeling positions. Movements don’t have to be of great magnitude to be movements; a simple shifting of body weight from one knee to the other or elevation of the rear off the heels turns kneeling from a position to a movement. These small adjustments are extremely important and valuable. You can turn any of these types of movements into an endless list of drills to practice several times in a row. For example:
• Kneeling, shift body weight from side to side
• Kneeling to Tall Kneeling
• Kneeling to Flexed-Foot Tall Kneeling
• Half-Kneeling to Flexed-Foot Half-Kneeling
• Flexed-Foot Half-Kneeling to Side Long Flexed-Foot Half-Kneeling
• Half-Kneeling to Tall Half-Kneeling to Extended Half-Kneeling
Any of the kneeling transition movements you can create on your own can be turned into short routines with wonderful benefit to lower-body mobility. One of these transitions, the Open Half-Kneeling Reverse, has enormous benefit to foot, ankle, knee, and hip mobility.
Open Half-Kneeling Reverse
You could be resting in the Open Half-Kneeling stance while observing something or conversing with someone and need to reverse your orientation. Instead of elevating your body to a taller position before switching orientation, which is slow or could draw unwanted attention, why not smoothly reverse your position while keeping your body level?
1 Start in the Open Half-Kneeling position.
2 Shift all your body weight to the leg that’s bent under you, which removes all body weight from the side leg. Bring the side leg and knee all the way down, keeping an open foot flat on the ground.
3 Now shift all your body weight onto the opposite leg while making sure that the open foot internally rotates underneath your rear. Make sure the other foot externally rotates to an open-foot position that points toward the side you are turning to. The rotation of both feet happens simultaneously.
4 Lift the opposite, non-supportive knee while turning your torso to the side. As the foot naturally repositions itself flat on the ground, drive your hips slightly forward to re-establish a balanced base of support over both legs. You may rest your arms on your knees or wherever you need them to be.
Unless you do it intentionally, moving to the Tall Open Half-Kneeling position or leaning the upper body forward before reversing—or both—is a sign of deficient mobility, a sign of inefficiency (you possess the mobility to do the same movement better), or both.
Squatting: The Position
Entering the bipedal, on-feet positions and movements is a huge step (pun intended)!
The squat is one of the most natural, fundamental human positions. (Standing is another one.) As a matter of fact, squatting precedes standing and walking in movement development. There would be no human, bipedal motion like walking, running, or jumping—or such ability would be significantly impaired—if we didn’t first acquire the ability to squat.
In healthy humans, the squat is a rest position, a work position, a wait position, a stalk position, a play position, and a defecation position. All toddlers can do the squat masterfully before they even stand up and walk. For not-so-healthy humans, squatting has become an “exercise”—a punishing mobility drill we must force ourselves to do to regain basic function that we’ve lost through years of “normal life” that involves hours of elevated sitting every day and poor movement the rest of the time.
Squatting is more than just the ability to hold the squat position itself for its practical value; it’s also the ability to transition down from the standing to the squat position or to transition up to squatting from a lower position.
Here I’m addressing the fundamental squat position (the Deep Squat) first. Later I explain squatting as a get-up movement, which is a complex transitional sequence; performing it well requires great amounts of mobility and stability in the most essential joints and muscles. Therefore, if you’ve already made progress with the Deep Squat position, you’ll have more success with improving your squatting skill as a movement pattern.
Improving your squat—both the stance and the movement pattern—and honing optimally functional squat mechanics have tremendous benefits to many Natural Movement skills, to your overall natural athletic potential, and to your physiological health. This is the reason we study both in detail. First you need to be comfortable in the “bottom” position—the Deep Squat; otherwise you will be quite challenged squatting up or down, and you’ll need to choose other movement strategies to get up from low positions to standing (or the other way around).
Why Practicing Squatting Is Important
Daily practice of holding the Deep Squat and other squat variations is fundamental to your freedom of movement, movement performance, and health. It assists with offsetting some of the damage done by hours of sitting or other forms of physical idleness. It helps improve other Natural Movement skills and enhances performance in these skills. It helps with bowel movement and improves your physiology and health. Unlike some other natural movements that may not need to be practiced every day, you should include squatting in your daily practice, and you should ideally do it more than once a day.
From a movement practice standpoint, squatting is a phenomenal exercise that provides easy progressions, regressions, and almost endless variations in positions and transitions. Squatting targets diverse gains in mobility, lower-body strength, and power, resulting in greater performance in many other areas of Natural Movement such as running, jumping, lifting, or striking.
Why You Can and Should Squat Practically Anytime, Anywhere
Here are practical examples for creating squatting opportunities in your day-to-day life: squat while watching TV, while reading a book, while working on your laptop, while brushing your teeth, while drinking your coffee or tea, while waiting for the bus, train, or plane. Squat to pick something up from the ground instead of bending over.
Why Improving the Squat Isn’t Achieved by Practicing Only the Squat
Don’t overemphasize passively holding one single squat stance for long periods of time at the expense of other squat variations, both in positions and transitions. Variability is key to making greater and faster progress. Similarly, don’t obsess on only squatting to improve your squat while neglecting other ground movements. If you practice many natural movements, your overall mobility will profoundly benefit.
Is There Anything Like “THE” Squat Pattern?
When I teach squatting in one of my Natural Movement events, I like to show what looks like a horrendous squat form, with a fully rounded back and my knees caving in and touching each other. I ask my students if I’m using proper form. Almost unanimously everyone shakes their heads in disapprobation. However, my answer is different. If this is someone’s squat form by default, and they can’t hold any other squat position, then it is a horrible position. However, if someone uses this squat form intentionally and temporarily—for instance young kids often rest or play in that position—and the person could seamlessly transition to other squat variations, then that position is fine. I have said before that there is no such thing as an “all-purpose” position. Just like any other position or movement, the squat is not a one-dimensional position.
The squat is adaptable and should be easily adjusted for practical purposes (activity, terrain) whenever necessary.
There is a “neutral” squat position that should look approximately like what is shown in the photos. Here are the characteristics of that position:
• Your center of gravity is vertically aligned mid-foot (or center of the foot).
• Your feet are shoulder width or slightly narrower.
• Your toes point straight ahead or slightly outward (no more than 10 to 15 degrees).
• Your feet are flat, and your heels are fully connected to the ground. You don’t have any tension in the feet and toes.
• Your thighs are relaxed; your hamstrings are resting on your calves/ankles.
• Your rear is horizontally slightly above, level with, or below your ankles. (The wider your base, the higher your rear.)
• Your knees are vertically aligned with your toes or are slightly forward and outward.
• Your lower back is slightly (but not overly) rounded.
• Your back is slightly leaning forward, but it remains straight or slightly rounded.
• Your head and neck are erect.
• Your arms can be relaxed in any position that doesn’t throw your body off balance.
• Your breathing is ample and relaxed.
• Overall, your body feels well balanced, comfortable, and relaxed.
Neutral Base Deep Squat
This “ideal” squat might not look exactly like your own ideal, most comfortable squat form because you may naturally make some minor variations to suit your own individual body type. If we examine a line-up of several people with no mobility limitations who are holding the Deep Squat position, we might notice minor variations.
Keeping your feet pointing forward in the Deep Squat position challenges hip and ankle mobility more, but is it a good thing to forcefully stick with that detail when you’re dealing with significant external loads (such as in a heavy loaded Squat Get-Up or Clean technique), the dissipation of force (such as in landing or catching), or intensive volume over a short period of time, when it already doesn’t feel the most comfortable when holding the Deep Squat? Probably not.
For instance, the inability to squat very deep may have to do with your body type (congenital skeletal structure) or physical history (accident, disease, specialized sports training) that is not reversible. So, it could be that nothing is wrong with “your” squat. Explore diverse squat variations, and you might find the ideal squat position for you. However, always ask yourself if other squat variations are not easy because of your physical makeup or because of mobility restrictions. In most cases, the reason is the latter. Be honest with yourself. If you are not too far off from the form shown in the previous photo and detailed in the checklist, you’re good.
To assess your own Deep Squat position, you can do it in front of a mirror, have someone film you, or take a photo of it so you can have a more objective visual feedback of your position.
Lower yourself in a squat as deep as you can and adjust until you’re in the most comfortable position. If you can’t squat without falling back or assisting yourself with your arms to maintain balance, you have important mobility issues that this book will tremendously help you with. Once you have established your ideal bottom position in the squat, use the previous checklist to do a self-screen to compare your position with what I’ve described.
Following are the four main faults when you hold the Deep Squat position:
• Lack of depth (the rear cannot reach lower or much lower than knee level)
• Overly rounded back (upper or lower spine)
• Heels not connecting with the ground
• Knees collapsing inward
It’s important to realize that positional issues with the squat such as those listed might be the symptoms of other underlying issues. (This is true of other movement techniques, too.) For instance, your rounded spine may be caused by deficient hip or ankle mobility that force you to round your back to shift your center of gravity forward above your base of support as much as possible. However, even in the absence of these four main issues, other issues can make your Deep Squat position suboptimal. Unless the squat is already easy for you (which is rare nowadays), you could try to force your body into replicating every single aspect from the checklist and manage it for a few seconds while you stiffen your muscles all over and hold your breath. But that will not make you skillful at the Deep Squat, will it? Other clear signs that indicate you haven’t mastered the whole spectrum of squatting include the following:
• By default, the so-called “ideal” neutral squat position has become your only comfortable squat position.
• Transitions to other variations of the squat position aren’t easy. It is fine that you can hold a so-called “ideal” neutral squat position, but you should be able to fluidly switch from one squat position to another.
• It’s difficult to enter or exit the neutral Deep Squat to move from and to sitting, kneeling, or standing.
If your squat positions suffer from some or all of these issues, you are still far from being proficient at squatting. More practice is required!
Squat Position Variations & Drills
In this section, I describe diverse practical squat positions for you to discover, rediscover, and explore. Find out which positions feel easy or challenging, strong or unstable, and adaptable and imagine what practical purpose you could assign to each of them.
If you are comfortable in a Squat position you may try the following adjustments:
• Slide your feet to slightly widen or narrow your base.
• Point your feet and/or knees in and out.
• Rotate your legs internally and externally.
• Shift your body weight from one foot to the other.
• Slowly elevate and lower you rear (you may hold the position at different heights) or use a slight and light bounce.
• Elevate your heels and then lower them.
• Lean your torso and reach with your arms in different directions.
If you are comfortable in several positions, you may start practicing slow and controlled transitions from one position to another. Try transitioning from a Deep Squat to a Half Squat, a Deep Squat to a Deep Split Squat, a Neutral Deep Squat to the Narrow-Base Squat, a Deep Split Squat to a Half Split Squat, and so on.
Neutral Base Squat, arms down, arms bent, arms resting on knees with trunk rotation
Narrow-Base Deep Squat
A Narrow-Base Deep Squat is handy when you’re in a confined area with no space on the side of your body or when you’re squatting on a narrow surface, such as a small rock in the middle of a stream. You can use this position when you’re trying to keep a very low profile or to save body heat by keeping your body compact (in this case, wrap your arms tight around your legs and knees, rest your forehead on your knees with your arms covering your head).
The Narrow-Base Deep Squat requires optimal joint mobility, which makes it challenging to a great number of people. To prevent being pulled back and off balance while staying as relaxed as possible, you need great ankle mobility to drive your knees and body forward as much as possible. When the stance is challenging for you, you can intentionally keep your lower back rounded, your arms to the front of the body, and drive your head forward to shift your center of gravity forward more.
Wide-Base Squat
A wide base is useful when you’re trying to be more balanced when you’re on unstable surfaces or between the edges of a gap. It’s also helpful when you’re wrestling or lifting something. Even when you let your rear go down as much as possible, it can’t go as deep as the Neutral or Narrow Base Squat, and your rear can’t rest on your calves. The wider your base, the higher your rear. There is a general limit to how wide the base can be, as well as an individual limit to how wide the base can be as you hold the squat while resting in the position.
The Wide-Base Squat is not considered a “half” squat in the sense that you are resting at the bottom of the position, even though the bottom position is naturally higher than when you use a narrower base.
Half Squat
When you’re in a Half Squat, there is tension in your leg and glutes that prevents you from resting in the deepest, bottom position. For this reason, the Half Squat is more an active position than a rest position; it’s at the junction between squatting and standing. You can briefly hold a Half Squat when you’re lifting or carrying or to prepare for fast transitioning to a standing movement. You can hold the Half Squat with a neutral, wide, or narrow base. You’re exiting the squat and entering standing when your hips and rear are higher than knee level.
Deep Split Squat
The Deep Split Squat provides a base of support with one foot in front of the other instead of your feet being aligned. This stance forces one heel to go up in a flexed-foot position. For that reason, the Deep Split Squat technically is a mix of a Deep Squat and a Deep Knee Bend stance. If more body weight is shifted on the front, flat foot, the position is more of a squat. If more body weight is on the back, flexed-foot, the position is more a Deep Knee Bend. The base can be of various widths.
Extended Split Squat
The Extended Split Squat is commonly called a “lunge.” The base is very wide. The position of the back leg could be more or less perpendicular to the front leg.
Single-Leg Deep Squat and Half Single-Leg Deep Squat
The difference between the Deep Split Squat and these positions is that your body weight is entirely or primarily supported by a single foot; the other leg is extended to the front. Even when the opposite heel rests on the ground, the body weight it supports is not significant. This position is not a rest position; it’s a transitional position used in some get-up strategies that are addressed later in this chapter.
Improving the Deep Squat Position with Supported Movements
If you’re not comfortable enough in the Deep Squat to hold the positions or do the drills I’ve described, you may use some assistance to support your position and facilitate your practice and progress.
If you’re at this stage of reclaiming your squat function, don’t make form a big deal, and don’t stay static and stiff. Instead, while constantly maintaining breath control to help you relax, play with small motions that allow you to release tensions and let your body explore ranges of motion it has lost. You may round the spine, shift weight from side to side, rotate both legs externally, extend back to a brief sit and pull yourself back up to the squat, bounce slightly, and so on. Basically, do all the movements I recommended; just do them with some support. Depending on how comfortable you are, you may start with 30 seconds, stand and do some other movements, then return to a squat; soon you’ll be able to do it significantly longer than thirty seconds. It’s better do something five times for two minutes at a time throughout the day rather than do a ten-minute “workout,” which can turn into an ordeal that leaves you sore and stiff.
The idea is to progressively loosen up, allow more motion in your hips, ankles, and knees, and reduce the amount of external help you need. You support yourself less and less until you finally feel ready for a Deep Squat without support. More strategies and drills will be provided as I address the Squat Get-Up further.
You can hang from pretty much anything. Hanging allows you to reach the lowest squat position you can, and it helps you explore great positional variety.
You may use a board, a book, or any declined surface.
The Deep Knee Bend: The Position
With the Deep Knee Bend, we are moving on to raised positions that are slightly higher than the Deep Squat. The Deep Squat and Deep Knee Bend are often confused as they look similar; they are also frequently linked while in movement.
From a practical standpoint, the Deep Knee Bend position is a very common and convenient position for resting briefly, getting close to the ground to pick up something light, looking for animal tracks, becoming less visible, and so on. Because your feet aren’t positioned flat on the ground, the Deep Knee Bend isn’t as stable as the Deep Squat, and you can’t hold it as long.
The Deep Knee Bend is a good starting point as well as a convenient substitute for those who are unable to hold the Deep Squat. The Deep Knee Bend is excellent at improving foot strength, foot and ankle mobility, and stability, and it is much more challenging than the Deep Squat in this regard. Because the body is fully supported by tiny points of support (the balls of the feet), Deep Knee Bend positions can easily be turned into balancing movements without requiring that you stand on a narrow surface.
The Deep Knee Bend is like the Deep Squat in that the back of the thighs rest on the calves. Following are the main ways the Deep Knee Bend differs from the Deep Squat:
• Your base of support is on the balls of your feet with your heels off the ground, which requires much more foot strength and ankle stability.
• Your knees are lower and away from the body, horizontally aligned with your hips and rear.
• Your joints are aligned vertically from top to bottom.
• A much greater range of motion is possible in the hips.
Transitioning Between the Deep Squat and the Deep Knee Bend
This is a quite short yet very useful transition that is also deceptively challenging to perform seamlessly with balance.
Lean your torso forward as you lower your heels and rear to counterbalance and ensure a smooth and stable transition to a Deep Squat.
Initiate a limited rocking motion by leaning your torso and shifting your body weight forward onto the balls of your feet. As soon as your heels elevate, drive your hips forward and your torso up to realign in an erect position vertically above the balls of your feet, which helps you avoid falling off balance.
Holding the Deep Knee Bend
If you are not yet used to the Deep Knee Bend, you very quickly feel the “burn” in your feet and your calves, and your balance and ability to relax in the position will be quickly challenged! Here are a few tips to help you:
• Focus on maintaining stability of your ankles at a comfortable angle. The strength of your big toes and your ability to maintain tension in this part of your foot is essential for stability.
• Control your posture, alignment, and balance mainly through your hips. If you feel unstable or get off balance, use hip drive to stabilize yourself rather than going for compensatory patterns such as leaning forward, rounding your back, extending your neck, pushing up on your legs, or using your arms to counterbalance.
• Keep your arms relaxed and resting on your knees and breathe abdominally.
Variations of the Deep Knee Bend
Variations of the Neutral Deep Knee Bend position include the following:
• Narrow or wide base of support.
• Knees closed.
• Knees wide open with feet either pointing straight or out.
• High Heel Deep Knee Bend (heel raised as high as possible and vertically aligned with the toes). This variation demands and develops phenomenal foot strength and ankle stability.
• Half Knee Bend, which is an active, more elevated position in which the heels are still off the ground but the legs and glutes are contracted to prevent the back of the thighs from resting on the calves. Usually your torso leans forward, but you can keep it vertical by driving your knees forward.
• Split feet (Split Deep Knee Bend position).
• Single-Foot Deep Knee Bend.
These different positions allow you to practice transitions from one Deep Knee Bend variation to another. Following are some other valuable drills:
• Tilting the pelvis forward and backward
• Driving the hips and knees forward while maintaining posture
• Driving the hips and knees forward while leaning the torso backward
• Elevating your rear to an active Half Knee Bend
• Shifting your body weight from one foot to the other
• Shifting your body weight to one foot to briefly lift the other one an inch above ground, on both sides
• Externally and internally rotating the legs (knees pointing out and in)
• Hip rotations (body pivoting to the side on the ball of the feet to a Split Deep Knee Bend position on each side)
• Narrowing and widening the base
• Raising to the Half Knee Bend
• Raising to the High Deep Knee Bend and getting down to the Neutral Deep Knee Bend
• Holding the High Heel Deep Knee Bend
• Trunk rotations and arm extensions
Deep Knee Bend Hip Drive Exercise
The idea here is to use hip motion to modify the Deep Knee Bend to reach two opposite directions in a very controlled fashion. First lower your heels very slowly until they are as close as possible to touching the ground, then maintain great foot and ankle stability as you slowly drive your hips forward until your knees are really close to touching the ground. You should control the motion and balance through your hips, keeping your arms lengthened and relaxed. Counterbalance by slightly leaning your torso backward as you drive your knees to almost reaching the ground.
Becoming adept at all these variations, transitions, and drills will be a great help when you start balancing training!
Getting Up & Getting Down
Now that you have learned to lie down, crawl, roll, sit, kneel, squat, and deep knee bend, it is time to learn diverse strategies to elevate yourself to an erect, upright standing position and get down from standing to grounded, low-center-of-gravity positions. Aside from a few exceptions, all get-up techniques are reversible sequences, which means you can both get up and get down by following the exact same pattern. It doesn’t matter which of the two comes first; just keep in mind that when you read “get-ups,” it also implies that you can use the movement for a downward transition to the ground (and vice versa). In practice, the difference between an upward get-up sequence and a downward sequence is in the type of muscular contractions required. (Eccentric contractions on the way down, concentric contractions on the way up, and isometric contractions both ways when certain positions need to be held until they’re stable.) When particular aspects of positional control need special attention to facilitate efficiency—usually with a get-up movement—additional details are provided.
I first address the Squat and Deep Knee Bend Get-Ups. These two get-ups are restricted to the limited transition from and to standing without involving lower ground positions such as kneeling or sitting. After those, the following get-up strategies involve transitioning to and from kneeling and/or sitting positions, with the most approachable methods being those that use one or two hands for additional support. (However, virtually any get-up can be done with some assistance from the arms.) The next level of difficulty is the no-hand support get-ups that transition through support on the knees, and the most difficult get-ups transition through the Deep Squat position.
By learning all these different get-up strategies and techniques, you will also learn diverse strategies for transitioning from one position to another, such as from sitting to kneeling, half-kneeling, and split kneeling (as well as many others). To learn, practice, and improve any of these diverse transitions, you may remove the standing-up phase to simplify the techniques to the most critical part of their entire sequence; it is also true that in the real-world you may not necessarily always transition from or to a standing stance anyway. Following are some examples of transitions and drills:
• Side Bent Sit to Split Kneeling
• Open Bent Sit to Deep Squat
• Long Bent Sit to Deep Squat
• Split Kneeling to Deep Squat
• Deep Knee Bend to Deep Squat
• Deep Knee Bend to Tall Flexed-Foot Kneeling
• Deep Squat to Tall Split Kneeling
By looking at the photos and names of the diverse sitting, kneeling, and squatting positions, you may attempt many other short sequences that combine no more than two or three positions.
In any case, all the transitions I just listed and more will be naturally involved as they are “built in” to one or the other of the diverse get-ups that I am about to describe. You should learn to perform all the get-ups both dynamically and slowly with equal balance and fluidity.
Squatting: The Get-Up Movement
Squatting as a movement is most commonly understood as restricted to the downward transition from standing to the bottom squat, rest position. However, getting out of the Deep Squat to standing is as important; both sequences are closely related and should be performed with equal ease and quality of form.
The Deep Squat and Deep Knee Bend Get-Ups are not bad for your knees unless
• Your knees are bad already (because of past or current injury, degenerative disease, dysfunction, inflammation, and so on), in which case you should avoid these movements.
• You insist on doing 1,000 repetitions a day with terrible form.
SAFETY NOTE
No matter whether it’s acute or mild, persistent or intermittent, pain is important feedback that signals an issue. It’s always a good idea to consult a physiotherapist to discuss the issue.
Otherwise, these get-ups help restore healthy knee, ankle, and hip joints, and they also help promote a healthy lower back and spine.
It doesn’t matter if you start in the standing or squatting position; you must practice both alternately: squat down, stand up from squat, repeat. That’s the complete Deep Squat Get-Up. You can use it in many ways, including for lifting a heavy load. I’ve seen countless people taking this movement for granted—squatting down by just bending at the knees, awkwardly swaying forward and backward with a horribly rounded back as they were lowering themselves, arms extended as they were looking for something to hold on to, and painstakingly managing a not-so-deep Deep Squat position for only a few seconds.
Furthermore, as you read more about the various transitions, you will realize that squatting is a much more diverse skill than you might ever have thought before. When you do it with great emphasis on breath, position, sequence, pattern, tension, and relaxation, then a full Deep Squat Get-Up helps counteract many musculoskeletal issues such as weak glutes, tight hips, and a lack of trunk stability.
I share with you some technical aspects that make the squatting movement from and to the Neutral Deep Squat position not just effective but efficient. Remember that small children (including you, once upon a time) can hold a Deep Squat before they can stand up and ultimately walk. At some point early in your life, you owned it fully. You have lost it, but the pattern you once owned can be recovered. Also keep in mind that there is not a single, perfect form to the squatting movement with a Neutral Deep Squat position, although there is a position that’s most biomechanically efficient for you because it accommodates the uniqueness of your body. Squatting as a get-up movement is adaptable to the context, and your form will vary according to the diverse squatting positions you use to enter or exit the movement.
Warming Up for the Squat Get-Up
In Part 2, I explain the Hip Hinge pattern. That pattern is going to be highly useful in learning efficient squatting form. When you squat, you won’t need to drive your hips backward as much as you do in the Hip Hinge, and your knees must be bent all the way down. But the Hip Hinge teaches you essential characteristics of efficient squatting form: the flexion and extension movement of the hip joint as you maintain a neutral spine. You may conveniently use the hinge movement to warm up for the Squat Get-Up.
TECHNIQUE TIP
Make sure to practice ground movements that will help your joints loosen up, especially squat position variations.
One “Layer” at a Time
Improving a complex movement pattern that is deeply ingrained in your neuromuscular memory can be quite challenging, especially when you are trying to pay attention to and modify many details at once. Choose one aspect at a time to address, starting with the most important one; practice until that aspect has been improved enough that you can switch to the next.
The four main faults when getting up or down are like the main issues of holding the squat position: knees collapsing, lack of depth, rounded back (upper or lower spine), and heels up (Deep Knee Bend).
Getting Down
1 Start in an erect, aligned standing position with your feet shoulder width apart or slightly narrower. Your toes are pointing straight ahead or slightly outward (no more than 10 to 15 degrees).
2 Hinge slightly with a neutral spine; while keeping your hips stable, flex your knees in a controlled and relatively slow fashion to lower your rear to a Half Squat. As you lower yourself, maintain a neutral spine, vertically align your knees with your feet and toes, and make your heels flat to the ground.
3 Finish lowering yourself into the Neutral Deep Squat. The details of a quality Deep Squat position have been described earlier.
As I said previously, it’s pretty simple. Here’s an even simpler breakdown of the movement:
1 Start standing (that’s a no-brainer).
2 Push your butt back and bend your knees a little, then lower your butt as if you want to sit down on a very low chair. You have a superhero stance with a big, proud chest and strong flat back all the way. Your heels are screwed down tight into the ground, and your knees are so strong they won’t move an inch toward each other.
2 Quietly “sit” in a Deep Squat with the indestructible confidence of a supreme warrior.
But, seriously, squatting is simple. Before you squat, remember that you Hip Hinge a bit, then bend your legs while keeping your back as straight as you can. Push your knees out all the way down, and never let your heels go up.
Getting Up
1 Start by turning a relaxed, resting bottom position into an active position by generating tension in the muscles of your abdomen, lower back, glutes, hips, pelvic floor and quadriceps. The tension should be enough to slightly move your hamstrings away from your calves, which will also slightly elevate your rear.
2 Elevate your position to the Half Squat by pushing off your legs and maintaining a neutral spine. Extend your legs a bit more to allow your hips to elevate a little higher than knee level, and then squeeze your glutes to initiate hip extension to drive them forward.
3 Let your torso naturally regain an erect, vertical position as you finish and extend your hips fully into a standing position.
Keep Your Body Weight in the Center of Your Feet
The body-weight pressure you perceive under your feet should feel equally distributed. If you shift all the body weight to your heels, you’re at a greater risk of being pulled off-balance backward. As you’re lowering yourself all the way down from standing to the bottom squat and elevating your position all the way up from the bottom to standing, your center of gravity should be aligned with the center of your foot all the way down and up rather than being aligned with your heels. Similarly, the moment your body weight shifts to the balls of your feet, your heels might elevate and make your movement unstable (if your heels elevate just a little). Elevating your heels relates to a lack of mobility—not necessarily at the ankle but maybe at the hips—which causes you to reflexively extend your ankles to help shift your body weight forward to maintain balance over your base of support and avoid toppling backward. Likewise, there should be no foot pronation—the outside of your feet elevating and your ankles caving in—which would cause your knees to collapse inwardly.
Keep Your Knees Aligned with Your Ankles and Feet
Your knees should remain vertically aligned with your ankles and feet; they shouldn’t internally or externally rotate. The most common issue is to let the knees cave in, which is an internal rotation. When that happens, remind yourself (or have someone remind you) to “push your knees out.” That cue is good as long as it helps you maintain vertical alignment of your knees without pushing them to the point that they rotate externally with your knee joints beyond vertical alignment with your ankles and feet. In fact, when you assume a Half Squat stance with your knees vertically aligned with your feet, look at your knees; from that perspective, it should look like your knees are slightly outside a vertical line with your feet (even though they truly are vertically aligned with them). If they look like they are significantly away from a vertical line with your feet to the side, it means you are pushing your knees out too much. If it looks like your knees are aligned with your feet, your knees are caving in, and you need to push them out over your feet.
Keeping your knees over your feet and ankles is about maintaining the most stable stance when you get up or down. The moment your knees cave in, your position becomes weak and highly unstable. Your position is also unstable if your knees move forward beyond vertical alignment with the center of the foot. However, your knees will naturally and slightly move forward and beyond a vertical line with your toes when you reach the bottom of the position.
Hinge Enough but Not Too Much
If you don’t let your hips move backward and your torso lean forward enough, either your knees will compensate by moving forward beyond vertical alignment with your toes as you bend your legs deeper, which puts a lot of stress on them, or as you lower your rear you will start to fall back. A relatively pronounced hinge and forward lean angle of your torso with the hips leading and flexing before the knees (known as a “deep hinge”), on the other hand, are not issues if you know how to be stable. So first find the angle of your torso in relation to your hip that feels right for you as you hinge; then maintain this angle relatively constantly until you reach a squat deeper than knee level, at which point you start regaining a more erect torso at a less pronounced forward angle.
The Bottom Flexion
Some people’s hips display posterior tilt, and those people have a mild flexion in the lumbar spine as they are reaching very close to the bottom position. This particularity may have to do with a lack of mobility, with the skeletal structure of the person (hip socket depth), or a combination of both. If you experience this problem and improved mobility doesn’t fix the issue, then you have a structural issue that you can’t fix. You’re one of these people whose physical makeup does not allow them to reach the Deep Squat. Not to worry; you can keep squatting naturally. It only becomes an issue if you’re using the Squat Get-Up for heavy lifting or strength training. Unless you reduce the depth of your squat before the bottom lower spine flexion, adding intensity (load) and volume (repetitions) would put a great mechanical stress on your lower spine with a serious risk of disc injury.
TECHNIQUE TIP
The strategies to improve your Deep Squat Get-Up are no different from those involved in improving the Deep Squat position itself; if you’re comfortable with the Deep Squat position, it’s unlikely that you’ll have trouble with the get-up.
As a matter of fact, you don’t necessarily need to achieve the Deep Squat position before starting to improve your Deep Squat Get-Up; by holding onto something as you try to squat down as low as possible each time, you could improve both the Deep Squat position and Deep Squat Get-Up simultaneously.
Be consistent: Practice every day—ideally several times a day, even if you can practice for only a minute. Ultimately, you should be able to extend your arms in front of you or hold them over your head while you maintain upper spine alignment and stability. Once you are proficient at the unloaded squatting pattern (with no additional weight), you may start squatting with a load as an exercise for gaining lower-body strength and power.
Deep Knee Bend: The Get-Up Movement
As a movement, the Deep Knee Bend allows an easy and quicker transition (to standing or to a low position) than squatting, but it’s also potentially less stable. As a matter of fact, you can use the Deep Knee Bend movement both for getting up and down before and after holding the Deep Squat position, which is not technically the squatting movement any longer (because of the additional transition to the Deep Knee Bend). All you must do is to switch from the Deep Squat to the Deep Knee Bend position before standing up or the other way around before reaching the bottom Squat stance.
Unlike the Squat Get-Up, the Deep Knee Bend Get-Up is very straightforward: You stand up or lower yourself with your heels elevated above ground the whole time (except when you’re actually standing) with your joints following a rather straight vertical line and without having to lean forward or hinge. The Deep Knee Bend Get-Up is “knee dominant,” whereas the Squat Get-Up is “hip dominant.” You may occasionally use this get-up in a manipulative way, such as when you’re holding a light load, but it’s not suited for heavy loads because it’s way too unstable and would put an enormous stress on your knees.
Before practicing the movement, you must be able to comfortably hold the Deep Knee Bend stance with vertical alignment as you keep your arms relaxed. When standing or lowering yourself to the Deep Knee Bend, visualize and ensure a controlled, stable transition with great posture, relaxed arms, and moving along a straight vertical line. From standing, all you need to do is to start raising your heels; then you bend your knees and start lowering yourself. Voilà!
Hand Support Get-Ups
As you start to move on to get-up methods that involve kneeling or sitting, I want to start you with the easier ones that are done with some assistance from the arms. As I stated before, virtually any get-up technique can be assisted this way. There may be practical reasons for using your arms, such as when you need to get up or down faster, move more slowly and safely, assist the lower body when it’s injured or painful, enable the movement when you feel weak, or carry a load on your back.
Tripod Get-Up
The Tripod Get-Up is a staple of MovNat, especially when you practice it while balancing on a narrow surface. But you primarily do it on the ground to ease sitting down or getting up from sitting; sometimes you can use it to kneel. You can do it very swiftly in case of emergency, and it has notable value in combative situations. The Tripod Get-Up enables you to lift a load up or put it down securely as you use one arm for holding the object and the other for ground support, although you can use it to lift heavy objects.
Getting Down
1 From standing, lower your center of gravity to a Half or Deep Squat. Simultaneously, lean sideways and reach out to either side with your arm on that side.
2 Place the palm of your reaching hand on the ground. The space between the hand on the ground and your opposite foot is ideally 1 foot wider than shoulder width. (You can make this space narrower if you don’t have adequate room, but if you make the space too wide, the movement becomes unstable.) Extend your arm fully with your palm, wrist, elbow, and shoulder aligned, then externally rotate your arm to create even greater stability before shifting body weight to it. You now have a three-pointed base of support; shift your body weight between your outside hand and the opposite foot, so you can free the inside foot from supporting your body weight and drive the leg forward through the rotation action of the hips.
3 Supporting your weight on your planted arm and the outside leg, extend your inside leg in front of you, and then lower that hip to the ground. Keep your arm fully extended until your rear is seated on the ground.
4 Extend the other leg and release your hand; bring your torso to center over your hips so that you’re in a Long Sit position.
Getting Up
1 From the Long Sit, bring the heel of one foot (or both) toward your rear while you extend your arm on the opposite side to place your hand on the ground.
2 Shift more body weight to your palm and, while keeping your arm fully locked out and externally rotated, push off your heel and begin to lift your rear off the ground and elevate your hips; meanwhile, bend your inside leg and start driving your hips and leg backward.
2 Bring the foot on the ground to the Tripod stance in a Deep Squat or a square Half Squat stance and push off your palm to immediately start standing up.
No-Hand-Support Get-Ups
The get-up techniques in this section are normally done without the help of the arms. However, for the sake of practice (and occasionally for a practical reason), these movements can be assisted at any time by one or two hands on the ground. While the ratio of lower-body muscle strength to overall body weight is an important factor in your ability (or lack thereof) to get up and down unassisted by your arms, lower-body mobility, stability, balance, and coordination are very relevant aspects to it.
Getting up from and getting down to sitting on an elevated surface may not seem to be a “ground movement,” but it actually is no different than other get-up strategies that involve transitioning from a base of support on the rear to the feet. The difference lies in the fact that the sitting surface is raised, which significantly reduces the range of motion involved. Because this is a movement pattern that most of us do several times daily, it’s a good thing to look at ways to do it better. Instead of only looking at our posture while sitting, we’re also going to be mindful of how we get into and out of the sitting position. If we can learn to mindfully enter and exit raised sitting systematically with efficient movement, we help ingrain a better sit position as well.
Sitting Down
Start standing very close to (but not against) the seat. Approach sitting down with the intention to maintain good posture all the way down and while sitting.
1 Hinge from your hips and start bending your legs as if you were going to squat. Keep your knees vertically aligned with your toes. Maintain posture.
2 Maintain tension in your lower body so you can control your descent until your rear smoothly reaches the seat. Don’t rush to lean back.
3 Once your rear is positioned, lean back until your torso is upright.
4 Alternatively, you could lean slightly forward (or lean back if there’s a backrest).
5 You also can change the position of your legs to a straddle position or other positions.
Standing Up from Raised Sitting
1 Look at the Sitting Down photos in reverse.
2 Start slowly leaning forward, hinging from your hips.
3 Generate tension in your legs and drive your hips up and out of the seated position.
4 Re-establish the upright standing position.
If your intention is to spring out swiftly from the raised sit so that you’re running forward, you want to quickly lean forward and drive your knees vertically beyond your toes to shift your body weight onto the balls of your feet and load your legs faster so you can keep leaning forward as you stand up. The lower the raised surface you sit on and the more movement there is to the pattern to enter and exit the sit position, the more the sit becomes a squatting motion rather than a hinging one.
Kneeling Transitions
This subset of no-hand-support get-ups transition through Kneeling or Half-Kneeling. Some start and terminate in a kneeling position; others start or end in a sitting position.
Kneeling Get-Up
The Kneeling Get-Up is a simple transition from standing to kneeling (or the other way around), which can be limited to the transition between the Deep Knee Bend and Kneeling positions. It is a highly practical movement sequence that also has fantastic value for mobility and stability in the knees, ankles, and feet. When you assist the movement with your arms, you can reach forward with your arms and swiftly get down in a forward sliding motion until you’re kneeling.
1 Lower yourself from standing or start directly in a strong, stable Deep Knee Bend position. You may optionally start squatting before transitioning to the Deep Knee Bend.
2 While maintaining great stability in your feet and ankles, start driving your hips forward to lower your knees while leaning your upper body backward. Shifting your body weight in the opposite direction (shifting your lower body forward and upper body slightly backward) allows you to stay balanced with equal distribution of body weight over your base of support through the whole motion, which brings your knees smoothly to the ground and helps you avoid counterbalancing with your arms. Establish the Flexed-Foot Kneeling position.
3 Lean forward slightly to shift some body weight onto your knees so that you can slide and extend your feet horizontally below your rear, then lean back and sink into the Kneeling position with a tall posture, relaxed arms, and your hands resting on your thighs. Alternatively, the final position could be the Flexed-Foot Kneeling position.
Getting Down
Getting Up
Getting up to standing is pretty straightforward; simply reverse the sequence. From the Flexed-Foot Kneeling position, there are two options to facilitate a smooth transition to the Deep Knee Bend. The first is to simply lean your torso backward enough to start elevating your knees off the ground. The second is to elevate your rear to a tall(er) kneeling position and then sit back on your ankles, which elevates your knees off the ground as well.
Tall Half-Kneeling Get-Up
This get-up involves a single forward or backward step to a Tall Half-Kneeling position before you kneel or stand.
Choose this option if you intend to create a bit of distance from where you stand before kneeling or to immediately keep walking forward after getting up.
Getting Down
1 Begin in a standing position.
2 Step forward or backward into a relatively wide Split Stand; the distance between your feet should be about the same as the width between your shoulders so your base of support is stable. Keep your body weight evenly distributed over both feet, your spine straight, and your hips and back foot facing forward.
3 Lower your back knee to the ground into a stable Flexed-Foot Tall Half-Kneeling position.
4 Extend the ankle of your rear leg to point your toes. (Optionally, you could skip the Flexed-Foot Tall Half-Kneeling position and immediately step down with an extended foot in a Tall Half-Kneeling position.)
5 Briefly shift your body weight to a Single-Knee Tall Kneeling position and pull your front leg to the back; bring your front knee down next to the back knee to establish a Tall Kneeling position.
6 Lower your hips to sit on your heels in a kneeling position.
Kneel-Squat Get-Up
A very dynamic, no-hand movement involves leaning backward, elevating the knees, and then pushing off the top part of the forefoot to propel the body into a very brief airborne phase at a level sufficient for you to land on your feet in a squat position.
Getting Up
To get up from a Tall Half-Kneeling position, simply reverse the sequence. As when you get down, you must ensure great stability of the knee joint between the Tall Half-Kneeling and the Split Standing positions. You may optionally use the Flexed-Foot Tall Half-Kneeling position if you want to strongly push yourself up to get up and even transition to running quickly.
Split Kneeling Get-Up
This get-up exists in two variations and allows you to start or end the movement from diverse sit positions, transitioning through both the Side Bent Sit and the Split Kneeling positions. Because of this particularity, you end up moving your orientation slightly to the side, unless you initiated it directly from the Side Bent Sit. This get-up can start from and end in the Deep Knee Bend or standing.
The first variation transitions through the Deep Knee Bend before the ending in the Split Kneeling position.
Getting Down
1 Lower yourself from standing or start directly in a strong, stable Deep Knee Bend.
2 Lower your knees to the ground with control, entering a Tall Kneeling position.
3 Rotate your hips to rotate both legs to either side to establish a Split Kneeling position with your torso facing perpendicularly to your legs.
4 Shift your body weight back and lower your seat to the ground behind your feet to enter a Side Bent Sit.
5 You may keep the Side Bent Sit or rotate your hips and pull both legs up to a Bent Sit.
Getting Up
Reverse the sequence to turn it into getting up. The key difference lies in the transition from a Side Bent Sit to a Split Kneeling position; you want to slightly lean the torso forward (you may slightly round your back), then drive and extend your hips forward and up to elevate your rear off the ground until you reach the Split Kneeling position. You may add a little rocking motion from the Bent Sit to facilitate the transition.
Squatting Transitions
The second type of No-Hand-Support Get-Up is a direct transition from sitting to standing through a Squat or Half-Kneeling position. Some of these get-ups start and terminate in a Kneeling position; others go to and from a sit position. The transition through the squat is quite challenging to most people, however it is a quicker way to get up or down than through kneeling, especially when you add Front-Rocking, which is not always possible with kneeling.
NOTE
The Side Bent Sit to Split Kneeling transition is the most challenging part of the whole sequence. You can isolate it to make it a drill. Otherwise, it can be useful when you’re sitting and need to briefly scout your surroundings from a more elevated position.
From a functional practice, these squat get-ups push your mobility to a higher level. Basically, if you can’t do these get-ups slowly without using rocking momentum or hand support, your squatting skill is not as good as you think. However, practicing the squat get-ups first with some help from your hands by rocking and then progressively starting to do them without those aids is a good strategy to improve your skill.
Cross Squat Get-Up
This is a very common way to get up and down with no arm support. It’s also the movement that’s most accessible to people of all levels of skill.
1 Begin in a Cross Standing position.
2 Move your hips back and lower your center of gravity, keeping your chest facing forward. Allow one foot to stay flat on the ground while the other rests on its external edge, which shifts more weight onto one foot, with your torso slightly leaning to the side; alternatively, you could tilt both feet so that your weight is supported on the outsides of your feet, keeping your body weight evenly distributed.
3 Lower your rear to the ground and enter a Cross Open Bent Sit.
Narrow-Base Squat Get-Up
One squat get-up that is easily done by all young children—but is a feat of high-level mobility to grown-ups, including some of the fittest ones—is the Narrow-Base Squat Get-Up. Everyone who can Deep Squat will be able to get down this way, but not everyone who can Deep Squat has enough mobility to get up this way. If you can do this movement without rocking from the sit position, your mobility and Deep Squat are great.
SAFETY NOTE
Don’t attempt this movement on a slippery surface and/or while wearing slippery pants, or you will slide back when you start to push off your rear to transition to the Deep Squat.
Getting Up
1 Reverse the movement by pulling your heels as close to your rear as you can to create a base of support as narrow as possible; the effect of this movement is reducing the distance your center of gravity must travel to become vertically aligned with your feet. Keep your heels against each other and press them firmly down to the ground. Open your legs to allow your torso and arms to reach forward, then immediately and swiftly shift your body weight forward to elevate your rear. Optionally, you may rock backward on your back and then rock forward to generate momentum and get up faster. In any case, you need friction under your rear to push off it; if the ground, your clothing, or both are slippery, the movement might become completely ineffective. Make sure to keep your heels close to your rear and keep pressing down through your heels to maintain friction so you can pull forward with your legs as you rock forward. During the pulling motion, your knees are outside a vertical line over your feet, not for stability but to ensure that your torso can lean forward enough to shift your center of gravity to the front. You should bring your knees over your feet as soon as you are in the Squat position.
2 Finish shifting your body weight onto your feet in a Narrow-Base Deep Squat. Stand up if needed.
TECHNIQUE TIP
Apart from using Front-Rocking to facilitate the transition to the Deep Squat, you may also find a slightly inclined area outside and start the movement facing downhill. You also may assist yourself by holding and pulling on something, or you can push off with your hands or fingers. You can make it a collaborative practice with a partner by facing each other and helping each other up and down by holding each other’s hands. In the latter case, the idea is to try to slow the movement as much as possible while also relying less and less on your partner’s help.
Single-Leg Squat Get-Up
This is a squat get-up that transitions to a Single-Leg Squat position. For this reason, make sure to practice it on each side, left leg then right leg, and if one side is more challenging than the other, practice more on that side.
TECHNIQUE TIP
The Single-Leg Squat Get-Up is a perfect example of how apparently “simple” movements can be deceptively complex and technical. Even though you may add assistance or momentum to achieve the movement at first, work on your ability to perform it slowly. It’s always tempting to hide stability issues by speeding the execution of the movement.
Getting Down
1 From standing, lower your center of gravity by squatting, or start in a Deep Squat.
2 Shift your body weight to one foot with your center of gravity vertically aligned with it.
3 With the opposite foot free to move, release it by extending the leg forward, entering a Single-Leg Deep Squat.
4 Lower your seat to the ground and extend your legs so you’re in a Long Bent Sit. From there you may choose any sit variation you like.
Getting Up
Getting up follows the exact same sequence in the reverse order. The key moment, which also is the most challenging, is the transition from the Long Bent Sit to the Single-Leg Deep Squat. If the main cause of your ineffectiveness is a lack of mobility, especially in your ankle and pelvis, you first need to first improve that area because no technique will compensate for such a deficiency. Unless you are already aware of such limitations and have first checked that your technique is right on, don’t start blaming a supposed lack of mobility right off the bat.
Sprawls
A “sprawl” isn’t just a clumsy way to fall on the ground. A sprawl can be used intentionally and be done in a controlled manner forward or backward.
The main function of the sprawl is to get down and reach the ground as quickly as possible by using the pull of gravity so that you end up lying flat against the ground. You can use it in a case of an imminent threat that demands you quickly lie down to a prone position, quickly hide, reduce your visibility, take shelter, transition quickly to crawling, safely recover from getting badly off balance, or avoid a takedown by an attacker (in this case you’d used a Back Sprawl).
The most explosive way to perform sprawls involves an airborne phase where your whole body is briefly off ground, which could be associated to a form of jumping, especially when you’re moving and covering some distance horizontally in addition to going down. Sprawling down to the ground is a highly dynamic movement that is physically demanding and intimidating at first.
In sprawling practice, you may start performing sprawls from a lower position rather than from standing—in this case, with your hands already on the ground and your body extending backward (Back Sprawl) or your feet down on the ground and your body extending forward (Front Sprawl). You may also start training on a soft, forgiving surface such as a mat, grass, or sand.
By definition, sprawling implies a downward motion only. However, a sprawl sequence may be done in reverse, when physically possible (which makes it a get-up). However, you can’t always exactly get up the same way you get down—either as fast or as economically.
Back Sprawl
Getting Down
1 Start from a standing position. Hip Hinge and reach both hands toward the ground in front of you and directly underneath your shoulders.
2 As your hands approach the ground, push off both legs to elevate your hips so that your feet come off the ground as you shift all your weight onto your palms. Immediately allow your hips to start dropping. With your feet still airborne, extend both legs so that they are fully extended when your feet reach the ground behind you. Flex your feet so you land on the balls of your feet, and spread your legs slightly to widen your base and disperse the force of landing.
3 Lower your hips and chest to the ground with control, entering a Prone Lying position.
Depending on practical variables, you may modify your body position when sprawling, such as by doing the following:
• Start the sprawl from a Tall Kneeling position. This is a good option for beginners.
• Jump backward before sprawling.
• Leave your feet on the ground and let your whole body slide backward with four points of support during the whole motion.
• Use a single arm for support before sprawling.
• Deep hinge, bend your legs more to place your forearms down on the ground, and sprawl from this lower starting position.
• Push off your arms strongly to move your body backward some distance as you sprawl down.
• Push off your legs and drive your hips backward before your hands reach the ground, creating a brief airborne phase.
• Keep your legs close together.
• Let your feet reach the ground before they are fully extended and finish by fully extending them as your feet slide backward on the ground.
• Press on your arms to keep your chest and head up.
• Extend your arms fully to the front or the side.
• Turn your head to the side or even flip your entire body to one side before landing.
Getting Up
1 To reverse the movement, make sure the balls of your feet are planted on the ground in a flexed-foot manner; press on your arms to bring your hips and torso off the ground. You can either press up all the way to a plank position then push off your arms to drive your body weight back onto your feet with your legs bent before jumping your legs toward your hands, or from the plank you can pull your lower body forward with your feet sliding toward your hands.
2 Once your hips are back, your legs are bent, and the balls of your feet are loaded, push off your legs to elevate your hips and bring your feet off the ground as you shift all your weight onto your hands. Keep your arms locked out so your support stays strong.
3 Bring your knees forward and land with your feet just behind your hands, so you’re in a Half Squat. Shift your weight onto your feet and straighten your spine before standing up.
Front Sprawl
Getting Down
From standing there are two ways to initiate the front sprawl.
1 Reach both hands in front of you with your palms down. Lean forward to shift your center of gravity beyond your base of support; you’re intentionally losing balance and initiating a forward fall. The body may stay fully extended or only slightly bend at hip level. (Think of a tree falling.) This movement starts slowly but quickly accelerates as you get closer to the ground.
2 Reach both hands out in front of you with your palms down. Bend your legs in a Hip Hinge to lower your center of gravity as much as possible, which shortens the distance your hands must cover before landing and reduces impact forces upon landing. This is how beginners should start.
3 Land on your palms, bend your arms to decelerate as you lower yourself fully but smoothly in the Prone Lying position.
Getting Up
To manage getting up the same way, you need to powerfully push yourself backward, fully extending your arms as you hinge your hips to drive them backward, then bend your legs to load your feet as your hands take off. It makes the complete movement, of both the get-down and get-up, a quite challenging alternative to regular push-ups. Otherwise, you can get up the same way that was described in the getting-up description for the Back Sprawl.
Rolls
Rolls, like sprawls, are fast ways to smoothly and quickly transition to the ground from standing, or even after jumping from a height. They also can be done intentionally or unexpectedly upon losing balance and to dissipate impact forces while avoiding bruising or injuring oneself. Rolls are reversible sequences: The Front Roll used to get down becomes a Back Roll when you get back up, and vice versa. The advantage of rolls is that they allow you to enter or exit the get-up from a variety of positions: standing, Half-Kneeling, sitting, Prone or Supine Lying. For instance, you may roll forward or backward from standing to standing.
It may seem strange to roll forward to a sit from standing instead of using a different get-up strategy that goes straight down on the spot, or to roll backward from standing to standing, but it could have a practical purpose, such as putting distance between yourself and a threat or to disperse impact forces. You shouldn’t see rolls as flashy moves with little practical purpose; learning to roll smoothly and skillfully from and to diverse positions and at diverse speeds really matters to your real-life physical competency.
I previously covered the Front Roll and Back Roll from lying positions in Chapter 24, and those movements are where learning rolls should start. As you start practicing rolls from more elevated positions, you might want to train on softer surfaces. However, efficiency should become your best cushioning, even when you’re rolling on hard surfaces.
Front Roll
TECHNIQUE TIP
Here are some pointers before you get started:
• Though it is called a “Front Roll,” the body rolls over a single shoulder in a diagonal line between the supporting shoulder and the opposite hip.
• The neck and head should never become a point of support and bear any body weight during the roll.
• Start on a compliant, soft surface!
1 From a Split Standing position, do a Hip Hinge. Reach the arm that’s on the same side as your lead leg to the ground just in front of and inside your lead foot.
2 Lean down and shift your weight forward so that you begin to come off your feet. Lower the forearm of your lead arm to the ground and bring both shoulders down. Place the palm of your other hand on the ground below and just outside your head to assist with lowering under control. This assisting arm will become unnecessary as you become proficient at the Front Roll, but you can use it whenever you need it. Optionally, the arm on the side of your supporting shoulder could be extended outwardly instead of tucked inwardly. In this case you need to bend down to contact the shoulder directly on the ground, or very close to it, before rolling forward.
3 Lower the back of your lead shoulder to the ground, maintaining contact with the ground along the entire length of that arm. To avoid landing on your head, tilt your head to the opposite shoulder. This phase and position are like the lying Front Roll except that it happens much faster.
4 Allow your feet to come off the ground as you roll onto your back.
5 Maintain a rounded spine by contracting your abdominals as you swing your legs over and let your body roll all the way in a diagonal path from your shoulder to the opposite hip.
6 Unless you decide to end the roll lying down, you want to keep dissipating the momentum by transitioning to kneeling or even standing. Roll across your back, from your lead shoulder to the hip on the opposite side, as you start bending the leg on the exit side.
7 Allow your momentum to carry you up as you tuck the lead leg, so your shin is perpendicular to your direction of travel and extend the other leg slightly to place the heel of that foot on the ground. As your rear elevates with the momentum, push off your grounded thigh. Optionally, you could flex the foot of your tucked, grounded leg so it can assist in pushing your body up.
8 As you roll over your shin, pull yourself up with a pulling motion of your extended leg’s heel and enter a side Half-Kneel.
Dive Roll
The Dive Roll is a highly technical landing strategy. You use it when the peak level of impact forces will be greater than what other forms of landing can disperse. The Dive Roll is useful when the height from which you launch the jump, the forward distance you’ll cover before landing, and your speed and forward momentum while jumping are significant. Without rolling, your legs would bear the brunt of dispersing impact forces, which would easily exceed the power of the eccentric contraction and could potentially damage your joints or break bones. The Dive Roll is an extremely dynamic transition primarily aimed at adding distance between where your feet contact the ground upon landing and where the supporting shoulder enters the roll. By immediately bouncing forward to cover distance in an airborne fashion before rolling, you ensure maximum distribution and dissipation of impact forces.
Less frequently, you can use the Dive Roll at ground level to clear an elevated obstacle, such as a fence, with your whole body extending above it and exiting through a roll on the other side.
The two key aspects of the technique happen while you’re standing on the ground, and the most substantial part of the technique is the roll. This is the reason why I consider it a ground movement. From a practical perspective, the Dive Roll is mostly a one-way, forward movement. You can reverse it to some extent; for instance, you could roll backward and push yourself up and move back to create backward distance. However, there is no way to reverse this movement to the point where you return to the spot from which you initially jumped.
Increasing the displacement of your center of gravity upon landing, by leaning or rolling forward, reduces the peak force by dispersing kinetic force along a greater distance. You want to choose this landing option when you expect the forward momentum or impact forces upon landing to exceed your muscular ability to dissipate them in a standing position, to conserve energy, or to advantageously use the momentum to continue your course of action without slowing down. This is especially the case in rolling where kinetic energy upon landing is dissipated through a maximum number of body segments contacting the ground in a sequence.
In the photos illustrating the technique, I’m standing on a surface that’s elevated 8 feet. A target is marked on the ground about 8 feet along a vertical line extending from my feet. The distance between the target and the surface where I stand replicates a real-life gap or distance that I would cover by jumping after running (although such distance could be greater with more momentum or height).
SAFETY NOTE
Although I am showing the technique from jumping from a height to make the movement realistic, for obvious safety reasons this technique is best practiced first from a Tall Half-Kneeling or standing stance on a soft surface.
Being too aggressive when you try this movement for the first time by starting too high with a run and then landing on a hard surface is very likely to leave you injured. If your roll goes wrong, you could experience a variety of injuries, including displacing a shoulder, smashing your face, breaking your wrist or arm, landing very hard on your back, and so on. A healthy respect for progression is more important than ever when learning this move and practicing it at a greater level of difficulty. Start by developing good technique at ground level.
TECHNIQUE TIP
I enter the movement with a Broad Jump, but how you enter it may vary. You can initiate it from a Depth Jump, Split Jump with or without a run up, a Vault, or even a Front Swing from Hanging.
Take Off & Airborne Phase
1 From the top of the surface, highly focus and look down at the area where you intend to land, including the exact area where you want your feet to contact the ground. Knowing the ratio of height to depth and the distance you need to cover tells you how much power you need to cover the distance. You need to lean forward at an approximate 30- to 40-degree angle upon landing. You can’t calculate any of it in your head or on paper; only incremental progressions in training and experience will inform you.
2 The moment your feet contact the ground, bend and load your legs to start decelerating. This immediately converts some of the elastic energy stored in your legs and posterior chain into a powerful push and forward dive. Your arms and hands are ready to extend forward.
3 You are diving forward. As your whole body becomes airborne again for a moment, slightly orient your upper body and head sideways toward the side on which you’ll be rolling. This is important as you want to be able to roll from one side of your body to the other in a diagonal line between the entry arm and shoulder and the opposite hip. Place your hands in a V shape pointing inward in front of your body as soon as your hands contact the ground. As your body moves forward (pushed down by momentum as well as pulled by gravity), your arms start bending to absorb pressure and to guide the controlled fall.
4 Generate some tension from your arm to start dispersing some of the impact forces as you start rolling in a sequence starting from your forearm to the back of your upper arm to your shoulder.
5 Keep rolling, following a line that runs diagonally along your back from your shoulder to the opposite hip.
6 As you’re pushed by momentum, you briefly transition to a sit with your upper body upright. Bend one leg to use it as a point of support to keep pushing yourself forward and upward. Optionally, flex your foot so you can push off rapidly as you stand up. Place your hands on the ground for support if the momentum is still strong enough to push you off balance and to help push yourself back up to standing.
7 Push off your arms to stand back up.
TECHNIQUE TIP
If you have managed an efficient dive, your body’s position during the roll is the most crucial part in making the movement efficient and safe. It’s best to acquire the specific pattern of this roll by slowly and mindfully training it at ground level as shown in the next six photos.
It’s natural to prefer rolling on one side rather than the other, but you should practice it on both sides, as you do with every unilateral movement. Progressions toward a more challenging dive roll involve rolling from standing, rolling following a Broad Jump, rolling following a low Depth Jump, rolling following a jump with a depth and distance ratio, and of course adding a run-up to increase forward momentum before you jump.
1 Start in a Deep Knee Bend, leaning forward with both hands in an inverted V shape. Slightly rotate your trunk toward the side where you’ll be rolling.
2 Push off your feet to lean forward and down as you bend and lower your front forearm to the ground. Keep turning your body toward the side to which you’re rolling by using a rotational hip motion. Your head starts turning in the opposite direction.
3 While tucking your shoulder and head in, keep lowering your shoulder to the ground as your hips keep moving forward above your shoulder. Your feet are now off the ground.
4 Roll diagonally across your back, starting to look in the direction where you’ll exit the roll.
5 Roll on your back all the way toward the hip opposite the shoulder on which you entered the roll.
6 This phase is like the sequence I explained before.
Faults
The main faults happening with the dive have to do with the following two things:
• Rolling immediately upon landing without diving or without diving far enough. Entering the roll too violently can cause you to wreck your shoulder, elbows, head, neck, or back.
• Miscalculating the angle at which you lean upon landing. If you lean even slightly backward, you fall on your rear and ruin your knees. If you stand vertically or barely lean forward, you might go down quickly and land hard on your knees. If you lean too much you might fall flat.
Here are four of the main faults of the roll after the dive:
1 Your hands are level rather than in a V shape, which directs your body straight forward. Your head could knock the ground, or you could push up and over the head to roll directly along the spine. You might even land heavily on the back.
2 Both your hands are pointing outward, which prevents the rolling arm from bending properly and guiding the body in the right position.
3 The position of your body is too compact and vertical (the result of not leaning forward or not diving/bouncing forward), which puts all the impact on your legs, hips, and lower back and prevents you from rolling at all or pushes your head directly to the ground.
4 Your body is leaning too much to the side and falling sideways instead of rolling diagonally across the back.
Like any other area of Natural Movement, ground movements may involve some form of external load and manipulation, such as carrying, lifting, throwing, catching, pushing, pulling, or dragging a load or object. All the get-up strategies—except the sprawls and rolls—can be turned into manipulative movements that enable you to lift or put down an object or a person (usually of a relatively light weight). More effective techniques for lifting or putting down heavy loads are covered in Chapters 30 and 31.