Top 5 Fridays! 5 Things to Look for in a Half Kneel Crawl Assessment

5 Things to Look for in a Half Kneel Crawl Assessment - themanualtherapist.com

As a coach, it’s always resourceful to have a few catch-all movements in your back pocket from both a screening and coaching standpoint.

For example, the Overhead Squat pattern with a dowel or PVC held above the head provides a ton of "stuff" for a coach to see (i.e., ankle joint mobility, knee flexion capability, hip joint mobility, thoracic spine (relative) extension, shoulder flexion and more). Another example that comes to mind is the Turkish Get-Up (TGU), which provides a lot to see in just one movement.

I like seeing my athletes perform movements like these as both a part of the assessment/intake process, and also from time-to-time to ensure that they're movement quality is improving. Gleaning information from catch-all movements allows for you to stay sharp as a coach and keep the health of the athlete at the forefront.

The Half Kneeling Crawl definitely falls into the category of a catch-all movement for me, since we can see a lot of things going on. Here's a short list of what you can see as a coach:

Ankle joint mobility
Knee flexion capability (deep)
Hip extension
Forward trunk lean
Body control (balance and coordination)

That's plenty of value and more than enough to convince me to start using this movement as a screening tool in my coaching toolbox.

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