In the first video in this series we looked at one of the exercises that’s really important for building a stronger back and that was the bridge exercise.
In this week’s exercise (video) we are going to look at what’s called the “bird dog”.
I’m Dr. Ange Wellman and I work at the Wellman Clinic here in Peterborough, Ontario and my goal is to help you and your family Live Well for Life.
Having a strong, stable back is really important for optimal health and well-being. These 3 exercises that I am showing you over this video series are designed just for that…to develop a stronger, more stable spine.
With the Bird Dog exercise the first thing we want to do…not unlike what we were doing with the glute exercise…is we want to find our “neutral” spine.
One way we can do this is we can go into our pelvic tilt – extreme on one end and then the extreme on the other side and then find your middle. You want your back to be nice and straight.
We also want to engage the core in this exercise as well. You are going to draw your lower abdominals in so you have a slight core contraction. You don’t want to be gripping but you want to be able to breathe and talk while you are doing this.
Once you have found your neutral spine and core contraction then you are going to take one arm and one leg…so opposite arm and leg…I’m going to do right arm to start with left leg…and you are just going to extend them as far as you can…while holding that contraction…and while keeping your pelvis nice and straight.
One of the common things people do is they “dip” their pelvis. I’ll show you an example of that.
If you notice that you are doing that that could indicate a weakness in your core and in your low back.
If you are struggling with that…give me a call…I can help you out. (705-991-1555).
You want to have your pelvis nice and straight and stable and you want to have your neck in a relaxed position as you alternate sides in this nice cross crawl pattern.
Really good for your brain…really good for developing strength in your spine.
How Many Should I Do?
You can do 10 of those on each side as one set and you can work up to doing 2 or 3 sets in a day and you can do these every other day as well.
Hope you found this helpful.
If you did please feel free to share this with your family and friends or comment below…and until next time…
Live Well for Life!