An Exercise Recommended By All 👨🏻‍⚕️

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💡 Upgrading Your Bird-Dogs

The bird-dog is a popular core exercise recommended by physiotherapists, yoga instructors, and strength coaches alike. In fact, Dr Stuart McGill, a spine injury specialist, is such a fan of it that it makes up one-third of his top three core stability exercises that he recommends to both athletes and everyday folk like you & me.

Yet in the history of the gym, I highly doubt anyone has gotten super excited about doing them or bragged to their friends about setting a new PR in bird-dog holds. So, often when they are in people's programmes, they’re treated as just another box to tick—do a few reps and move on. Well, like anything, it’s not what you do but how you do it that makes the difference.

If you just blindly lift an arm and a leg in the air and switch a few times, you will get little return for your efforts. Let’s fix that…

Kicking up - When you kick the leg too high, you often end up extending the back and losing that rock-solid spine position you're supposed to be holding.

Instead, focus on driving your leg back; you still get a bonus glute engagement but without overworking your lower back.

Shoulders relaxed - The arms should do more than just lift off the floor. Stabilising your core is more than just flexing your abs; your lats and shoulders also play their role in stabilising the spine. Create a fist with the lifting arm, squeezing it to feel your arm and back engage. With your supporting arm think of pushing your arm through the floor.

Race Car Reps - Even with good form, if you perform the reps too quickly, you're missing half the point. We want to hold that top position for 8-10 seconds; you should feel your core and glutes fire up. A good starting point is 5 reps on each side with an 8-10 second hold.

So there you have it. Kick your leg back, not up. Hold each rep for 8-10 seconds, and create upper body tension to get the most from this gym staple.

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P.S. If you enjoyed this week's Thursday Three, please share it with a friend.

Thanks,

Jamie