Bird Dog Exercise - Kinetic U Exercise Series
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Kinetic U Exercise Series - How To The Bird Dog Exercise
"Hey team, welcome back to Kinetic U. Today we're going to go over the bird dog exercise, which is great for core stability. Okay? So it's all about maintaining a neutral spine, which is one of the most important things for our core, especially if we have anything going on in our back.
So we're going to setup here on the mat. You're going to be on your hands and knees with your hands right underneath your shoulders and your knees right underneath your hips. You don't want to be weighted back. You don't want to be forward. You're going to find a neutral spine in this position, which means there's going to be a little curvature in that back. You don't want to be too rounded. You don't want to be too extended right there.
From here, we're going to start with just using our arms only. So maybe using an exhale, use a breath, and reach one arm overhead, not moving anything through that torso. Maybe take an inhale to hold, exhale to return. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Return. Keep going, side to side, no shifting or again any movement through that torso as you go through this exercise. That breath is just a suggestion. If you reverse it, so inhale, exhale to hold, inhale to return, that's totally okay too.
The next variation is going to include the legs as well, so as you again reach that right arm overhead, you're going to extend that left leg away. So this, you don't want to be arching. You don't want to be rounding. You want to, again, keep that spine in neutral, inhale hold, exhale return. Inhale. Exhale. Reach away, inhale hold, exhale, return.
You'll keep going there, taking an inhale as you hold and exhale as you reach away, not dropping the hip, not shifting from side to side and just continue to move from one side to the other.
In the last variation, you're going to stay up on one side, and then you're just going to bring the knee and the elbow towards each other in between reps. So this is going to prevent any sort of rounding or extending. You want to keep that spine in neutral and reach away just like that. Same thing over to the other side. Do about 10 or so on each side, kind of play with that, have fun and be kinetic."
Instructor: Geneva Bender of Kinetic Sports Rehab
www.kineticsportsrehab.com