New Tricks for the Old Bird Dog

Getting on all fours and extending one lower extremity and flexing the contralateral shoulder, whatever you prefer to call it (I like “CL Lift”), is one of the most ubiquitous exercises around.  Lumbar stabilization, warm-up, crawling prep, progression towards more vertical postures, closed chain weight-bearing through the arms, remedial balance training--all are appropriate reasons to consider programming this exercise.  Forget for a moment the fact that few people perform the exercise flawlessly, with the most typical problem being excessive lumbar rotation or extension in lieu of appropriate extremity engagement.   Once a client can do the exercise properly, advancing it typically involves external resistance such as elastic tubing or ankle weights.  This is one way to progress, but there are some other ways as well which provide a little more variability to the movement demands and may be an even better choice.

The basic Bird Dog. You probably don't need this video, certainly not all 22 seconds of it. 

Adding some frontal plane movement with the extremities.

Adding Acetabular-Femoral and Glenohumeral Rotation in the frontal plane.  I had another video advancing this further to include hip adduction/full shoulder abduction, combining it with rotation in the opposite direction, but Lorde's record label discovered 'Royals' was playing in the background and restricted it.  Boo!  Use your imagination.

I love this as a progression from the knees.  It can be performed 'unilaterally' as above, or, if you didn't break your toe the day before filming, in the typical alternating fashion.  Essentially a stationary bear crawl, it decreases the points of stability and increases the force production demands on the anterior kinetic chain. Furthermore, it can be progressed for the most advanced clients through the addition of extremity abd/adduction as well as rotation as shown above. One prerequisite for proper performance is to keep the spine in the horizontal plane throughout the movement.