Weekly Health Talk with Dr. P: Bird-Dog Exercise

Alright Dr. P here again. There's this back exercise that has been around a long time. This one's called bird dog. This is a really good one to learn, it can be challenging. If you do the basics that's fine. It's balance, core strength, glute strength all in one in a safe position. Knees underneath thighs, boom. It’s always a neutral spine, we start there. Now if you want to know if your core is activated, let's make pushing, oh okay. Initially I pushed her, her core wasn't even engaged, now it is. Alright so we take this left foot, drive it back towards the wall, up right. Hold glute, right arm straight out and hold. Okay that's a great position, she does that well, bring it back do the other side just to make sure you can. Alright, back down. Now is her core still engaged? If you want to test and see if you're doing it right, get something with a wide base. Water...whatever and just so that should not drop off when you do the bird-dog. Left arm forward, right heel back. Okay, that wanted to tilt and she did good she held it. Bring it back, hold. Right arm, left leg. Push, push this push this to the wall. Good, she's holding it. It's wanting to tilt but she doing good. Come on up and come back down. So that makes you control it through the whole motion, all right. Otherwise, it flops and flops and you get real floppy. So, if you can set something on your back it'll tell you if you're doing it right. So that's bird dog, try it.