This is Brent of the Brookbush Institute and in this video we're going to go over the
quadruped, which we typically use for transverse abdominis or intrinsic
stabilization subsystem activation. This is definitely one of those fundamental
core exercises I think everybody should know. I'm going to have my friend Adam come
out he's going to help me demonstrate this exercise. Now the first thing we're going to
do is get Adam into quadrupeds position, which ideally would actually be a six
point position; and that is hands underneath the shoulders, knees directly
underneath the hips, and then notice Adams dorsiflexed here
so that he can engage his fee,t push back a little bit which is going to help engage
his glutes a little bit. Alright now the whole point behind the quadruped
position is to put yourself in a position where your abdominal contents weigh down
against your anterior abdominal wall, so now there's actually some resistance to
the drawing in maneuver. Alright and that drawing in maneuver is just bringing
your belly button in, not sucking in in the sense that you're like or as
hard as you possibly can, but just gently pulling your lower abdomen away from
your waistband is probably a good cue. Now once we get Adam doing that, the next
thing we want probably want to do is make sure he's still breathing because
people have a tendency to draw in or suck in and then they stop breathing,
that's going to make this exercise very difficult if we're going to do this for 30,
60, 90 seconds, all of a sudden Adam turns blue exercise is over. Alright
so he's drawn in he's looking good, now what we're going to do is challenge his
ability to use those muscles to aid in stabilization of his torso, as we add
certain stability or balance challenges to this. Now to ensure he's doing this
perfectly I'm going to use this soft ball on his back. This becomes a kinaesthetic
cue where I'm going to go okay Adam for all the the stuff that we do
you can't lose this ball, this ball has to stay right here, and if you can I
don't even want it to move, right I really want you to try to feel
this, make sure you stay drawn in and hold that ball right there. Now this is
tough for some people just doing this right here, especially if we're talking
about somebody with lumbar spine pain, this can be a pretty serious challenge
to hold on to for 30-seconds. Now if we can get somebody past this, the first
challenge I'll give them is just go okay you're going to be the tabletop but we're
going to start removing legs, well in this case your arms. I'm going to have you
just slowly march, just like this, and all I'm having him do is this, real
nice and slow working on moving this ball as little as possible, maintaining
the drawing and maneuver and breathing. Of course he should feel his feet
engaged, he's got his glutes engaged because he's pushing back through the
floor, and you see Adams got this down pretty
good, but I can tell you guys Adams not only a friend he has been a patient of
mine, he's had periods of low back pain and no matter how good he gets at
quadrupeds and some of the other progressions that will show in later
videos, sometimes he has to come back to this because pain creates some reflexive
changes in our motor unit recruitment that'll make this hard for him again.
How's that feeling? Pretty tough, yeah once you add this ball the whole game
changes. Now we're going to increase the lever length here on his arms as our
next progression. What I'm going to have him do is go into scaption, which is just a
thumb up arm elevation, just out a little bit, so not quite straight but out this
way a little bit. It tends to feel a little bit better on the shoulder to go
thumb up, and you can see now he's essentially taking away the same amount
of stability as he was with marching but adding this gives a bigger lever for him
to have to stabilize against. Nice job, nice job and you can see he's
maintaining the ball, and of course drawing in manoeuvres is still right
there. Adams a pro. So next what do we do? Well the next progression, there is a
little bit of controversy over the next progression. If you're asking me
the next progression is opposite arm opposite leg race. There are some people
who think just legs is the next progression. Now here's the theory behind
these two things so you can make a professional decision on which way you
think you should go. I think opposite arm opposite leg race
is easier than just legs, because if he lifts this leg this arm essentially
counterbalances this leg. When he doesn't have this arm he doesn't have a
counterbalance. Now the alternative argument is if he does just his leg he
still has three points of support which he doesn't have when he does opposite
arm up as a leg. I usually don't find that having the
three supports helps all that much, but we could go in either direction, and you
might have to experiment a little bit. I find more often than not I go from
marching to scaption, to opposite arm leg raise, so let's go through that for
sure now Adam. So he's going to go this arm, right arm is going to go out into
scaption while he goes straight back with his left leg. Now notice when he goes
back with his leg I'm actually going to have him point his toe, plantarflex good,
and notice his toe is just a couple of inches from the floor. If Adam tries to
go up with his leg instead you can see he immediately goes into lumbar
extension which is what we don't want, remember the whole idea behind these
exercise is maintaining the drawing in maneuver and keeping all of this
incredibly steady, right it's a stabilization exercise, no motion. So I
always say reach back, not up. Oh, that's one point, one point gone. This is
like golf though, the higher your score the worse you are. So
here we go, opposite arm opposite leg. Adam did pretty good on that one, and then he
can come back and he can try to switch which is really tough,
good and then if you're asking me I actually think now let's try just legs.
Alright we're going to try just switching legs, make sure you come all the way back
to dorsiflexion on your other leg. Oops, there you go sorry I give him too
many cues there. Alright so point your toe out on the way out, there we go
perfect, and then back, there we go drive it into this foot a little bit so that
you get stable and then go with the other leg, there you go.
Dorsiflex, get that toe in, good drive into this foot, now back with this leg,
good. Do you find this harder or the opposite arm opposite leg raise harder?
This one. Yeah so he finds legs harder, and I think with a healthy population
for the most part you're going to find that just legs is actually really really
challenging. Now if you want to take away a point of contact we can, we can make
yet another progression and go okay Adam what we're going to do is we're going to go
just this leg, right just your left leg, and I'm going to remove this support
right. So we're going to have you put your right hand on
your left shoulder, I can't get my lefts and rights straight, I can get all
the muscles straight but not my left's and rights that's awesome.
Good and then we're going to go just this leg and that's actually really
challenging, this is not an easy progression to do at all. How does that
feel? Super tough, takes a lot to draw in, he's even getting some good glute
activation. It takes some thought to learn to drive through this leg, so
we get some glute stabilization here, and notice that ball is staying. That's
tough, this is the key, Adams making this look way easier than it actually is.
Alright so there you have it, this is the quadruped, you can put your arm
down for a second. This is the quadruped for transverse abdominis activation,
which in actuality if you go back to my article on the intrinsic
stabilization subsystem, is transverse abdominis activation is always
activation of all these other muscles too that stabilize the lumbar spine, but are
a little bit deeper. So this is intrinsic stabilization
subsystem activation, more accurately. I think this is one of those foundational
core exercises, this is how we start it, is on the floor in quadruped position with
first just arms marching, then arms with scaption, then opposite arm leg raise,
then just legs, then legs with one support removed and then from here we
could go into things like the hardest quadruped progression ever which we
have a video on that. Dynamic quadrupeds or Adam's going to be showing you guys his
resisted quadruped crawl in a future video. If you have any questions
please leave them in the comments box below, thank you Adam.