if you're looking for a great exercise to activate hip and core muscles and
train your single leg balance then look no further than the reverse lunge to
dead bug hey what's up Coach E here and before we get into the reverse lunge
standing dead bug I just wanted to let you know that we'll be posting videos
with unique exercises like this more often
so a lot of our previous content here on YouTube has been videos on specific
topics like meniscus tears rotator cuff pain or anything like that but these
techniques are going to be good for everyone to do so whether you're into
getting more mobility or improving your movement longevity then you're gonna
want to check out these techniques and learn them and incorporate them into
your weekly routine so if this sounds good to you to make sure that you get
all of these videos that we're gonna be releasing once a week or once every
other week then make sure you're subscribed and you hit the little bell
for notification so your YouTube lets you know when we've uploaded these
techniques with that said and done let's get into the reverse lunge to standing
dead bug okay so we are going to go through the reverse lunge to standing
dead bug and this technique I personally use it in my warmups
because it's a great way to activate a lot of different muscle groups and to
work a fundamental movement pattern so it's a good efficient bang for your buck
technique to use and warm up so your warmup isn't like half an hour long okay
I'm gonna talk about how many reps and all that stuff to do for both warm-ups
and if you want to use it and for more of a training effect if you want to
improve these specific elements it's great technique because we're working so
many different muscles so reverse lunge portion your stepping back on the way up
you're getting glutes max especially fired up and on the way down you're
mobilizing hip flexors and quads there yep staying a dead bug or up here we're
working balance so waking up those ankles feet and all the
lateral musculature medius adductors all that stuff around the hip that helps you
to keep balanced and then on this side we're firing up hip flexors specifically
iliopsoas and then the abdominals because we're pressing into it rectus
abdominus internal and external obliques so it's ey I love it all those muscles
are getting activated and fired up for your warm-ups so let's start off
technique wise reverse lunge really basic fundamental movement pattern stay
tall step back bringing the knee just brush the ground lightly and then come
back up so you can start warming up just with reverse lunges before you get in to
combining the two techniques from sideview when you step back make sure
that you're not breaking at the hips yeah if you don't break at the hips to
stay nice and tall that's when you're gonna mobilize through the hip flexors
and the quads to break the hips here you're never getting full length of
those hip flexors or quads so staying tall front foot stays flat and try to
get that knee in front of the toe with the front foot flat the knee behind the
toe like that that's a myth okay the knee is supposed to go in front of the
toe as long as you have requisite range of motion that's cool and as long as you
can keep the foot flat so that's the reverse lunge standing dead bug if
you've ever done the dead bug on the ground and great core activation
exercise we're just gonna stand up and do it flex one hip opposite hand goes
into the knee and then you press and you hold we're gonna hold for five seconds
when you're holding you want to breathe stay tall and this knee stays extended
not hyper locked out but soft but extended yeah other side extended here
flexed here I'm gonna talk about some of the common mistakes afterwards okay so
reverse lunge to standing that book combine the two
stepping back coming up right into the standing that bug hold for five seconds
keep breathing stay tall and it's up to you whatever you like you can either go
right back into it on the same side or
you just come down and then switch okay so let me give you a couple of little
tweaks that I like one if you want to get more obliques fire it up
instead of putting a hand on top of the knee put hand beside the knee and you
press against each other that way so I'm driving my knee into my hand and driving
my hand into my knee so you can see the lines here in my abdominals it's more of
a diagonal lines that's the obliques firing compared to
this okay that's more rectus abdominus six-pack muscle obliques okay so you
could do a set where you're stepping back rectus abdominus hold for five and
then step back on same side more oblique focused okay and I like that because
then you're just getting a little bit more musculature activated in terms of
tweaks and common mistakes one common mistake I see is people step back and
then they'll bring the knee up as high as I can in they'll hike their hip up
okay so you see some lateral flexion and through the lumbar spine try not to do
that we're want to work pure hip flexion so
when you step back and you come up it's just hip flexion and this think of your
sit bones staying low and driving it towards the floor and you have to be it
from there that way you're working nice neutral
spine and pelvis with the hip flexion you're working that
stability in the opposition okay practice makes perfect so work good
technique now one problem that a lot of people run into and I see this commonly
is their TFL (tensor fasciae latae muscle) fires up and they feel it working too
much whereas the iliopsoas is what should be working for hip flexion and
the reason why is because a lot of people there iliopsoas doesn't work
properly commonly due to too much sitting just
shuts off so TFL comes in to compensate but we don't want that now if you find this is
a consistent problem for you not just with this exercise
but with others as well check out this video over here where I'm going to talk
about why that is in depth and give you some techniques to stop that from
happening but one little tweak you can make to this exercise is instead of
coming straight up into pure hip flexion do a little bit of external rotation in
the hip and just horizontally extend so bring your knee out just a little bit
and then press in from there and that just targets the iliopsoas a little bit
better and it's specially helpful for those of you who have overactive TFLs
yeah so the tweak is instead of coming straight up slight external rotation and
horizontal extension and press from there okay huge doucher tip for anybody
with overactive TFLs okay so in terms of reps sets all that stuff if you're using
it in your warmup one to two sets anywhere from four to six reps per side
where you're holding that dead bug portion for five seconds it's perfect
and if you want to use it for more of a training effect then working two to
three times a week anywhere from two to four sets and your rep range will work
anywhere from six to ten reps per side and that's efficient you do that for
four to six weeks that's gonna progress you up where all these muscles will have
improved their strength their conditioning their control and
coordination over that time period alright so hope you enjoyed this
technique added into your warm-ups at least maybe trained it for a good period
four to six weeks just to incorporate this movement pattern and these
activation patterns into your movement game and you're gonna be a lot better
off in terms of mobility and movement longevity alright and if you want a
couple more exercises we've got a core exercise over here that you could check
out we've got a balanced exercise over here that you could check out and
improve your game with a little more training with me and precision movement
finally if you have yet make sure you subscribe click the button hit the bell
and you'll get all the techniques that we're going to be releasing if you
improve your mobility and movement longevity okay so thanks for watching
see you next time peace