thoracic kyphosis

What’s the Best Exercise to Strengthen Your Back? Part 1: Bird Dog

What’s the Best Exercise to Strengthen Your Back? Part 1: Bird Dog

Esther Gokhale
Date

Have you been taught cobra pose or locust pose to strengthen your back? It is a common practice to try to strengthen the back with back bends, focusing on the long back extensors on either side of the spine. This approach is used by the McKenzie Method, many yoga teachers, and physical therapists.

In the Gokhale Method® we prefer to strengthen the back by working with the muscles which collectively stabilize the trunk. Our focus is on maintaining a healthy J-spine baseline rather than backbending.

Diagram of woman headloading showing healthy muscles maintaining a J-spine.
Healthy muscle activation maintains a J-spine, protecting the spine, discs, and nerves from damage due to instability and compression.

Recently in Gokhale® Fitness, our teacher Harrison has been taking our members through an exercise I rate highly, bird dog, or, as it is sometimes called, table top. Contrary to its appearance, it is not primarily a leg and arm exercise—instead, the weight and movement of the limbs provide a challenge to the stability of the torso, strengthening the muscles of the inner corset, which include the transversus abdominus, the internal and external obliques, and the intrinsic muscles of the spine. This then protects the spine against torque and distortion. 

Gokhale Fitness teacher Harrison in the basic bird dog pose.
Gokhale Fitness teacher Harrison in the basic bird dog pose. Bird dog involves lifting the opposite arm and leg—but its purpose is to work the deep trunk stabilizers, or inner corset.

Most people do this exercise any old way—perhaps with a tucked pelvis, a hung head, or flinging their arms and legs up and swaying their backs. It wants to be done in such a way that it maintains the J-spine and doesn’t encourage distortions of the spine such as excessive lumbar lordosis or thoracic kyphosis, and doesn’t pull your nerves and discs around willy-nilly. 

Caution: If your back pain is persistent or severe, we recommend you consult your medical team prior to doing this exercise.

Setting up

Especially if you are new to this exercise, or to the Gokhale Method, take your time to set up well. Without the correct set up, you can lose the exercise’s value from the get-go. You want the exercise to be safe, effective, and to pattern healthy everyday movement mechanics. 

  • Kidney bean shape your hands (use your fists if you prefer)
  • Externally rotate your legs a little
  • Pivot your pelvis forward (antevert) by relaxing your lower belly
  • Engage your rib anchor to eliminate any sway
  • Drop your spine between your shoulder blades
  • Lengthen the back of your neck. Your face will be parallel with the floor, your chin down 

Photo of Harrison in a good starting position for bird dog.

Check you are starting from a good baseline position.

Doing Bird Dog

Engage your trunk muscles to keep your pelvis and trunk level and still at all times—do not twist, round, or dip.

  • Start by lifting one arm, and the opposite leg, outwards to horizontal, in line with your torso. 
  • Return to the floor.
  • Switch sides, lifting and lowering the opposite arm and leg together.
  • Repeat on alternate sides.

This video shows the smooth, steady action that you are looking for in bird dog. Your torso remains still and horizontal while you move one leg and the opposite arm, and then change sides.

Reps, sets, and frequency

How many you do depends on your current level of fitness and strength, but for most people up to three sets of 6, 8, or 10 repetitions works well (one raise and lower of an arm and a leg is a rep). Stop short of failure—you don’t want to lose your form, but rather, protect your spine at all times. 

If you feel significant soreness in your muscles the next day, give yourself a day to recuperate before repeating bird dog. If you are working at a gentle level, you can do this exercise daily if you wish.

Common mistakes

  • Losing your form—keep checking that you haven’t tucked your pelvis, swayed your lower back, rounded your upper back, or arched your neck.
  • Doing the exercise too fast, as if it were an arm and leg aerobic exercise rather than a trunk stabilization exercise.
  • Lifting your arm and leg too high, and swaying your back.

Photo of common mistake swaying the back in bird dog.
Lifting the head and/or leg beyond horizontal will likely encourage sway in the back. Image from Pexels

Ways to progress the exercise

After you have mastered good form and smooth execution, you may want to increasingly challenge your muscles. Depending on your starting point this may take a few days, weeks, or months…don’t rush it and risk injury. There are many ways to progress steadily and vary your training:

  • If you started with just a few reps, aim to up your reps and/or sets over time. You can count numbers or breaths, or work to music.
  • Raising your hand in a fist uses more muscular engagement in the hand and forearm.
  • As you extend your leg, use your foot muscles to point your toes. Then try a set pointing your heel back.
  • Hold the extension position (lift) to work on stamina and endurance and add an isometric challenge to your muscles. Go for duration rather than lifting beyond horizontal. 
  • Bring your knee and hand together rather than down to the floor between lifts.
  • Add wrist and ankle weights.

In this video Harrison demonstrates adding further challenge in bird dog.

Take the benefits into daily life

No matter how well done, bird dog is only an exercise and can only be done so many times by a sane person. It is, however, perfect preparation for real life activities that use the arms and legs, while needing to keep the trunk steady—e.g. opening a heavy door, carrying a suitcase, lifting something off a high shelf, dancing, or bending. After a week or two of doing this exercise, you will probably notice that you feel stronger and that daily chores are more enjoyable. You may notice your running or swimming is more efficient and powerful. And that you have less back pain!

Photo of Nathan White playing ultimate frisbee.
Trunk stability enables you to undertake asymmetrical tasks which would otherwise distort and injure your spine.

Best next action steps 

If you would like guidance in moving as you are meant to, and doing bird dog, or other exercises, with healthy form and posture, book a consultation, online, or in person with one of our teachers. 

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops

These Glutes Are Made For Walking

These Glutes Are Made For Walking

Esther Gokhale
Date


Khaddi Sagnia, World Athletics Championships in 2015 - ©Diego Azubel / EPA

Humans have really large butts. Your cat or dog, by contrast, has a very tiny bottom.


Dogs and cats have tiny bottoms

Chances are you’ve never stopped to think about how unique your own derriere is. Primate species are unique in having distinctive buttock anatomy—our buttocks allow us to sit upright without resting our weight on our feet, the way our pets do. Human buttocks, which are particularly muscular and well-developed, empower us to be bipedal, and propel us forward in walking and running. Even if you’re thinking, ‘I don’t have much of a butt at all,’ there’s no comparison between your behind—which has great potential!—and an ape's.


Our primate cousins have similar, but much less-developed gluteal muscles than we do.

Older scientific sources often cite walking as the reason for our large buttocks. Gluteus maximus and medius are important in stabilizing the pelvis and trunk—they keep us from tipping over when we lean into a brisk walk, as well as during older caveman-style activities like throwing and clubbing. (Marzke)

We also know that the gluteal muscles are key for running. The Olympic track and field athletes you’ve been watching in the last few weeks have strong glutes not only for balance, but also to power their bodies across the track, over hurdles, and through the air. All that energy and propulsion comes from the powerhouse of the lower body—the buttocks.


Khaddi Sagnia, long jumper, with well-developed glutes, walking down the track.

I believe that top athletes like Khaddi Sagnia dominate their sports not just from doing reps at the gym and on the field, but also from doing ‘Downtime Training®’—that is, practicing everyday tasks with excellent, natural form. When the glutes are strongly activated in walking, every step is a rep. This is a good example of Downtime Training.  As we can clearly see in Khaddi’s example, even her breezy walk down the track prepares her glutes for running and jumping.


Here you can see a video of Swedish long-jumper Khaddi Sagnia, who provides a beautiful example of well developed, active glutes.

Does an ideal walk select for athletic excellence, or does athletic training result in an excellent stride? I believe the two support each other. Someone who already has well-developed muscles from an excellent gait is more likely to excel at sports that involve running, jumping, and lunging; conversely, vigorous use of the glute pack and posterior chain in a sport will predispose a person to have a stronger, better co-ordinated stride. I believe that athletes competing at the Olympic level experience an upward spiral of healthy movement patterns reinforcing athletic excellence, which in turn reinforces healthy movement patterns.

Some recent scientific studies, citing electromyographic (EMG) experiments, have concluded that the gluteus maximus muscle is minimally active in many activities such as walking or climbing stairs, while being highly active during running. In an interview published in Nature about research on how humans evolved to be distance runners, Daniel Lieberman of Harvard claims that running seems to be the only reason that we have prominent buttocks. He has measured the activity of gluteus maximus in volunteers during a walk and a jog and says:

"When they walk their glutes barely fire up. But when they run it goes like billy-o." (Hopkin)

I believe that Lieberman’s finding reflects degenerate modern industrial gait more than it does an evolutionary truth about our species.


Modern-day underdeveloped butt


Lack of glute development accompanied by thoracic kyphosis


Our celebrities are not exempt from the under-developed glute phenomenon, as Taylor Swift demonstrates here.

As we see clearly in the example of Khaddi Sagnia, or other athletes, or indigenous people, or young children, the glutes are in fact actively used in walking and climbing. It’s only in very recent times that we find appreciable numbers of people who barely fire their glutes while walking.


Athletes, like the baseball players above, usually have well-developed gluteal muscles.


Maya White, Esther's oldest daughter, showing the typically toned glutes shared by young children.


The San indigenous people of the Kalahari, show well-toned glutes from walking and running with primal form.

I teach my students to glidewalk, an ancestral walking form whose mainstay is the activation of the gluteal pack of muscles. Try standing before a table or desk. Turn your right foot outwards while leaning your torso and pelvis forward. Now lift your right leg out behind you (you can hold the edge of the table for support). Your entire gluteal pack will contract – the hamstrings, gluteus maximus and gluteus medius. This is the action you want to find in every step you take.

There are other muscles that are part and parcel of a healthy gait – the calf muscles help launch the rear leg forward to its destination; the muscles on the underside of the foot help grip and grab contours on the earth – and we share these actions with other animal species. But buttock action is special – it marks us as a species, and as bipedal creatures – and it behooves us to use our butts more than most of us currently do.


A woman glidewalking in Cambodia

Scientists are right in describing the marked use of the glutes in running, and it is clear their current size is tied to an evolutionary propensity for distance running. Yet it seems unlikely that our ancestors, when they first came out of the trees, hit the ground running. Bipedal walking had to be a predecessor to running while our ancestors mastered balance and being upright. I believe prominently sized butts first developed when our ancestors began to walk upright, and that we want to follow the example of the Olympic athletes in engaging our glutes, not just when we run, but also when we walk.  This form of constant training will reinforce healthy posture, as well as strength. And if you’re really lucky, maybe you too will soon be cruising around sporting Olympic hot pants like Khaddi’s. Let us know when that happens - we’ll send our videographer over so we can all enjoy the moment!

Join us in an upcoming Free Workshop (online or in person).  

Find a Foundations Course in your area to get the full training on the Gokhale Method!  

We also offer in person or online Initial Consultations with any of our qualified Gokhale Method teachers.

References

Bramble, Dennis M., and Daniel E. Lieberman. "Endurance Running and the Evolution of Homo." Nature 432.7015 (2004): 345-52. Web.

Fischer, Frederick J., and S. J. Houtz. "Evaluation of the Function of the Gluteus Maximus Muscle." American Journal of Physical Medicine 47.4 (1968): 182-91. PubMed. Web.

Hopkin, Michael. "Distance Running 'shaped Human Evolution'." Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 17 Nov. 2004. Web. 25 Aug. 2016. <http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041115/full/news041115-9.html>.

Lieberman, D. E. "The Human Gluteus Maximus and Its Role in Running."Journal of Experimental Biology 209.11 (2006): 2143-155. Web.

Marzke, Mary W., Julie M. Longhill, and Stanley A. Rasmussen. "Gluteus Maximus Muscle Function and the Origin of Hominid Bipedality." Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 77.4 (1988): 519-28. Web.

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