When the bird dog is performed correctly, it ticks many important boxes for health and mobility.
- Improved Core Strength: Check
- Better balance and coordination: Check
- Improved shoulder stability: Check
- Lower back saver: check
You are probably bored by now because the pros are many and the cons are few. The Bird Dog is a simple bodyweight exercise for your warm-up, core workout, or strength training routine. There’s nothing fancy about this, but it’s an important exercise to add to your routine when it comes to helping master other major movements.
Why is Bird Dog exercise important?
Spine specialist Dr. Stuart McGill, professor emeritus of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, offered three exercises to strengthen the core and prevent lower back pain. One of them is the bird dog. Yes, the bird dog is so important, and if it’s good enough for Dr. Stu, it’s good enough for you.
But do you know what the problem is when some lifters perform the bird dog? In addition to not doing so, they make common, fixable mistakes, and all of those bird dog benefits go away. Here we will see how to do the bird dog correctly and the fixes for errors that occur with it.
How to do the bird dog exercise
- Get on the floor in a six-point position: hands, knees, and toes on the floor. Make sure your knees are under your hips and your hands are under your shoulders.
- Next, find a neutral spine and maintain it throughout the exercise.
- Extend your right arm in front of you and your left leg behind you while keeping a neutral spine.
- Slowly return to the starting position and perform all reps on either side. It’s a matter of personal preference.
3 Common Bird Dog Mistakes and How to Fix Them
The bird dog is a simple exercise, and due to its simplicity, some go through the motions mindlessly without paying attention to the finer details of this exercise. To get the most out of the bird dog, make sure you don’t make these three common mistakes.
1. Your hips and lower back are turning too much.
Because the Bird Dog is a one-sided exercise, if there are any strength imbalances or tight muscles, it usually results in motion compensation. A common with the bird dog turns to one side due to core strength deficits or tight hips. The arm on the ground will bend and people will almost lose their balance when performing a hip extension on the opposite side.
Solution: First, realize that you are making this mistake. A weight plate on your lower back as the plate will fall off as you spin. Working on your hip mobility while staying with an achievable range of motion works best. Returning to the trusty front plank and its variations to build core strength will also help.
2. Too much lower back extension and not enough hip extension
The bird dog is a hip extension and lower back strengthening exercise because the lower back muscles contract isometrically to keep the spine neutral. The lower back allows the hips to do their job. The problem is that some have to tell the difference between lower back extension and hip extension.
Extension of the lower back in the birddog occurs for several reasons. The first is a lack of awareness; two, some for the purpose of getting extra ROM will stretch the lower back and hips. Finally, lack of hip mobility leads to extension of the lower back, not the hips. If you keep extending your lower back, he won’t be happy.
Solution: Similar to the previous error, you should know this is happening. Placing a weight plate on your lower back will provide feedback, as you should feel it move if lower back extension occurs. Ensuring your hip mobility is on par and reducing your ROM to avoid lower back extension will help.
3. Not providing enough tension throughout the movement
During your barbell squat or deadlift setup, you need muscle tension to ensure a neutral spine and proper lifting technique. The bird dog does not require as much tension as these exercises but does. A lack of tension is usually manifested by making the mistakes mentioned above, losing balance or mindlessly lifting the back leg too high.
Solution: You can make some adjustments here to ensure proper tension. Tying a band to your opposite hand or foot will force you to create tension throughout your body. Because if you don’t, the band will come apart, and you don’t want that. If you’re not ready for the group, pressing your hand and knee into the floor will also help. Because if you lose voltage, you’ll get instant feedback.