Core Stabilization Basics Tutorial
This video tutorial is an introduction to 3 basic core exercises to help stabilize your spine and pelvis.
- Front plank – aim for 30-60 seconds hold
2. Side plank (left and right side) – 30-60 seconds hold
3. Bird dog (aka “cross crawl”) 15 reps per side.
Repeat this cycle 2-3 times depending on how you’re progressing. You can also increase the reps and/or length of time you’re holding your planks.
This is the basics of core stabilization, we want to ensure that the front, back, and sides are all equally strong and are able to support the spine. We’ll start with the front, the easiest way to get that is making sure that the spine is in a neutral position. All the positions you see here today, you’ll see we’re not making a big curvature in the low back because we want to maintain this lumbar lordosis. This curve in our low back that protects us, we need to make sure we have this all the time. So for the exercises today you’ll always see me with that position in my back. The first exercise is a simple plank, a lot of people will do it just hanging out like this but I want you to focus on pushing your elbows and pulling your toes in like so. As soon as I’m in a contracted position, feeling a good activation through my core, we’re going to aim to hold that for 45 to 60 seconds. The second exercise is the same thing on the side: make a straight line here, and try to keep the head in a relatively neutral position. Also try to hold that for 30-45 or seconds 60 seconds if you’re looking to make it a little more advanced.
You can also do that one on your knees if the full plank is a little too difficult to begin with, do that same plank, then flip over and do it on the opposite side and hold for 30-45, or somewhere in that ballpark until fatigue. So there’s both sides and front taken care of, now we need to make sure that we get our posterior chain. The best way to get that’s with an exercise called bird dog ,you want to make sure you’re on all fours with your hands right under your shoulders and knees right under your hips.You’re gonna kick your leg back try to get to a straight angle while simultaneously bring the arm forward, then come back, touch together and straighten out again. Now one thing you can do is to grab a water bottle or something around the house and balance it on your back, the tricky part is to make sure it stays on there nice and stable. Move nice and slow, a lot of people will do this exercise without realizing they add in rotation which we don’t want to do. Do 15 with right arm/ left leg, then do 15 with left arm and right leg. This will get difficult near the end of all those exercises. You can repeat two or three times depending on the amount of difficulty you’d like and those are the core stabilization basic exercises.
