60 Seconds To Less Pain & Being More Awesome

I know almost nothing about cars (I didn’t even have a driving license until I was 40), but I’m not going to let that hold me back from making the coming clumsy analogy.

You could soup your car up.

Add bigger wheels, drop in a new engine or do something with your gear differential ratios.

(I have no idea what that last one is).

These things will make your car faster.

Not only that, if you happen to know a bit about cars and so do your friends then no doubt it makes for some cracking banter talking about this stuff.

It makes things go fast and it’s exciting.

On the other hand there’s also mundane stuff to do.

Check water and oil level, tire pressure.

This stuff isn’t sexy, and I guess even the biggest petrol head would dodge a pub chat about these.

But without them being in place, the sexy stuff has no chance of working.

Thanks for sticking with me because here comes the important bits.

The same goes for your body and your training.

We’ve got the big sexy deadlifts, squats, chin ups etc.

They add muscle, the ability to create more power and turn you into a sexy beast who looks amazing on Instagram.

But there are other exercises and movements you need to focus on to get the most from these big lifts.

Exercise that aren’t sexy and if you’re in your 20’s, ones that you will no doubt skip.

But if you’re over 40 these exercises become non negotiable.

As long as you want to move well, stay injury free and reap the benefits of your other exercises.

The Birddog safely falls into this category.

It’s an amazing tool for most people experiencing low back pain, it can help improve performance in any sport that involves running and I’ve seen its benefits time and again in myself and my clients.

In fact, Dr Stuart McGill (he’s like a cross between Yoda and Mr Myagi when it comes to treating low back pain), includes it as one of his “big three” exercises for healthy backs.

Right now you’re probably in one of two camps.

Camp 1 (a highly unoriginal name but we’ll stick with it). - You’re wondering what the hell this exercise is.

Well wonder no more as here’s a very explanatory video.

Camp 2 - you’ve tried this exercise before and found it to be dead easy, of no real benefit and you’re strongly considering not reading any further.

Camp 2 people, I was once one of you until I learned some subtle teaching cues.

If you duck out now you’ll miss them and miss the glorious voyage to camp 3 where I currently reside.

To make sense of it all let’s quickly cover the purpose of the move.

The big aim is to teach your body to move its limbs whilst being able to stabilise the spine.

What can often happen as we age, or when we try to move faster, is that the hips don’t engage the big powerful glute muscles to extend the leg.

Instead the lower back arches to attempt to move the leg backwards.

In turn this can cause stress to the vertebrae which can lead to an ouchie (big time).

It will also reduce your performance as those big glute muscles aren’t putting out the power they’re capable of.

The Big Mistakes To Watch Out For

1. Keep the low back stable as the limbs extend. It shouldn’t fall into an arch like this.

2. Try to avoid your weight shifting as you lift the limbs. Initially your weight is equally balanced over the four limbs.

As you lift the limbs the loss in stability is ideally taken up by your abs/core. What you will find is that your weight tries to shift to one side, most likely over the supporting leg.

You may not be able to prevent this entirely, but do be aware of it and minimise it as much as possible.

3. Don’t simply fling your limbs off the floor to get the movement over and done with. Focus on the quality of the movement. 

Focus on your glutes lifting your leg and the stability of your shoulder coming from around the shoulder blade.

Do You Do For Reps Or For Time

Personally I like to do a little of both.

I do some shorter reps, 4-5 with a short pause of 3-5 seconds as this gives me a chance to work on the weight shift.

Each time I reset I become more aware of how my weight is transferring and I feel I become a little better at avoiding that shift.

Once you feel happy with the quality of your movement, holding the rep for up to 60 secs is super beneficial.

This builds the endurance capabilities of the muscles. After all, these aren’t muscles you use for a one rep max, they’re muscles that are working all day long to help keep your spine healthy.

Obviously jumping straight into a 60 second hold isn’t usually possible, a nice way to build this up is to use a descending rep scheme.

For example, you try 3 sets per side.

On the first set you hold it for 30 seconds each.

However, we now have some fatigue crept in, on the second set we hold for 20 seconds.

So even though there is some fatigue we can maintain the quality of the movement.

On the last set we just go for 15 seconds.

As your endurance improves we can gradually increase these numbers until a full set of 60 seconds is possible.

I’ve seen clients who have been hospitalised due to a long term spinal condition, implement this protocol and be able to move mostly pain free all of the time.

Depending on how challenging you find the Birddog you may initially include it as part of your main workout.

But as your capacity grows it maybe that it simply becomes part of your warm up.

Or even something you dive into after a day at the desk to remind your body exactly how you’d like it to move.

If you’d like to know exactly how I program this into a strength program, designed to help you move better, with less niggles whilst getting strong and awesome, then check out my free Built To Last program here.

You’ll have full access to the template sheets I used to use with my clients (feel free to copy and use with your own workouts).

Every exercise has a detailed video so you know exactly what to do and what to avoid.

The program is only 3 sessions per week so it fits nicely into a busy schedule.

Plus there’s even a recipe book with great ideas for the family so you’re better able to plan and prepare your food to allow the program to really work its magic.

If that sounds good, just click here.