00:00 - 00:04This is Brent, coming at you with more core exercise. In this video we're going
00:04 - 00:07to progress the plank. I'm going to take a very standard exercise, the mountain
00:07 - 00:12climber, show you how to reinforce triple flexion, and triple extension
00:12 - 00:17mechanics, making a mountain climber, a reactive stabilization exercise. This
00:17 - 00:22increases the transference for all of my running athletes. All of my running
00:22 - 00:25athletes out there, you guys know how important that drive, and how important
00:25 - 00:30that turnaround is. I'm going to show you how to keep this stable, so that you
00:30 - 00:33don't lose any of that lower body power. I'm going to have my friend, Leann, come
00:33 - 00:37out and help me demonstrate this exercise. Now, let's talk about set up
00:37 - 00:41really quickly. You are going to have to get your upper body elevated a little
00:41 - 00:45bit. You can see in here, we're just using a standard bench, usually that works. If
00:45 - 00:49you have a taller athlete, you might even have to get a little further elevated. A
00:49 - 00:52prerequisite exercise, something you're going to have to be thinking
00:52 - 00:57about as you progress in your programming, to do this exercise you have
00:57 - 01:03to be able to do a single leg plank, and do a single leg plank really well. I want
01:03 - 01:07to be able to get Leann into a single leg plank here, with this knee up, and that
01:07 - 01:12she's driving through this leg, glutes tight, quads tight. She's got her toes up,
01:12 - 01:18but the ball of her foot down, driving through plantar flexion. So all of this
01:18 - 01:22is really steady. This is the triple extension mechanic that we are
01:22 - 01:27going to keep reinforcing through this exercise. Then, of course, here, in her
01:27 - 01:31other leg - you can actually switch legs for me Leann - good, in this leg, we want
01:31 - 01:36triple flexion. So I want to see hip flexion, knee flexion, and then I actually
01:36 - 01:41want ankle dorsiflexion and inversion. Okay, so turn in just
01:41 - 01:45a little bit, like this. Now, the tricky part of this is not what Leann
01:45 - 01:50just did, the tricky part is, I'm going to try to get her to switch, quickly,
01:50 - 01:58without moving any of this. She's got to keep her torso and pelvis totally still,
01:58 - 02:01like she's got a martini glass on her back, we all know how stupid martini
02:01 - 02:04glasses are, they spill everything everywhere. From a stabilization
02:04 - 02:08standpoint, if you use that little analogy to think about how easy it is to
02:08 - 02:12spill, I don't want any movement here. She's going to go ahead and switch
02:12 - 02:16really quickly for me. Switch. Boom! You can see Leann went straight into that
02:16 - 02:21triple extension. She's got the ball of her foot centered in the floor, quad
02:21 - 02:26tight, glute tight, and she's in triple flexion on the other leg. Once she feels
02:26 - 02:31like she's stable, she can go ahead and switch again. Switch. Good. We saw just a
02:31 - 02:35little bit of bounce, it took her a second to stop bouncing and stabilizing,
02:35 - 02:41and she can switch again. Now, I know most people do mountain climbers as fast as
02:41 - 02:45they can back and forth, but if we're doing it for the purposes I mentioned
02:45 - 02:49before, we're trying to reinforce triple extension, trying to reinforce triple
02:49 - 02:53flexion, and trying to improve stabilization through the lumbo-pelvic hip complex, we
02:53 - 02:58want to make sure we're stable between each shift. So, go ahead and switch again,
02:58 - 03:04and you can see my hand's coming up just a little bit. Switch again. Good. Switch.
03:04 - 03:11Switch. You can speed this up, as long as they can maintain stability.
03:11 - 03:14There are progressions to this exercise, just like there'd be progressions to any
03:14 - 03:20of our exercises. Since we are in our core realm, within the core portion
03:20 - 03:24of our program, I'm probably still going to increase in stability, even though
03:24 - 03:31this is a reactive exercise. One thing we can do, is we can take something that's a
03:31 - 03:36little unstable, this is actually just a Dynamax soft medicine ball, or
03:36 - 03:39you could also use a BOSU ball on top of this, providing that you
03:39 - 03:43can make sure it's safe, and won't slide out. I'm going to have her get into
03:43 - 03:52that same position. Good. Glutes tight, quads tight, calves tight, balls of feet
03:52 - 03:56on the floor. She's going to go into that flexion position, and now she's going to
03:56 - 03:59have to work really, really hard to maintain stability here. It's probably
03:59 - 04:02going to slow us down a little bit in our switches, so go ahead and switch.
04:02 - 04:06She's got to feel totally stable again, and she's rocking towards me a little
04:06 - 04:12bit. She's going to center, make sure her glutes are tight, now switch. Good. Takes her a couple
04:12 - 04:16seconds to stabilize, but when she's stable, she can switch again. You
04:16 - 04:21can see here how she can't switch quite as fast, that'll be part of her
04:21 - 04:25development, her progression over the next couple of weeks. Once she is able to
04:25 - 04:29switch at a, we'll call it, a rhythmic tempo,
04:29 - 04:34then I would look to increase stability even further. This is where a really
04:34 - 04:47huge challenge comes in. We can do stability ball, reactive stabilization
04:47 - 04:53for the core, or mountain climbers on a stability ball, as they might be called. So
04:53 - 04:58once again, she's going to hold this position, kinetic chain checkpoints and
04:58 - 05:04alignment: glutes tight, quads tight, calves pushing. Once she's stable, she
05:04 - 05:12gets to switch. See, she was a little slower on that switch, she had a little
05:12 - 05:18harder time getting centered again. Good. Switch. Good. Make sure your glutes are tight,
05:18 - 05:25quads are tight, and calves. Alright, switch. And once again, we try to work this back up
05:25 - 05:33to a rhythmic tempo. So there you go. We've got a very very challenging exercise
05:33 - 05:36that you can add to your plank progression. This is a reactive
05:36 - 05:40stabilization training exercise, so you would definitely be looking to put this somewhere
05:40 - 05:44in your power training phase. We talked about increasing
05:44 - 05:49in stability from bench, to bench with something unstable under the arms, to the
05:49 - 05:54stability ball, and of course you have to stabilize between each step, which means
05:54 - 06:00it's going to take work before planting the foot equals stability, rather than
06:00 - 06:05planting in, stable hold, and then switch. Once you guys get up to a rhythmic tempo,
06:05 - 06:10then you can switch to a more unstable activity. You're probably
06:10 - 06:15looking for 12 to 20 reps of this exercise, of course you could do it by
06:15 - 06:18the clock as well. I hope you enjoy this exercise and I hope you enjoy the
06:18 - 06:21progressions. Have fun with it!