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Modified Mountain Climbers for Core Reactive Stabilization

Reactive core stabilization exercises, such as Modified Mountain Climbers, are an effective way to build core strength and improve performance. Learn how to perform this exercise correctly with this quick instructional video.

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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!

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