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Single Leg Balance with Reach (Excursion)

Improve balance, strength, and coordination with this single leg balance with reach exercise. Increase range of motion and train functional fitness movements. Strengthen your muscles and challenge yourself with this workout!

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Transcript

00:03 - 00:07This is Brent, president of B2c Fitness and of course we are doing our single leg balance
00:07 - 00:11with a reach, or single leg balance with excursion exercise.
00:11 - 00:16This exercise is great for stabilization, as well as being a great integrated stability
00:16 - 00:21exercise for those individuals with lower leg dysfunction, as it's going to focus on
00:21 - 00:24the strength of our inverters of the ankle, as well as our gluteus medius.
00:24 - 00:29I'm going to have my friend Leann come up and help me demonstrate this exercise.
00:29 - 00:36Now the first thing I should probably note is I have Leann looking a little goofy here.
00:36 - 00:41She's pulled up her pant legs so that we can see the most important part of this exercise
00:41 - 00:46which is going to be he foot-ankle complex, and how that aligns with the rest of hip and
00:46 - 00:47knee.
00:47 - 00:52The first thing I'm going to have Leann do is move her feet so that her second toe is
00:52 - 00:54pointing forward.
00:54 - 00:55This will be optimal alignment.
00:55 - 01:00I've aligned her second and third toe up with her patella, they're underneath her hips.
01:00 - 01:04Of course I'm going to mind the rest of my kinetic chain check points making sure hips
01:04 - 01:10are nuetral, shoulders are down and back, and her head is nice and squared, ear over her shoulder
01:10 - 01:14So, we've got all our kinetic chain checkpoints in line, lets go back to our exercise cueing.
01:14 - 01:21I want to make sure Leann maintains her median longitudinal arch, so that's this part of
01:21 - 01:26your foot, the inside of your foot that shouldn't be touching the ground.
01:26 - 01:33So she might need to press her first MTP, or that's the ball behind your big toe into
01:33 - 01:39the floor and really try to focus to maintain that arch, you got that?
01:39 - 01:46From there, the next part's, well, easy for me to cue not so easy to do.
01:46 - 01:52I want Leann to stand on one leg, leaning as little as she possibly can.
01:52 - 01:57So let's go ahead and stand on one leg, of course to maintain hip stability, she's going
01:57 - 02:02to have to use one of my favorite cues, which is "hold a dollar bill between your cheeks".
02:02 - 02:07Or a hundred dollar bill between your cheeks, that'll get her glutes firing, the gluteus
02:07 - 02:10medius firing, keeping her nice and stable.
02:10 - 02:12And this is the first part of the exercise.
02:12 - 02:14Leann is this challenging?
02:14 - 02:21This is challenging, just to maintain a single leg, imagine I have a plumb line going straight
02:21 - 02:25down through the center of her nose, center of her sternum and the center of her feet,
02:25 - 02:26she's not leaning.
02:26 - 02:30So I'm really trying to maintain optimal alignment.
02:30 - 02:35Just holding this is getting her gluteus medius fired up, I guarantee she starts feeling it
02:35 - 02:38in her ankle and the bottom of her foot.
02:38 - 02:43So if we can do this for lets say, 60 seconds, that's pretty good.
02:43 - 02:44From there maybe we'll progress.
02:44 - 02:48So the progression is where the reach, or the excursion comes in.
02:48 - 02:53So the first excursion we're going to do is have Leann reach out forward, this is our
02:53 - 02:54sagittal plane reach.
02:54 - 03:00She's going to reach out as far as she can, without losing that optimal alignment, without
03:00 - 03:05losing the arch of her foot, and without losing her gluteus medius activation.
03:05 - 03:08Go ahead and bring that back.
03:08 - 03:11The next one would be a frontal plane reach.
03:11 - 03:13Alright so that's going to be out to the side.
03:13 - 03:20Of course I can help Leann out here a little bit by having her go out and slightly back,
03:20 - 03:25this will cue this gluteus medius to fire as well, rather than her TFL which is going
03:25 - 03:28to be overactive in those individuals with lower leg dysfunction.
03:28 - 03:34So she can reach out, making sure she maintains the arch of her foot, gluteus medius contracted
03:34 - 03:43on this side, she's not leaning too far this way.
03:43 - 03:49And then of course from there we can go to a transverse plane reach.
03:49 - 03:51So transverse plane reach, she's going to reach around, back almost at a 45 degree angle
03:51 - 03:57with this leg, while trying to maintain optimal alignment on the leg she's standing on.
03:57 - 04:00And that's a challenge, we've actually done a couple takes of this video, she's started
04:00 - 04:02to get a little sore.
04:02 - 04:06So, you guys can set up a clock face if you wanted to and reach towards different numbers
04:06 - 04:08on the clock.
04:08 - 04:12You guys could reach sagittal, frontal, transverse.
04:12 - 04:17You guys could progress and do all sagittal for a while, and then once they got that do
04:17 - 04:18all frontal for a while.
04:18 - 04:23I would say that most of the time, the frontal plane reach is the toughest.
04:23 - 04:29That's the one that usual has people collapse, that's usual where they try to lose that gluteus
04:29 - 04:31medius contraction and start to lean.
04:31 - 04:36You guys could set this up as either reps, slow and controlled, or you guys could set
04:36 - 04:37a stop watch.
04:37 - 04:41Now I think the biggest mistake made on this exercise is people tend to underestimate it.
04:41 - 04:47It's tough guys, if you maintain alignment, maintain your cueing, just 15 seconds you'll
04:47 - 04:49start to feel it.
04:49 - 04:5060 seconds is tough.
04:50 - 04:57And I have to give a shout out to my boy Rick, who I've seen do this to people in workshops
04:57 - 05:03for up to 2 minutes to the point where he renamed it "the single leg excursion of death".
05:03 - 05:08Because he'll do it to you for so long, so hard, gets your gluteus medius so fired up,
05:08 - 05:10you're going to wish you only had one leg.
05:10 - 05:15I hope you guys have a lot of fun with this exercise, thank you again to Leann for demonstrating
05:15 - 05:18this exercise, not for 1 take but multiple.
05:18 - 05:19And I'll talk you guys soon.

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