0:00 This is Brent, coming at you with more core exercise. In this video we're going 0:04 to progress the plank. I'm going to take a very standard exercise, the mountain 0:07 climber, show you how to reinforce triple flexion, and triple extension 0:12 mechanics, making a mountain climber, a reactive stabilization exercise. This 0:17 increases the transference for all of my running athletes. All of my running 0:22 athletes out there, you guys know how important that drive, and how important 0:25 that turnaround is. I'm going to show you how to keep this stable, so that you 0:30 don't lose any of that lower body power. I'm going to have my friend, Leann, come 0:33 out and help me demonstrate this exercise. Now, let's talk about set up 0:37 really quickly. You are going to have to get your upper body elevated a little 0:41 bit. You can see in here, we're just using a standard bench, usually that works. If 0:45 you have a taller athlete, you might even have to get a little further elevated. A 0:49 prerequisite exercise, something you're going to have to be thinking 0:52 about as you progress in your programming, to do this exercise you have 0:57 to be able to do a single leg plank, and do a single leg plank really well. I want 1:03 to be able to get Leann into a single leg plank here, with this knee up, and that 1:07 she's driving through this leg, glutes tight, quads tight. She's got her toes up, 1:12 but the ball of her foot down, driving through plantar flexion. So all of this 1:18 is really steady. This is the triple extension mechanic that we are 1:22 going to keep reinforcing through this exercise. Then, of course, here, in her 1:27 other leg - you can actually switch legs for me Leann - good, in this leg, we want 1:31 triple flexion. So I want to see hip flexion, knee flexion, and then I actually 1:36 want ankle dorsiflexion and inversion. Okay, so turn in just 1:41 a little bit, like this. Now, the tricky part of this is not what Leann 1:45 just did, the tricky part is, I'm going to try to get her to switch, quickly, 1:50 without moving any of this. She's got to keep her torso and pelvis totally still, 1:58 like she's got a martini glass on her back, we all know how stupid martini 2:01 glasses are, they spill everything everywhere. From a stabilization 2:04 standpoint, if you use that little analogy to think about how easy it is to 2:08 spill, I don't want any movement here. She's going to go ahead and switch 2:12 really quickly for me. Switch. Boom! You can see Leann went straight into that 2:16 triple extension. She's got the ball of her foot centered in the floor, quad 2:21 tight, glute tight, and she's in triple flexion on the other leg. Once she feels 2:26 like she's stable, she can go ahead and switch again. Switch. Good. We saw just a 2:31 little bit of bounce, it took her a second to stop bouncing and stabilizing, 2:35 and she can switch again. Now, I know most people do mountain climbers as fast as 2:41 they can back and forth, but if we're doing it for the purposes I mentioned 2:45 before, we're trying to reinforce triple extension, trying to reinforce triple 2:49 flexion, and trying to improve stabilization through the lumbo-pelvic hip complex, we 2:53 want to make sure we're stable between each shift. So, go ahead and switch again, 2:58 and you can see my hand's coming up just a little bit. Switch again. Good. Switch. 3:04 Switch. You can speed this up, as long as they can maintain stability. 3:11 There are progressions to this exercise, just like there'd be progressions to any 3:14 of our exercises. Since we are in our core realm, within the core portion 3:20 of our program, I'm probably still going to increase in stability, even though 3:24 this is a reactive exercise. One thing we can do, is we can take something that's a 3:31 little unstable, this is actually just a Dynamax soft medicine ball, or 3:36 you could also use a BOSU ball on top of this, providing that you 3:39 can make sure it's safe, and won't slide out. I'm going to have her get into 3:43 that same position. Good. Glutes tight, quads tight, calves tight, balls of feet 3:52 on the floor. She's going to go into that flexion position, and now she's going to 3:56 have to work really, really hard to maintain stability here. It's probably 3:59 going to slow us down a little bit in our switches, so go ahead and switch. 4:02 She's got to feel totally stable again, and she's rocking towards me a little 4:06 bit. She's going to center, make sure her glutes are tight, now switch. Good. Takes her a couple 4:12 seconds to stabilize, but when she's stable, she can switch again. You 4:16 can see here how she can't switch quite as fast, that'll be part of her 4:21 development, her progression over the next couple of weeks. Once she is able to 4:25 switch at a, we'll call it, a rhythmic tempo, 4:29 then I would look to increase stability even further. This is where a really 4:34 huge challenge comes in. We can do stability ball, reactive stabilization 4:47 for the core, or mountain climbers on a stability ball, as they might be called. So 4:53 once again, she's going to hold this position, kinetic chain checkpoints and 4:58 alignment: glutes tight, quads tight, calves pushing. Once she's stable, she 5:04 gets to switch. See, she was a little slower on that switch, she had a little 5:12 harder time getting centered again. Good. Switch. Good. Make sure your glutes are tight, 5:18 quads are tight, and calves. Alright, switch. And once again, we try to work this back up 5:25 to a rhythmic tempo. So there you go. We've got a very very challenging exercise 5:33 that you can add to your plank progression. This is a reactive 5:36 stabilization training exercise, so you would definitely be looking to put this somewhere 5:40 in your power training phase. We talked about increasing 5:44 in stability from bench, to bench with something unstable under the arms, to the 5:49 stability ball, and of course you have to stabilize between each step, which means 5:54 it's going to take work before planting the foot equals stability, rather than 6:00 planting in, stable hold, and then switch. Once you guys get up to a rhythmic tempo, 6:05 then you can switch to a more unstable activity. You're probably 6:10 looking for 12 to 20 reps of this exercise, of course you could do it by 6:15 the clock as well. I hope you enjoy this exercise and I hope you enjoy the 6:18 progressions. Have fun with it!
