00:00 - 00:03This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness, and we're going to discuss one of my
00:03 - 00:07favorite lower body resistance training exercises, the single leg deadlift
00:07 - 00:12touchdown. Now, the single leg deadlift touchdown is a great exercise for increasing glute
00:12 - 00:16max and glute medius strength, as well as intermuscular coordination. I'm going to
00:16 - 00:21have my friend Leanne come over and help me demonstrate this exercise. Now, the only
00:21 - 00:24difference in form between a deadlift and a single leg deadlift touchdown is
00:24 - 00:28the fact that you're on a single leg. I'm going to start Leanne, lining up her
00:28 - 00:33kinetic chain check points, feet parallel, her feet, knees, and hips are all in a
00:33 - 00:36straight line. I'm going to have her draw-in, squeeze her glutes, make sure she's not in and anterior
00:36 - 00:42pelvic tilt and squeeze her shoulder blades down and back, into a neutral position. To
00:42 - 00:46get her started on this exercise all I'm going to have her do is lift her foot an inch
00:46 - 00:51off the floor. She doesn't need to put her foot forward or foot back which is
00:51 - 00:54going to change the alignment of her kinetic chain, all we need to do is lift
00:54 - 00:59that foot slightly off the floor. Now, I'm going to have Leanne go ahead and reach down with
00:59 - 01:04the opposite hand of the leg that we're using. So the leg that's on the ground, the
01:04 - 01:07left leg, is the leg that's working, so we're going to go ahead and reach with the
01:07 - 01:13right hand. What that does, that opposite arm-leg reach, is force a
01:13 - 01:17little bit of an internal rotation of the pelvis so that we lower her
01:17 - 01:23gluteus medius, an external rotator of the hip, we inhibit her piriformis, and
01:23 - 01:29increase activity of this muscculature as she comes back. Now, a couple little form
01:29 - 01:33cues, as you'll see Leanne has a tendency to want to look at the mirror, we need to remind
01:33 - 01:40Leanne to keep her chin down. So go ahead and look at her foot as she goes down, and look up
01:40 - 01:44as she comes up. That'll keep her spine in nice, straight alignment. We're going to make
01:44 - 01:49sure she draws-in and she goes down, because we have a tendency to let that pooch out,
01:49 - 01:53and then she's coming back up I'm going to have her thrust her hips forward
01:53 - 01:58and squeeze her glutes. So that cue to thrust the hips forward to come back up will
01:58 - 02:03really increase gluteus maximus activity. Now, another form discrepancy you might
02:03 - 02:09see is the locked knee. I want to make sure that I keep that knee soft to
02:09 - 02:14increase the activity of our musculature that reinforces triple extension
02:14 - 02:19mechanics, so our calves or quads, that will increase glute max and glute medius
02:19 - 02:23activity as well. So go ahead and keep that soft, reach down,
02:23 - 02:31touch down. Keeping a locked knee is going to increase strength on her
02:31 - 02:36MCL, LCL and PCL, those ligaments in our knee, as well as increase activity
02:36 - 02:41of our deep longitudinal subsystem, being our biceps femoris, sacrotuberous ligament,
02:41 - 02:45and erector spinae, and those are all of the overactive synergists we've
02:45 - 02:51been trying to get calming down in her corrective exercise work. So once again I'm going to
02:51 - 03:00to keep this knee soft. Thrust forward. That will make sure that the glute max
03:00 - 03:05and glute med stay the primary movers and stabilizers of this exercise. Now, one
03:05 - 03:10other thing I've seen that I want to go ahead and voice an
03:10 - 03:15opinion on, is I have seen a lot of straight leg, or at least the opposite
03:15 - 03:19leg is straight, single leg touchdowns.
03:21 - 03:26Now, what this does is this is going to
03:26 - 03:31increase hamstring activity on this side. There have been some research studies
03:31 - 03:35that show if activity increases on one side it will increase on the other. We
03:35 - 03:39just talked about how we don't want to start increasing biceps femoris activity
03:39 - 03:45because it'll become synergistically dominant for our glute max. Do that position
03:45 - 03:55one more time. It also increases the tendency of her rolling this way, as you saw she fell. That
03:55 - 04:01roll outward, that hip hike, is going to increase piriformis and TFL activity,
04:01 - 04:06once again, overactive synergists I don't want to get involved. Last but
04:06 - 04:13not least, this type of deadlift touchdown allows her to compensate and
04:13 - 04:19doesn't require optimal extensibility of her SI joint. So just by doing our single leg
04:19 - 04:29touchdown with feet next to each other, and a bent knee, good form, we can pretty
04:29 - 04:33much ensure that glute max and glute medius stay our prime movers, which are muscles
04:33 - 04:37that we need to get more active, and of course, have a huge benefit to any sort
04:37 - 04:41of performance whether it's weightloss performance, hypertrophy training
04:41 - 04:46or sports performance by increasing glute max and glute med strength. Now, if I was
04:46 - 04:50going to progress this exercise for strength, all I have to do is add a dumb-
04:50 - 04:54bell to this exercise. I could have her hold a dumbbell
04:54 - 05:02in this hand, and just keep increasing the load over time, keeping it at a rep range
05:02 - 05:06for strength. If I wanted to increase her stability, it's very easy to start
05:06 - 05:10adding proprioceptively enriched environments to the foot that's on the ground. We
05:10 - 05:15could start with a mat here. We could then go to two mats, an Airex pad, a half
05:15 - 05:20foam roll, or a disc. Now, if you would like to add this in, and somebody
05:20 - 05:24isn't quite ready for a full single leg touchdown, maybe because of
05:24 - 05:30extensibility or stability reasons, I could have Leanne just do a single leg
05:30 - 05:36touchdown, but only reach down to her knee. Make sure she's sitting back and then thrusting forward
05:36 - 05:42on the way up. Once she can do 10 without too much touching down, or 15, whatever
05:42 - 05:50the rep range goal is, I could have a reach down to her shin. As I
05:50 - 05:54increase her extensibility, do work for her postural dysfunction, she increases
05:54 - 06:00strength and stability, I could then have her reach all the way down over time. So
06:00 - 06:05there you go, that's our single leg deadlift
06:05 - 06:10touchdown. Thank you Leanne, for helping me out.