Strengthen Your Core with the Bird Dog Exercise

The bird dog is an excellent exercise for strengthening and stretching your lower back while boosting physical and cognitive coordination. By coordinating movements on opposite sides of your body, the bird dog exercise stimulates neurological/cross crawl activity and your spinal stabilizing musculature. If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase “cross crawl,” it refers to bilateral movements coordinated across opposite parts of the body, like your arms and legs. Other examples of cross crawl movements include running, walking, swimming, and crawling.

This type of motion simultaneously fires neurons in both hemispheres of the brain. Since physical coordination precedes cognitive coordination in our development, cross crawl motions like the bird dog exercise are excellent foundational exercises for kids.

According to Your Therapy Source, benefits of cross crawl exercises include:

• building core strength

• improving eye teaming skills, needed for reading, writing, and mental focus

• enhancing whole-brain thinking

• developing proprioception (spatial and kinesthetic awareness)

The benefits for children are clear, but the bird dog is an exercise for nearly any age! Whether you suffer from lower back pain or simply want to improve your balance, flexibility, posture, and core strength, this is the exercise for you. Doing it regularly may also help you prevent strains and injury.

Watch this video by Dr. Joe to learn how to strengthen your core with the bird dog exercise or guide your child through the motions.

Interested finding new ways to help your child thrive, physically and mentally? Try unstructured play!