Quadruped: A Great Exercise Usually Done Wrong

by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS

Some people call it the quadruped exercise while others call it the bird dog. I have also heard it referred to as diagonals. Regardless of your terminology, it can be a great exercise for improving trunk stability and improving movement strategies. Dr. Stuart McGill likes it so much, he calls it one of his “Big 3” exercises for fighting back pain. Unfortunately, it is oftentimes one of the most poorly performed and misunderstood movements that I see.

When performed well, the quadruped can be a highly effective rotary stability movement and also does a great job of training the back functional line by connecting the gluts with the opposite lat and scapular stabilizers. It is only effective, however, if the athlete understands how to create tension in their trunk in an effort to prevent poor rotation.

I think that we can have a very valid discussion as to whether we should promote high threshold strategies or allow them to regulate their strategies as needed to handle the appropriate load (and this load is low). We can also have a discussion about the appropriateness of using a feed forward mechanism to train trunk stability, but lets try to keep this discussion as simple as we can for now. Most people that I work with don’t know how to create tension in their trunk, thus teaching them how to do so with a feed-forward, fairly high threshold stabilization strategy seems to work best for most. Once they develop the basic neuromuscular control of their trunk and core, mixing up those variables becomes a lot easier.

I believe the reason most people don’t perform this movement well is because of lack of:

1. Understanding of the goal of the movement
2. Attention to detail
3. Willingness to follow a quality progression

So, let’s break those down a little bit:

1. Goal of the movement: The basic goal of the movement is to teach someone how to prevent unwanted movement proximally, while creating movement distally. This means that the major premise is to prevent rotational movement at the hips, trunk and shoulders. The spine should remain in the same position throughout the movement and should not experience any rotation or deviation. This usually happens most easily by using conscious loading as a corrective strategy. This allows you to preload the stabilizers of the trunk as a feed-forward mechanism to improve stability.
2. Attention to detail: Whether it’s a lack of understanding of the details, poor coaching, too many athletes to coach at once, or just a lack of desire to be detail oriented, choosing not to pay close attention to every aspect of this movement will render it useless. For such a simple looking exercise, I have seen some pretty crazy compensation patterns go uncorrected in all kinds of different settings. If you are unwilling or unable to closely monitor this movement, then pick a different one.
3. Proper Progression: As I have talked about before, training with progressions is incredibly important for improving function and performance. It saves a ton of time and energy for you as the clinician and puts the athlete/patient in the best possible position to be successful. The basic premise of this progression is to begin with positions that by nature have a lot of external stability and progressively take away points of contact while making sure they maintain a proper position before moving on to the next part of the progression.

 Quadruped Progression

• Sphinx Arm Raise: This starts on the floor on the stomach with the upper body propped up by the elbows. Pack the shoulders and neck and always work within a pain free range of motion. Press into the floor with the elbows. This will preload the stabilizers of the trunk. Simply straighten one arm out in front of the shoulder. The key is to keep the shoulders and hips quiet while removing a point of contact. Return to the start and repeat on the opposite arm. You can regress it by sliding the hand on the floor instead of lifting them.

  

• Quadruped with Arm Raise Only: Now that they know how to preload their stabilizers, put them on their hands and knees. Teach them to

  

  utilize that conscious loading strategy by digging into the groun with their toes (ankles dorsiflexed) and knees. With their fingers spread wide, the athlete should grip the ground with their fingers and the base of their palm while attempting to cork screw the hands into external rotation (while keeping them fixed in place) to tension the lats. Keeping the hips and shoulders quiet once again, lift an arm straight out ahead of the shoulder. Repeat on the other side.

  

• Quadruped with Leg Raise Only: Using the same feed forward strategies of the arms only quadruped, now keep the hands fixed to the ground and straighten a leg straight back behind the hip. As with the others, keep the hips and shoulders quiet. This is a progression over the previous movement because of the weight of the leg, it becomes harder to stabilize the hips and spine. Keep the ankle dorsiflexed during the movement to maximize the glut involvement during the leg raise.

  

• Quadruped with Arm and Leg Raise: Preload the body, just as they have during previous movements in the progression, and raise an arm and opposite leg, working through the back functional line. Return to the start and repeat on the opposite side.

  

Once you follow this full progression and teaching points, you will find an authentic movement pattern that while it is likely more difficult for them to perform than previously, is much more dense and qualitative in nature. In fact, I have seen 300 pound football players who are incredibly sore after moving through this progression for the first time, even though they have been performing the quadruped movement for quite sometime. We can use this progression to teach the athlete to use their prime movers and stabilizers to do what they are designed to do. For many, that is foreign concept.

Now that they have demonstrated some level of neuromuscular control, you can begin to load the movement with band or ultimate sandbag. And, you can also begin to actually decrease your coaching to allow the athlete to react appropriately and grade the level of activation needed to perform a clean movement.

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