Hi, this is Dana Ranahan at Body Works Sports Physiotherapy in North Vancouver. Today I’d like to show you an exercise as a progression to some of the core strengthening work that we’ve started on our website videos.

Today I’m going to demonstrate adding some knee hinges and knee stirs to the exercise.

For our set up:

Lie down on your back, make sure you’re centred through the pelvis and shoulders, making sure your rib cage is soft.
Look at your foot position, bringing your feet in really close together at first, and bringing the heels in towards the buttocks.
To find your foot position, work on opening the toes and opening the heels so that the feet line up with the hips. This allows your hips to feel soft and keeps the hip flexors from doing too much work.

Add Core Activation with Knee Hinges

Now we’re going to use the same sequence that we have used before with breathing and core activation.
Think about breathing into the lateral rib cage, and as you breathe out, softening the breast bone, engaging your core, and floating one knee up towards the ceiling, while trying to maintain that core.
Breathe in. As you breathe out, engage the core and lower down in that same line of movement.

Try to minimize movement at the pelvis, and minimize pulling up through the abdominal or hip flexor muscles.

Repeat this on the other side. Breathe in. As you breathe out, soften your chest, engage your core, and let the other leg come up to that 90 degree position. We’re looking for a 90 degrees at the hip, 90 degrees at the knee and 90 degrees at the ankle. Breathe in. As you breathe out, engage your core and lower back down to neutral.

With this exercise, work on repetition. Try to work on good movement patterning and good coordination of your core. 10-15 repetitions each leg, or until you reach fatigue.