maratoolDead Bug
How to do the dead bug
- Begin lying on your back with your hands extended above you toward the ceiling.
- Bring your feet, knees, and hips up to 90 degrees.
- Exhale hard to bring your ribcage down and flatten your back onto the floor, rotating your pelvis up and squeezing your glutes. Hold this position throughout the movement. This will be your starting position.
- Initiate the exercise by extending one leg, straightening the knee and hip to bring the leg just above the ground.
- Maintain the position of your lumbar and pelvis as you perform the movement, as your back is going to want to arch.
- Stay tight and return the working leg to the starting position.
- Repeat on the opposite side, alternating until the set is complete.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the rectus abdominis and the obliques, which flex the trunk forward and resist it being pulled into extension or twisted out of line.
Every exercise for:Abdominals
How this movement works
The load travels toward you and several joints bend to bring it there. The arms finish work the back starts, so grip and elbow flexors sit in the path of every repetition: when people stall on a compound pull, it is more often the hands giving out than the primary muscle running out of force.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.
Every exercise using:Body only
These train the abdominals too, using equipment this one does not:
- Double Kettlebell Windmillkettlebell
- Exercise Ball Crunchexercise ball
- Kneeling Cable Crunch With Alternating Oblique Twistscable
- Landmine 180'sbarbell
- Medicine Ball Full Twistmedicine ball
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 97 abdominals exercises in this database, 69 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.