This short transcript excerpt features speaker Jeff Langmaid naming his top two exercises for low back health: (1) Dead bugs — praised for teaching neutral spine, abdominal bracing, intra-abdominal pressure, and decoupling limb movement from low-back motion; and (2) Bird dog — presented as a classic complementary floor exercise for low-back stability.
How about your top two low back exercises? Oh man, my top two low back exercise would be number one Dead bugs. I post a lot about dead bugs on my Instagram. I always say dead bugs are the best bugs. Get them out of house, you know. And the reason I like the the dead bug exercise is because one, it teaches how to keep a neutral spine and how to properly abdominally brace, create intra abdominal pressure, which we know is very important, as well as how to move the arms and the legs, which we're doing with shoulder movements or squats without moving through the low back and maintaining that compression in the abdominal wall to keep that low back nice and stable and safe. The second one I would say is almost if you were to just flip around on the ground, would be a classic bird dog.
