During the bird dog exercise, pushing the ground away with the planted hand and knee is as important as lifting the arm, clasping the fist, and raising the leg.

“again it's about creating a strong stable reach a strong stable lift of the foot but not too high and this is very important with the hand that remains planted and the knee that remains planted pushing the ground away from you okay that's as important as is the lifting of the arm the clasping of the Fist and the raising of the leg”

“there are a couple of variations that you can do to make it harder one is to draw boxes with the extended Fist and the extended foot that's actually a coordination issue too for some people so some people choose to do a box with their hand maybe they do it clockwise then they do it counterclockwise some people choose to do the hand and foot moving in a box together meaning simultaneously sometimes they'll alternate foot then hand this sort of thing any kind of movement that you're doing with the extended Fist and or foot is going to add some degree of difficulty to this but you want to make sure that if you're going to add those movements those progressions that you're keeping the pushing away way of the floor constant throughout and that you're keeping your torso parallel to the floor as you go”

“And then for the back muscles, look at the beauty of the bird dog where you extend one leg the opposite. One half of my low back is active. One half of my upper back is active on the other side. We developing a nice DNF pattern. We're creating stiffness and stability in the core.”