A Move You Should Do MONDAY – Bridge

This week’s exercise, the bridge, is a simple one that can tell you a lot about how your legs are working. Here’s how to do it:

Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor about shoulder width apart
Lift your butt off the floor until your hips are extended. You should make a straight line from shoulders to hips.
Lower your hips back to the floor
Perform 10-12 repetitions

Why does this matter?

The bridge exercise should work your gluteus maximus, the largest muscle of your body and the biggest powerhouse of your legs. But in order to feel this in your glutes, you have to fully extend your hips to squeeze them tight. If you are not able to achieve full hip extension, you will most likely feel this exercise in your hamstrings, the muscles in the back of your thigh. And if you feel a cramp or a “charley horse” in your hamstrings when you do this, chances are your hamstrings are tight.

How does one get a “charley horse”? By contracting a tight muscle in its shortened position. When you do a bridge, your hips go into extension while your knees are in flexion. This is the shortened position of the two-joint hamstrings, a position of active insufficiency.

If the bridge gives you a cramp in the back of your legs, stretch your hamstrings first by doing a downward dog: