McEntee Physio & Performance Centre

🎯This single leg bridge variation is a yielding isometric (requires the athlete to resist gravity and maintain position under load) that challenges hamstring isometric strength/stiffness, trunk control and lower limb coordination.

📍This exercise:
-Develops hamstring strength at longer muscle lengths - long-lever bridge position
-Challenges lumbo-pelvic and anti-rotation control
-Builds isometric capacity that can transfer into more functional movements such as sprinting

📊It’s important to:
-Drive through the heel
-Lift the hips and maintain a straight line from shoulders to knee
-Knee flexed to 30 degrees
-Keep a level pelvis - avoiding rotation or hip drop

👉To regress the exercise you can try a double leg variation. To progress the exercise you can try the box-box hold.

⚡If you are looking to bias the lateral hamstring more, you can add a mini band around the ankles.

🎯Heel Elevated Split Squat

📊Split Squat variations are a great way to improve lower limb strength. This variation specifically challenges the foot and ankle complex compared to variations with the foot flat on the floor.

📍It can be a nice option during rehab of ankle/achilles injuries to improve foot/ankle control as well as calf strength and achilles tendon stiffness.

👉Focus on driving through your forefoot on the way up.

🎯Rotational Elevated Split Squat

📍This is a nice exercise for building confidence and control after a lower limb injury.

📊 As you rotate your upper trunk, the aim is keep your knee & foot in a fixed position, facing 12o'c. This helps to develop the ability to dissociate between lower limb and the trunk when it comes to movement.

👉 The hip & lower abdominal muscles are working hard to maintain control at the pelvis

⚡Our focus here is on slow, controlled movement. This variation can be stepped up/stepped down depending on what is required for the client / their stage of rehab.

🎯Smith machine single leg squat

📍The smith machine single leg squat is a nice progression in the closed chain unilateral leg strength stream, particularly for those trying to build strength and capacity in long-term knee rehab (post ACLR, patellar tendinopathy).

📊It’s important to:
-Stand under the smith machine bar in a front rack hold or a high bar position across the traps
-The non-working limb can be held slightly anteriorly in a pistol-style position
-Descend into the squat with good foot, hip and knee control

👉Benefits:
-The fixed bar path of the smith machine helps to reduce balance demands
-Placing the foot directly under the bar path increases anterior knee translation and there is greater quad demand
-The front rack hold allows for a more upright trunk, resulting in greater quad demand
-Allows significant loading vs a dumbbell variation where upper body strength can be a limiting factor

🎯Rear foot elevated tall-short landing

📍This exercise is a nice variation to bridge the gap between our double and single leg tall-short landings.

⚡It also highly transferable when it comes to deceleration preparation, replicating the positions we are aiming to achieve with our single leg deceleration tasks.

🎯Banded Hip Internal Rotation

📍Improving the available range of motion within the hip joint is important to improve how we load this joint and surrounding soft tissues.

👉The band is an addition to work the deep hip rotator muscles in order to improve how the head of the femur (ball) sits within the joint (socket).

📊Limited rotation can lead to increased injury risk by overloading surrounding areas like the groin musculature, lower back and change how we load both the ankle and knee during the gait cycle.

🎯Standing Single Leg Calf Raise

📍The standing single leg calf raise can be incorporated into lower limb strength and conditioning, and rehabilitation programmes (calf strains, achilles’ tendinopathy, foot and ankle complaints as well as more proximal injuries to the knee, hip and groin).

👉The gastrocnemius is one of two muscles which comprise the calf complex. Target-wise, we are aiming to achieve 1 x bodyweight for 6 reps on this standing calf raise variation to ensure you have sufficient capacity to tolerate the demands of running and reduce injury risk.

🎯Plank with rotation

📊This is a nice exercise to challenge the stability, strength and coordination of the trunk and shoulder. In the starting position of the tall plank, the abdominals are engaged isometrically. As you rotate, the obliques along with the glutes begin to engage to control the rotational movement of the trunk.

📍The shoulder stabilisers are significantly tested as a rotation is added on the supporting arm. Working the shoulder joint through this range, supporting the trunk rotation, helps build the joint's resilience and strength.

🎯Banded dead bug in crook lying

📍This banded dead bug variation is part of an anti extension exercise stream and is a regression from your classic dead bug variations with leg movements.

👉This exercise acts as a nice entry point for those who don’t have the lumboplevic control to incorporate leg movements. It helps to develop anti-extension trunk control and reinforces the interaction between our ribcage and pelvis.

📊It’s important to:
-maintain a neutral trunk position
-avoid lumbar extension / rib flare
-control your breathing

⚡Once you have mastered this, you can progress on to short and long lever leg lowers to further challenge trunk control.

🎯Trap Bar Squat Jump

📍Developing explosive power is a non negotiable for any athlete, including endurance based sports like cycling and running

⚡Here we are aiming to improve overall speed of movement by influencing the muscles ability to rapidly stretch and shorten to contribute to the likes of acceleration speed, jump height, or peak power for example

📊Points of Note:
- Take the strain of the bar prior to pushing
- Drive the ground away
- Bar should be in the region of 40-50% of your 1RM (one rep max)
- Rep range 3-5, longer recovery bouts of 3 minutes inbetween sets, 3-5 sets, ideally hit x2 a week
- Max intent is crucial