The bridge is probably the single most prescribed exercise by physios…it seems that the bridge exercise is ubiquitous with physical therapy and rehab. As you may be suspecting, we think this is a pretty bad thing! Yes – the bridge is in fact a decent exercise that can help groove a hip hinge movement pattern and can be the starting place for a host of pathologies ranging from the lumbar spine all the way to the foot and ankle. But that doesn’t mean that our clients need to perform 3 sets of 10 bridges for months on end during the course of their rehab! Our exercise library has tons of exercises to help groove the horizontal hip hinge movement pattern, starting from the basic supine bridge all the way to a loaded barbell hip thrust. Follow along in this clinical pearl as we discuss bridge exercise progressions for rehabilitation!

 

“This blog is one of our ‘clinical pearls’, which is designed to assist clinicians in understanding exercise progressions for various clinical conditions. Throughout each of these clinical pearls, you will learn multiple ways to attack similar issues we all see when treating our patients. We also highlight many of our personal exercise library videos and HEP templates throughout these pearls, all of which you can gain access to as an exercise library member! The template we will be discussing is Double Leg Bridge Progressions.”

 

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Teaching The Bridge: Where To Start

When teaching someone a bridge, I will usually start with either a supine bridge or a bridge hold. Why one or the other? First off, let’s discuss the supine bridge. The supine bridge is the most basic supine horizontal hip hinge movement and the best way to teach a hip hinge within this supine constraint. However, if my goal is to teach someone to feel their glutes or improve body awareness in a horizontal hip hinge pattern, then I will opt for the bridge hold first. Isometrics are a great way to cue individuals into feeling the proper muscles working, as you can ramp up the effort to near 100% by encouraging your clients to drive through the ground as hard as possible. Internal cueing is great for developing a mind-body connection!

 

Supine Bridge

Sample [P]rehab Exercise Library Video

• HOW: Start on your back with your knees bend and slightly spread apart. Tighten up your stomach first, then your glutes. Next, drive your heels into the ground and lift your hips up towards the ceiling. At the end position your knee, hip, and shoulder should be in one straight line. Hold the end position and squeeze the glutes, then slowly return to starting position.

 

• FEEL: You should feel your glutes work to control this motion. At no point should you feel your low back muscles doing the lifting motion. If you feel it only in your hamstrings, try bending your knees a bit more and repeat.

 

• COMPENSATION: Avoid arching at the low back as you perform this. 

If not constrained to the floor, a tall kneeling hip hinge is one of my favorite ways to teach someone to hip hinge. Eliminating a degree of freedom (a joint moving…in this case the foot/ankle joint), allows our clients to better isolate the movement from just their hips rather than their knee or low back. Adding a band as an external resistance cue to push against is a very easy way to further drive home this movement pattern for someone that is struggling with it. We have tons of other tall kneeling hip hinge variations in the library that you can check out too!

 

Tall Kneeling Hip Hinge – Band

 

Using Levers To Target The Hamstrings

The hip extension movement within the bridge will utilize the body’s primary hip extensors in a relatively neutral position: the glute max and the hamstrings. While both contribute to active hip extension, only the hamstrings contribute to active knee flexion. Thus, we can change our foot placement of the traditional bridge to increase the internal moment of the hamstring muscle group’s contribution to active knee flexion! Typically, this is accomplished by either setting up the feet further from the hips or by placing the feet on an elevated surface!

 

Bridge – Hamstring Bias

 

When & How To Use Bands To Your Benefit

Without changing the movement pattern, we can easily recruit the glute max to a greater degree by calling upon its other two primary muscle actions: hip abduction and external rotation. This can easily be accomplished through the use of resistance band tubing.

Isometric Bridge – Hip Abduction, Band

 

[P]Rehab Youtube Episode – Master The Hip Thrust!

Typically, if your client is able to perform a hip thrust we are beginning to load up that hip extension movement. If your client doesn’t have a barbell handy, there are a few other ways that we can add load through bands and dumbbells that we will highlight below. All of the same concepts we discussed for the supine bridge apply to the hip thrust! This is touched on in more detail at the end of this clinical pearl.

 

Bridge With Extra Adductor Activation

Working in the exact opposite fashion, we also have an isotonic bridge with isometric hip adduction. This one really fires up the hip adductors, which also play a big role in hip extension at higher degrees of hip flexion (adductor magnus). This is a popular technique for therapists that are looking to work on sacroiliac joint force closure after an SIJ MET, which we also have in the library. Remember, if there is a technique or exercise we do not have in the library, simply request it and we will film it!

 

Bridge – Adduction

Looking for more adductor specific content? Check out this [P]Rehab Audio Experience Podcast Episode!

LISTEN: HOW TO TRAIN THE ADDUCTORS!

 

Bridge for Spine Articulating

I am a big fan of spine articulating, especially into flexion, for any flexion-sensitive low back patients. This is especially true for those that have chronic low back pain and have simply lost the ability to flex through their lumbar spine. We have a ton of “segmental” exercises in the [P]Rehab Exercise library, and including this segmental version of the bridge. The key is to really focus on a posterior pelvic tilt at the start of the motion, letting the pelvis guide the lower lumbar into flexion – rather than just focusing on a PPT at the top of the motion.

Bridge – Segmental

 

Progressing to a True Single Leg Bridge

You may be able to progress directly from a double leg bridge to a single leg bridge if your client has the requisite lumbopelvic control and hip strength to control a single leg bridge with a level pelvis. If they do not, the following two variations are a great way to slowly build up the strength and control required of a pristine single-leg bridge! In the staggered bridge below, remember to cue the leg closest to the body to do most of the lifting into hip extension. You can slowly cue your client to push less and less through the foot that is further away. Now, if you were progressing someone’s hamstring loading, the cueing would actually be the opposite :)

Staggered Bridge

The bridge march is actually a true isometric single leg bridge, albeit for a split second. This is a great way to “bridge” someone to an isotonic single leg bridge (like what I did there?!) In this example, you’ll notice that Arash lifts his entire contralateral foot off the ground. A micro progression of this would be to just lift the heel off the ground while continuing to push as much as needed through the forefoot. This same march can be performed on an elevated surface if the goal is to hit the hamstrings more. Again, it’s all about micro-changes so our clients can find success in their programs!

 

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Single Leg Bridge Options

Once your client is able to progress to a single leg bridge, one of the most common questions I get from my clients is “what do I do with my other leg”? While there is no wrong answer to this question, understand that the other leg provides a “heavier lower body” to the working hip! Meaning, that progressing from the contralateral leg bent, to crossed, to straight out is the most linear progression from easiest to hardest.

Single Leg Bridge – Leg Bent

I know many clinicians that like to have their clients “hug” their opposite knee to promote a posterior pelvic tilt. This is definitely a feasible option!

READ: MASTERING THE BRIDGE MOVEMENT

 

Single Leg Bridge – Leg Crossed

If I have a client who is struggling with their lumbopelvic control in a single leg bridge with the leg straight out, oftentimes I will regress to the crossed leg version above rather than make a bigger macro change to some form of a staggered bridge. The straight leg bridge I consider the “gold standard” of a supine single leg bridge as it’s not only the hardest, but we get to work on the contralateral hip flexors simultaneously.

 

Single Leg Bridge – Leg Straight

Once your client has mastered a single leg bridge, it can be used as a fantastic objective assessment for the comparison of side to side differences in strength/motor control. The Single Leg Bridge Endurance Test is a reliable tool developed and used to evaluate proximal lower body strength, pelvis and trunk control, and muscle endurance. Please watch the video to get a visual demonstration of how to perform the test and what to be mindful of. We have a lot of other assessments in the library that you can check out under the “assessments” tab!

 

Single Leg Bridge Endurance Test

 

Reverse Bridge Variations

The next two variations shown are examples of a thoracic spine bridge. It’s essentially a bridge in a reverse tall plank position where the upper body is completely off the ground. In order to accomplish this movement successfully, you have to keep one of your hands on the ground behind you and rotate your thorax ipsilaterally. It’s a great way to work on active thoracic spine rotation.

Thoracic Spine Bridge

The bear-to-high single leg bridge position exercise is very similar to the more mobility-focused thoracic spine bridge except that it starts from a bear position. I typically like this combo movement as part of a dynamic warm-up!

 

The Bridge As A Base Position

The bridge position can be used as a base position as well! When performing upper extremity tasks, typically we must derive stability proximally. Usually, we think of this as coming from the scapular muscles or core, but this can also extend to the glute as well! A prime example of this would be in the example below. You need good activation through the glutes in order to stay stale during the floor press. During COVID quarantine this was my way of mimicking the torso angle of a decline bench press without a decline bench!

Floor Press – Bridge Position

 

The Hip Thrust

Now, onto the mack daddy of them all…the hip thrust! The hip thrust is great for targeting the largest muscle of the body, the Gluteus Maximus. When looking at the EMG activity of muscles during a hip thrust we see great activation of the hamstrings, quadriceps, and adductors as well; making this exercise a great bang for your buck movement! I have seen the hip thrust performed in all kinds of ways, below Arash shows you how he likes to perform the traditional hip thrust with the goal of biasing the posterior chain muscles. We have a great podcast episode with Bret Contreras that you can check out HERE where he covers everything you need to know about the hip thrust and its origins!

Double Leg Hip Thrust With Cueing

You’ll notice in this example that we do not have a hip thruster. We are going to assume that most of your clients do not have one too!

 

Closing Thoughts

We hope you have been able to learn more about bridge exercise progressions and variations that you can implement for your clients! Thank you for taking the time to read, and please leave comments if you have any insights you would like to share or questions!

 

Maximize Your Time Creating Programs For Your Clients!

With thousands of exercises to choose from, video demonstrations, education, assessments, and more, this is the best exercise library that you can utilize for your clients! Gain access HERE.

 

Clinician

Michael Lau, PT, DPT, CSCS

[P]rehab Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer

Michael was born and raised in Northern California but now currently resides in Sunny SoCal ever since attending the University of California, Los Angeles as an undergraduate majoring in physiology. After his undergraduate studies, he received his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from cross-town rival the University of Southern California.

As a licensed physical therapist with a strong background in strength and conditioning, Michael likes to blend the realms of strength training and rehabilitation to provide prehab, or preventative rehabilitation, to his patients.

A common human behavior is to address problems after they become an issue and far often too late, which is a reactionary approach. He believes the key to improved health care is education and awareness. This proactive approach-prehab-can reduce the risk of injuries and pain in the first place.

He is a huge proponent of movement education and pain science. Clinically, he has a special interest in ACLR rehab and return to sport for the lower extremity athlete.

 

 

Disclaimer – The content here is designed for information & education purposes only and is not intended for medical advice.