CalisthenicsIn review

Bird Dog

A hands-and-knees trunk exercise that pairs one arm with the opposite leg.

This page is a working draft. A coach has not reviewed it, so read it as a starting point, not as checked instruction.

Pattern: Trunk stability
Modality: Calisthenics
Difficulty: Beginner
Mechanic: Unknown
Force: Unknown
Laterality: Alternating
Impact: Low
Trains where: Gym, Home
At home: Yes

How to do it

Set up

Start on hands and knees with hands under shoulders and knees under hips.

Do the rep

Reach one arm forward and the opposite leg back.
Return with control and repeat on the other side.

What counts as a rep

A rep counts on each side when the opposite arm and leg reach straight and return to their starting supports.

One rep counts when the opposite arm and leg reach straight, then both return to their starting supports; count each side.

Breathing

Exhale as the opposite limbs reach; inhale as they return.

Cues

Reach long
Keep hips level
Move without twisting

Common mistakes

Rotating the pelvis
What you seeOne hip opens toward the side as the leg reaches back.
FixReduce the reach and keep both hip points facing the floor.
A square pelvis makes the opposite-limb reach a trunk-control task.
Skipping the return
What you seeThe hand or knee does not settle under the body before sides change.
FixReturn both limbs to their original supports before alternating.
Returning to both supports prevents shortened alternating reps.

Stop the set if

Stop if you feel sharp pain.
Stop if you cannot reach without rotating the pelvis or shifting your support hand.
End the set when you cannot meet the stated range under control.

General educational content, not individual coaching or medical advice.

Muscles worked

Prime movers

Rectus abdominis · moderate confidence
Obliques · moderate confidence

Assisting

Hip flexors · moderate confidence
Shoulders (coarse UI group) · moderate confidence
Forearms and grip · moderate confidence

Stabilisers

Deep core / trunk stabilizers · moderate confidence

Equipment

Bodyweight

Optional: Floor mat

In the app

You log this by hand. The camera coach does not watch this movement yet.

Tracking: Camera candidate

How this page was checked

Draft. A editorial reviewer has not signed this off yet.

Draft text is original and based only on the Wave-1 CSV and planning brief catalog/wave-1/047-bird-dog.md; no human review is complete.
The planning brief's assigned independent-source research is not complete.
Anatomy, technique, breathing, stop cues, and common-error guidance remain planning judgments pending the assigned review tier.
Candidate programming vocabularies, exact relation edges, and public tracking support remain unreviewed and fail closed.
The blueprint lists deep-core as primary; this draft places it under stabilizers pending anatomy review.
This pass treats bodyweight-reps, duration as the legal modes supported by the CSV logging model; reviewer approval remains required.
The rewritten summary, rep standard, breathing, stop cues, and common errors are editorial judgements pending the assigned review tier.
Legacy relations are movement-pattern and equipment judgements; engine edges remain empty pending S2-CAT-005 approval.
This pass removed pull-up-bar because the described movement does not use that optional equipment.
Pass 2 rewrites the finish standard as a counting-only criterion and replaces the web title, summary, and meta description with exercise-specific copy; these editorial choices require review.
Pass 2 limits setup_notes to equipment settings or leaves it empty when no equipment-specific setup applies; this equipment judgment requires review.

All instruction and web text is original Allena draft text written from the Wave-1 CSV and record brief. No competitor or free-exercise-db instruction text was copied.

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