I expect that the majority of people who read the title of this post thought something akin to, “What the heck is a feet-elevated reverse inchworm, and if it’s so awesome then why haven’t I heard about it before?” The answer to the latter part of the question is that I made up the exercise. In fact, I just googled “feet-elevated reverse inchworm” and the video Peter and I filmed of it is the only result that matched the search. That’s cool, but so what? Why might this exercise benefit you?
Over the course of our summer internship at Cressey Sports Performance, Peter and I observed countless evaluations of clients and we noticed some trends: seemingly everyone could benefit from improving their anterior core strength and stiffness, and seemingly everyone lacks scapular upward rotation. In other words, they have a tendency to overextend their lower backs both at rest and during exercises such as push-ups, rows and lunges, and their shoulder blades don’t achieve an adequate range of motion when they bring their arms overhead. Poor anterior core stiffness can cause undue stress at adjacent muscles and joints, which may cause acute or chronic injuries. In addition, a weak anterior core will cause energy leaks, which means that you’ll be less efficient at transferring force from the lower body to the upper body. Having sufficient upward rotation is especially important for overhead athletes, like pitchers and swimmers, and a lack of upward rotation may cause injury at the shoulder, particularly to the superior labrum.
One detail that the staff at CSP emphasized to address this lack of upward rotation was the importance of actively pushing away from the ground during ground-based movements, such as push-ups, bear crawls and the all four belly lift. By actively pushing yourself away from the ground, like at the top of a push-up, you activate the serratus anterior, which, in addition to upwardly rotating the scapula, flexes the thoracic spine. Though improving thoracic spine mobility, especially thoracic spine extension, has been a recent trend in the fitness industry, some people–particularly those who tend to be hyperextended at the lumbar and cervical spine regions, like many athletes–can have thoracic spines that are too extended (known as flat thoracic spines, since the thoracic spine has a natural kyphotic curve) and these people might benefit from doing exercises that flex their thoracic spine. In addition, we also emphasized reaching away from the body during pressing exercises, like landmine presses, to increase scapular upward rotation and scapular elevation.
The feet-elevated reverse inchworm is an exercise that addresses these common weaknesses. You can watch a video of it below before you read the rest of my discussion:
So what’s happening in this exercise? In the start position, the feet are elevated and the hands are in front of the shoulders, which does a few things: 1) it makes the exercise more challenging because more weight is on your hands, 2) it puts you in more shoulder flexion, which better recruits serratus anterior, and 3) by putting you in more shoulder flexion, it also increases the demand on the anterior core to prevent lumbar hyperextension. Once you start pushing yourself backward, you decrease the demand on the anterior core, but you increase the demand on the scapular upward rotators (i.e., serratus anterior, upper trapezius and lower trapezius) and scapular elevators, since you’re going into greater shoulder flexion and are actively pushing away from the ground. And if you’re a relatively stiff person, like me, then you might also get a stretch in your gastrocnemius (i.e., your “calves”), since you’re pushing yourself into dorsiflexion while in knee extension. As you walk your hands forward, continue to push yourself away from the ground and maintain a neutral core position. Walk your hands as far forward as you can without letting your lower back arch, which will increases the challenge on the anterior core. If you’re doing it correctly, then you should be “feeling it” in your anterior core, your serratus anterior (in your armpits, sort of) and upper trapezius.
Something that I didn’t address in the above video is the breathing during the exercise. I don’t know if there is a best method for breathing during this exercise, but I’m continuing to experiment on myself and others. My current approach is to exhale fully through the mouth when my hands are farthest away from my feet and when they’re closest to my feet, and to inhale through the nose. Performing the exercise in this manner may increase the challenge on the anterior core.
So how do I program this exercise? I like to use it in both my warm-ups and my workouts. In the context of a warm-up, it’s a great bang-for-your-buck exercise, since it addresses so many movements. I don’t perform them for a prescribed number of repetitions, though; instead, I usually perform them close to technical failure (i.e., when fatigue causes technique to worsen). When I use it during my workouts, I usually use it as a “filler” exercise which means that it allows me to rest the muscles I just exhausted in the preceding exercise while still performing an exercise. I especially like to pair it with exercises that might promote lumbar hyperextension or an “extended” posture. For example, I recently used it as the third exercise in a tri-set that included an inefficient pairing of natural glute-ham raises and stability ball hamstring curls. Instead of simply resting for one or two minutes after I finished the stability ball hamstring curls and before performing another set of natural glute-ham raises, I performed a set of feet-elevated reverse inchworms.
That’s all I have to write about this exercise for now. Just to summarize, this exercise seems like it could help anterior core and serratus anterior strength, which help promote a less extended posture as well as improved scapular upward rotation and elevation, respectively. Try it out and let us know what you think.