Side Bridge Exercise - Advanced

To Perform the Advanced Side Bridge Exercise:

1. Begin by lying on your side with your weight supported on your elbow and your knees fully extended. To prevent excessive strain on your shoulder, make sure your elbow is positioned directly underneath your shoulder and your upper arm is perpendicular to the floor (Figure 1).
   
   
2. Lift your hips off the floor to bring your hips back in line with your shoulders, just as you did in the Intermediate Side Bridge exercise (Figure 2).
   
   
3. From this position, lift your upper leg straight into the air. As you do this you should feel the lateral trunk and hip muscles on the side of the body closest to the floor contract harder, and you should feel lateral hip muscles contracting (Figure 3).
   
   
4. It is important not to allow your upper leg to flex forward and to keep your foot level as you lift the upper leg into the air (Figure 4).
   
   
5. Begin by holding your leg in the air for 8-10 seconds. Bring the leg back to the starting position and keep the legs together for 5-10 seconds, then lift the leg into the air once again. Repeat this process three times on both the right and left sides so that the upper leg is held in the air for a total of 30 seconds on each side.
   
   
6. When this becomes too easy, you can make the exercise more challenging by holding the leg in the air for 15 seconds and repeating twice, and finally by holding the leg in the air for a full 30 seconds.