Why You Should Add the Dead Bug Exercise to Your Ab Routine — and How to Do It!

A small, no-crunch core movement, the dead bug requires a little extra coordination. But once you get the hang of it, you'll be on your way to a stronger foundation, which can decrease back pain, make everyday tasks like walking and lifting heavy objects easier and improve athletic performance. Almost anyone can benefit from the dead bug, as it teaches you to engage your core. Not only is an engaged core required for exercises like squats and deadlifts, it's also a key component to almost all other types of exercise, from archery to DanceFIT and everything in between.

Performed on a regular basis, stabilization exercises like dead bug can also help alleviate chronic lower back pain, especially when paired with walking, according to a June 2019 study in the journal Medicine.

How Do You Do the Dead Bug?

The dead bug is an ab exercise that uses controlled, isolated movements. The starting position is flat on your back, with your arms pointing straight up in the air and both legs bent up at a 90-degree angle, resembling — what else? — a dead bug.

Slowly and with control, you alternate lowering one arm over your head while extending the opposite leg to the ground and bringing them back up while keeping your core engaged and your lower back pressed to the floor.

Step 1: Start Lying on Your Back

• Lie flat on your back with both arms reaching straight toward the ceiling.
• Lift your feet off the ground so your legs are bent at a 90-degree angle.
• Keep your lower back in contact with the floor through the entire duration of the exercise.

Step 2: Extend One Arm and the Opposite Leg

• Slowly and with control, extend one arm and the opposite leg away from each other.
• Move from the hip and the shoulder, keeping your spine steady.
• Keep your limbs long and low to the floor, forming a diagonal line.
• Lower your limbs as far as you can while keeping the lower back on the ground. Fight the impulse to arch your back by tightening your abs, pressing your bellybutton down to anchor your lower back to the floor.

Step 3: Return to Centre and Switch Sides

• Exhale as you return your arm and leg to starting position with the same slow, controlled movement.
• Repeat with the other arm and leg, then return to center again. This counts as one rep.

Tip

If your lower back begins to peel away from the floor as you stretch your limbs, don't extend your arms or legs quite as low to the ground. Keeping your back pressed into the ground is more important than reaching the floor with your hands or feet. Work up to the full range of motion over time.

How Many Dead Bugs Should You Do?

Beginners should start with 3 sets of 5 reps. In two weeks, if you can keep your lower back in contact with the floor for the full extension and duration of the exercise, increase to 4 sets of 8 reps. Work up to 5 sets of 12, and add in variations (like the ones below!) to increase the intensity.

Benefits of Dead Bugs

• Everyone can benefit from a dead bug. Beginners can use it to strengthen and stabilize the core, while more experienced athletes can progress to more advanced variations.
• Starting each workout with a warm-up that includes dead bugs can send a signal to your muscles (from head to toe) that they're about to get busy.
• Dead Bugs build a stronger and more stable core.
• The dead bug targets the lower abs, called the transverse abdominal muscles, and the muscles that run along your spine, the erector spinae, which support your lower back.
• A few rounds will activate your trunk and core through isolation and stabilization to prevent back pain and promote more fluid movement.
• They improve lower back pain. Core stabilizing exercises like the dead bug put the focus on the muscles of the lower abs and pelvis. Improved strength along the entire front of your core provides more support to the back, helping to decrease pain and make everyday movements easier.
• Dead Bugs improve coordination. Moves like dead bug that involve your whole body activate the brain in a pretty remarkable way. The dead bug requires both sides of the brain to work together, because limbs on both sides of the body have to move synchronously (called a contralateral movement pattern). Contralateral movement reinforces the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain to improve coordination, which makes these types of exercises a smart move for people of all fitness levels.
• You can do them at home or at the gym.
• The dead bug exercise doesn't require any equipment, so you can do it just about anywhere, at any time. Incorporating dead bugs at the beginning of your workout program will help prime your core muscles for compound movements.

Dead Bug Modifications

This seemingly simple movement is harder than it looks. Dial back the intensity when you're first starting out with these tweaks.

Supported Dead Bug

The first few times you perform the exercise, use a yoga block or stability ball to keep one arm and one leg in place.

• Lying on your back, raise your hands straight up and lift your feet off the floor by bending your knees to 90 degrees.
• Place a horizontal yoga block or inflated stability ball between your left elbow and right knee.
• Keeping the yoga block or ball in place, raise and lower your right arm and left leg to the floor.
• Lift back up to the starting position. Complete 5 repetitions, then switch sides.
• After several sessions, try 5 reps on each side without the prop while keeping your back flat against the floor.

Tip

This modification also helps you keep your back from arching as you perform the exercise.

Heel Taps

It's fairly common to experience clicking in the hips as the legs extend in dead bug. To troubleshoot, don't extend the knee when you lower your leg to the floor.

• Lying on your back in dead bug starting position, extend your right arm and lower your left leg, keeping the left knee bent at a 90-degree angle the entire time.
• Tap the left heel lightly on the floor.
• Return to starting position.
• Switch sides and repeat. With continued practice, you can work toward fully extending the leg.

In our Fitness PILATES sessions at AinyFit Ltd we practice this Heel Tap version (without the arm movements) and we call it Table Top Tap Down and this is a really good starting point for working up to the full Dead Bug exercise. Below you will find a video of how to perform the Table Top Tap Down, which I hope you will find helpful. This, along with so many other stability and mobility exercises are all taught in our Fitness PILATES classes in Totton and Calmore near Southampton in Hampshire and we cater for all levels of experience. If  you'd like to find out more about our Fitness PILATES Classes, please click here.