Dead Bug

How to do the dead bug

1. 1

   Lie on your back and point both arms at the ceiling, hands above your shoulders.

2. 2

   Lift your legs until your knees are stacked over your hips and your shins are level with the floor.

3. 3

   Breathe out, draw your ribs down and let your lower back rest firmly on the floor.

4. 4

   Reach one arm back past your head while the opposite leg slides out long, both moving together.

5. 5

   Stop while they hover above the floor, or sooner if your lower back wants to lift, and bring them back.

6. 6

   Switch to the other arm and leg, and keep alternating with your back flat for the whole set.

Muscles worked by the dead bug

The abdominal wall does the work. The rectus abdominis at the front, the deep transversus abdominis and the obliques keep your ribs and pelvis still while an arm and a leg move away from your centre. The hip flexors hold the moving leg up and work harder the longer and lower it reaches. In an EMG study with 60 adults, the dead bug activated both the deep and the front abdominal muscles more than the bird dog and an abdominal drawing-in exercise. An ultrasound study found a larger increase in transversus thickness in the dead bug than in four other Pilates exercises.

Common dead bug mistakes

• Letting the lower back arch

  When your back lifts off the floor, the abs have stopped holding the pelvis and the exercise loses its point. Shorten the reach until your back stays down for every rep.

• Rushing the reps

  Quick swings let momentum carry the arm and leg out and back. Move slowly enough that you could stop at any point of the rep.

• Holding your breath

  A held breath makes you stiff without teaching your abs to brace while you breathe. Breathe out as you reach and in as you come back.

• Moving only the leg

  The opposite arm reaching back makes the trunk work against two levers at once. Move arm and leg together and bring them back together.

• Resting the heel on the floor

  Touching down gives the abs a break at the hardest point. Let the leg hover just above the floor and turn around from there.

Dead bug tips from the Muscla training logic

• In Muscla's plan the dead bug is a bodyweight exercise with a range of 8 to 15 reps, whatever your goal. When every set reaches 15 clean reps, you stay at 15 until the block ends.
• Abs are optional in Muscla's plan: they get sets when time allows, never at the expense of the eight main muscles. Muscla plans no warm-up sets for bodyweight exercises.
• End each set about one rep before your back starts to lift. Muscla aims isolation work at one rep in reserve, two if you are new to training.
• Rest 75 seconds between sets when you train for muscle, 90 seconds for strength and 60 seconds for other goals.
• Make it harder in small steps: reach farther, move slower or hold the stretched position briefly. In a study of four stabilization exercises at five difficulty levels, trunk muscle activity generally rose with each level.

Dead bug sets and reps

The table shows the app's range and rests for the dead bug as a bodyweight exercise: 8 to 15 reps for every goal, no warm-up sets and no question after the last set. Once every set reaches 15, you stay at the top of the range until the block ends.

Dead bug alternatives

1. Cable Kneeling Crunch→
2. Hanging leg raise
3. Reverse Crunch→
4. Lying leg raise flat bench
5. Bodyweight incline side plank
6. Crunch floor
7. Band horizontal pallof press
8. Kneeling plank tap shoulder (male)
9. Front plank with twist
10. Power point plank

Dead bug questions