According to some women’s magazines, the one-legged bridge lift provides a foolproof way to get toned thighs, a gravity-defying butt, and a beautiful back. According to the directions, to do this exercise you lie on your back with your arms alongside your body with one leg bent at the knee and the foot on the floor. The upper leg is held straight at approximately a 45 degree angle. You then raise the butt (hips) until there is almost a straight line through your leg and body. There should be no arching of the back.
This movement may produce some strengthening of the buttocks and hamstring muscles, but very little of the erector spinae muscles of the lower back. Because there is very little resistance in this movement, it is impossible to get all of the benefits that are described for this movement. But you may get positive results if you executed this exercise for a hundred or more repetitions in each workout.
In addition, according to an expert trainer, you must press the scapulae to the floor to provide a firm base. But doing this will make it much more difficult to raise the hips. In addition it is impossible to isolate a movement to the scapula only. Your shoulders will also be affected. Any movement of the scapula is always accompanied by movement of the arms. But in this exercise the arms are stationary.
It is also stated that you should not use momentum to raise the hips. How one can even develop enough momentum to move the hips upward is a mystery. The key to doing this exercise is to maintain contraction of the muscles to raise the hips against gravity to the needed level.
Although the directions state that you should raise the hips until there is a straight line from the knee to the shoulders, it is actually beneficial to raise the hips even higher. The higher you raise the hips the more you can strengthen the erector spinae of the lower back.
For some reason personal trainers continually recommend not arching the back. But yet, doing this is great for the lower back and can help prevent many back problems Thus, this article is another example of how some women’s magazines mislead women who are interested in getting better bodies with incorrect information.
See Kinesiology of Exercise and Body Shaping for information on great exercises for the thighs, buttocks and lower back.