FAED: Single-Leg Cone Touch
*Freakin’ Awesome Exercise of the Day
It’s amazing how much we use our balance in our everyday life.
Whether you are putting your socks on standing up, getting out of the shower (especially if it doubles as a tub and you have to step over to get in and out), reaching down to pick something up off the floor, or skipping to work in the morning, your balance is always in demand.
It’s the quality that can mean the difference between being on the floor and being upright.
Walk into any run-of-the-mill gym though and you will see nothing but machines designed to lock us into place and remove any demand for kinesthetic awareness.
These types of machines don’t replicate what your body actually undergoes when performing the types of routine tasks I mentioned above.
You have to challenge your body in a more proprioceptively-rich (big word alert!) environment if you want to actually improve your balance and be better at life.
The exercise I am going to share with you guys today isn’t the sexiest move ever invented. However, it’s an exercise that can be quite humbling if you really focus on doing it correctly and it provides a LOT more benefit than what meets the eye.
Like that farmer’s tan???
I feel compelled to share it because I have used it in virtually all of my programs over the past few years.
9 times out of 10, the client will approach the exercise very confidently (it can’t be THAT hard, can it?), only to find themselves frustrated, yet very determined, to do it perfectly.
I hesitate to call the Single-Leg Cone Touch a balance exercise, because it is more than that. It’s also a STRENGTH exercise and can be used in the meat of someone’s program if they are very inexperienced and body-UNaware. This is because the move does a great job of not only activating the glutes, but forcing them to stabilize the hip in multiple planes of motion.
While the motion appears to be purely front-to-back (sagittal), your glute has to control the hip in the frontal and transverse plane as well (this will mainly be dictated by your technique, which I will get into below).
To get a better idea of this, watch anyone do a forward lunge for the first time, or for that matter, just watch someone lunge poorly.
While one of the most common errors involves poor anterior control and the knee shooting over the toe, that’s not the only thing that can go wrong. You will also more than likely notice the front knee “wiggling” as it gets into position. The lunging glute maximus is working overtime to control eccentric hip flexion, adduction, and internal rotation at the hip, and when it doesn’t do this 100%, you will see a resulting sub-par knee position.
Without going into too much more detail, the glute’s ability to control the hip is a HUGE deal. The cone touch improves your balance, while developing stronger glutes that keep your hips from getting too unruly!
The Form
#1: Set-up with one foot directly behind a cone or other small object. The other foot should be slightly off the ground.
#2: Sit back into your support-leg hip, but don’t just sit straight back, drive your glute back and to the right (vice versa when you are on your other leg). This is key, as it helps make the movement more three-dimensional.
#3: Get a slight bend in that knee. While you are hip-hinging, this isn’t exactly a deadlift.
#4: After coming down under control, work on exploding up, pulling the hips through at the top and squeezing the glutes…without bringing the other foot to the ground.
This move can be progressed into Dr. Stuart McGill’s bowler squat, but I like starting with this regression, as I find the bowler squat can prove to be a little difficult right off the bat, not necessarily with the technique, but on what needs to be felt to get the most out of the exercise. But I would recommend going there once you have this one down pat, and then after that, I like progressing to single-leg deadlift variations.
Let’s just say your single-leg deadlift won’t look pretty if this move doesn’t look flawless!
If you don’t already have something like the Single-Leg Cone Touch in your program, begin by using it in your dynamic warm-up, going for 8-10 reps with each leg.
Try it out in your program this week and let me know what you think!
Take the Leap,
Kasey, CSCS
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