Core Rotation Strength: Windshield Wiper Exercise for BJJ

Hey guys, Joel Kreska, Sport Physiotherapist. Today we're going to go over my favorite trunk rotational core exercise. I call it the windshield wiper. I'm sure there's lots of different names that are out there for it or windshield wiper is good for something else.

But essentially what we're going to try and do today is go over a way of strengthening our torso without needing any other devices. Again, the key concept here when we're thinking about thoracic rotation strengthening, which again, in my opinion, is one of the most poorly done things in sports, let alone jujitsu, considering how much rotation happens in jujitsu. So on one one hand we can, you know, strengthen where we're sitting or standing and we're rotating against resistance using the cable or those kinds of things. And perhaps we'll get into that in another video.

But today we're going to go over again, the windshield wiper. So what we want to do is we're going to lay on our back with our hips up close to a wall, especially when you're learning how to do it later on. You don't need to. But what I'm going to do is get my hips relatively close to the wall and my hands out here, my feet up on the wall.

I'm going to tighten my tummy and lift my feet just barely off the wall. Then I'm going to rotate my pelvis one way and then rotate the other, making sure that my shoulder blades do not come off the mat. So if I rotate this way, I'm going to focus on this shoulder, making sure it doesn't come off. If that is you're going way too far and it's just not beneficial.

The two key things here are making sure that you can breathe and making sure that your shoulders don't come off, right? Because we're trying to get that dissociation between your pelvis and your shoulder. And as you improve, we're going to then start to go farther and farther down and then back up. Now, the reason that we use the wall is we want to make sure that we are rotating in a very clear pathway.