Advanced Bunny Hops
Key notes
- Type of exercise: Plyometric
- Primary Muscles used: Gastrocnemius and soleus.
- Good for: Developing elastic recoil, power, and complex movement patterns.
- When to use during rehab: End
Equipment options
If you’re doing this exercise with a patient in clinic, it’s best to use a set of short hurdles. If the patient is doing this exercise at home, they can use any selections of objects instead of the hurdles, so long as they are not too wide or tall as this could result in injury.
Method
- Start by laying out a couple of hurdles in a straight line. At this point lay down 2 further hurdles – one 90 degrees to the left and one 90 degrees to the right of this.
- Have the patient perform bunny hops down the line of hurdles, completing 90 degree turns in correspondence with the hurdles.
Escalating Difficulty
There are a couple of ways of increasing the difficulty of this exercise. The first is to have the patient do the bunny hops on one leg instead of two. The second is to make the movements more complex by including 90 degree and 180-degree turns into the exercise.
