title: A clinical tool for office assessment of lumbar spine stabilization endurance: prone and supine bridge maneuvers.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  : To assess the validity and reliability of an office-based surrogate measure of lumbar spine-stabilization endurance capability; to establish norms and reliability in an asymptomatic group; and to compare their measures with those from a group of chronic mechanical low-back pain patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  : Eight healthy subjects participated in the tool-validation portion of the study that consisted of surface electromyographic (EMG) measurements of core muscle activation during prone and supine bridging. Subsequently, normative and test-retest reliability measures of prone and supine bridging duration were recorded from 43 subjects without back pain and were compared with those of 32 subjects with chronic mechanical low-back pain.
  
  
  RESULTS
  : Surface EMG indicated significantly preferential activation of anterior core muscles during prone bridging and posterior core muscles during supine bridging. Mean bridge durations for subjects without back pain were 72.5 +/- 32.6 (mean +/- SD) secs in prone and 170.4 +/- 42.5 secs in supine. They were significantly less in subjects with back pain: 28.3 +/- 26.8 secs in prone and 76.7 +/- 48.9 secs in supine. Test-retest reliability using Pearson's correlation for prone and supine bridging was 0.78 and 0.84, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  : Bridging maneuvers seem to be practical, reliable, and valid methods of reflecting lumbar spine-stabilization endurance capability. Prone bridging preferentially challenges core flexors, whereas supine bridging recruits primarily the core extensors; both are compromised in patients with low-back pain.
authors.forename: Kerri L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Schellenberg
authors.forename: J Michael
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.forename: K Ming
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: Robert S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Burnham
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004576:Electromyography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000145:classification*; D008159:Lumbar Vertebrae; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010807:Physical Endurance; D016684:Prone Position; D016683:Supine Position