Want to work your midline, strengthen and improve shoulder stability, and burn your legs in the process? Look no further than the bear crawl…⠀
We’re not talking about the booty-in-the-air, straight-legged version that you might have seen done in some bootcamp burner of a workout. That variation might serve a purpose, but it’s also potentially more injurious and not nearly as beneficial as a foundational crawl.⠀
As a baby, before we could walk, we learned how to crawl, and moved in a fairly coordinated fashion to get from point A to point B. But as we got older, we lost this skill. Bird dog and dead bug exercises can help develop this movement pattern again, but the king of the foundational crawls is the bear crawl.⠀
To perform this movement correctly, the goal is to keep the knees stacked below the hips, and the hands stacked below the shoulders – while the bear crawl is a kind of moving plank, you don’t want your body to stretch out into a traditional plank. While you are in motion, your abs are braced and your back is flat and still. We are looking to have the spine in a position where you could support a plate of food without toppling it over. Finally, the left hand/right foot move forward at the same time, while the right hand/left foot are synchronised. ⠀
Moving in a slow and controlled fashion, bear crawls can be used as a warmup, strength component, or accessory exercise at the end of a training session. They work on upper body and midline strength, joint stability, and coordination – there’s really no part of your body that ISN’T working!⠀
Bear crawls also have infinite variations: you can go forward, backward, perform stationary shoulder taps, rows…even pull or push weighted items to add complexity.⠀
Getting back to foundational movements can move us closer to our goals – let’s start you moving towards your goals by booking a FREE No Sweat Intro today.