Animal Flow Workout Review – Bodyweight Movements for Physical Expression

Animal Flow is a ground-based bodyweight movement system created by Mike Fitch.

If you’ve seen it on Instagram, you’ve probably watched someone do something that looks part yoga, part breakdancing, part nature documentary. And yeah, it can look intimidating. But the system is designed so you can start simple, chaining together basic crawling patterns on day one, and build complexity over time.

I’ve known Mike for over a decade. We’ve created products together, co-taught seminars, and a lot of our GMB trainers hold Animal Flow certifications alongside ours.

We share a philosophy about movement: it should be accessible, it should be fun, and it should actually make you more capable in the rest of your life. So I can give you a straight assessment of what Animal Flow does well and where it might leave you wanting more.

How Animal Flow Works: The Six Components

The AF system is organized around six categories of movement. Each one has a specific purpose, and you can mix and match them to create different kinds of sessions.

Wrist Mobilizations come first, every time. You’ll be spending a lot of time with your hands on the ground, so AF takes wrist preparation seriously. This is something we emphasize in our programs too, and we have a full wrist prep guide if you want to get a head start. It matters, and it’s smart that AF makes it a formal part of the system rather than something you’re expected to figure out on your own.

Activations use two foundational positions, Beast and Crab, to wake up your body and build awareness before you start moving. Think of these as the system’s baseline: if you can hold a solid Beast and a solid Crab, you have the raw ingredients for everything else.

Form Specific Stretches are full-body mobilizations that build flexibility through controlled movement. They’re active, not passive. You’re building strength through the range, which is the right approach.

Traveling Forms are the animal locomotion movements, what AF calls the ABCs: Ape, Beast, and Crab. These are the crawling patterns that most people associate with the program. Moving your body across the ground using contralateral patterns (opposite arm and leg working together) builds coordination and body awareness in a way that upright training can’t replicate.

Switches and Transitions are dynamic movements that connect one form to another. Underswitches, kickthroughs, scorpions. This is where things start to feel creative.

Flows are where you put it all together. You chain movements into sequences that run continuously, almost like choreography, except the goal is to eventually improvise your own rather than memorize someone else’s.

The whole system is well organized. Mike designed it so the pieces fit together logically, and you can see the thought that went into making each component serve the next one. If you enjoy learning movement systems, the architecture is satisfying.

What You Can Get Right Now

Animal Flow has evolved a lot since we first reviewed it. Here’s what the current product lineup looks like.

Animal Flow On Demand

This is a streaming subscription: $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year, with a 14-day free trial. It includes tutorial videos for all Level 1 and Level 2 movements (taught by Mike), follow-along classes at beginner through advanced levels, and pre-designed flows that get updated weekly. There’s also a “Deconstructed” series for people who can’t yet do the standard movements, which is a thoughtful addition.

The content quality is high. Teaching is clear, production is solid, and there’s enough material to keep you busy for a long time. New flows drop every Monday. Available through the app on iOS and Android, as well as through a web browser and TV apps.

Worth noting: the Android app has gotten complaints about freezing and stability issues. If that bothers you, the web version is a reliable fallback.

Workshops and Certification

This is where Animal Flow goes deep. They run a three-level workshop certification program, available both in-person and as live online courses via Zoom.

Level 1 ($695) is a two-day intensive covering 30 movements with regressions, progressions, and variations. It’s open to everyone, fitness professionals and enthusiasts alike. Fitness professionals can test out afterward to become Certified AF Instructors. Everyone else can earn the “Official Flowist” designation.

Level 2 builds on L1 with 10 more movements, tuck balance progressions, energy transfers, and tempo changes. You start designing more complex flows and working on coaching skills.

Level 3 ($795) is the advanced tier, taught by Mike personally. Two full days of instruction covering the four pillars of Animal Flow, advanced movements, and flow performance. This is where coaching ability, personal practice, and theoretical understanding come together.

They also offer an Advanced Transitions online course with lifetime access, and Infinity Flow mini-workshops (4-hour events focused on learning a specific flow) in cities around the world.

Finding a Local Class

Animal Flow maintains an instructor directory on their site. Many certified coaches run group classes or integrate AF into personal training sessions. If you learn best in person with someone coaching you through the movements, this is a good option to explore.

What Animal Flow Is Good For

I genuinely like Animal Flow, and I recommend it for the right person.

If you want to get comfortable on the ground, AF is excellent. A lot of people spend their entire training life upright, lifting, running, standing on machines. Getting down on all fours, supporting your weight through your hands, moving laterally and rotationally through space: this is movement territory that most training programs ignore completely. AF addresses it directly and systematically.

If you’re looking for creative physical expression, the flow design component is where AF really shines. Once you have enough vocabulary, you can start improvising your own movement sequences. That creative dimension, the feeling of “playing” with movement rather than just executing reps, is something a lot of experienced trainees are hungry for.

If you train in martial arts, BJJ, or other grappling sports, the ground-based movement patterns translate directly. Several AF practitioners come from grappling backgrounds, and the crossover makes sense. The contralateral coordination, the comfort in quadrupedal positions, the ability to transition fluidly between positions: all of it feeds right into mat work.

If you want something you can do anywhere with zero equipment, AF delivers. All you need is enough floor space to crawl a few steps in each direction. Ground-based movement is as portable as training gets.

Where Animal Flow Has Limits

Every good system has boundaries, and being honest about them is how you make a smart decision.

AF is a movement vocabulary, and that’s different from a training program. It teaches you components beautifully. You’ll learn individual movements, you’ll learn transitions, and you’ll see how they fit together into flows. What it doesn’t give you is a defined starting point that progresses you through increasing complexity and challenge over time. There’s no built-in mechanism that says “you’re ready for the next level” or that systematically addresses your specific weaknesses. If you’re someone who thrives with open-ended practice and can self-direct your own progression, that’s a feature. If you want a structured path with clear benchmarks, you’ll need to bring that structure yourself or get it from a coach.

The pre-designed flows are short. Most of the flows on On Demand run a few minutes. You can repeat them, chain them together, or use them as part of a larger session, but AF doesn’t hand you a complete daily training session the way a structured program does. The classes are longer and more complete, but the core “flow” format is designed as a component, and you’ll probably want to build a session around it rather than treat it as the whole workout.

There’s a gap between learning individual moves and flowing with them. The tutorials teach you how to perform each movement. The flows show you what it looks like when everything comes together. The middle step, getting from “I can do a traveling beast” to “I can integrate a traveling beast into a smooth, controlled flow,” is largely left to the practitioner. This is where workshops and in-person coaching fill a real gap. The On Demand product gives you the pieces, but bridging from learning to performance takes practice time and often some outside feedback.

How Animal Flow and Elements Work Together

Mike used to recommend Elements to his certified coaches as a way to build the foundational movement patterns. And we’ve always recommended Animal Flow as a great complement to our programs. That mutual respect exists because the two systems solve different problems.

Elements is structured progressive training. You start where you are, and the program advances you through increasing complexity and challenge over time. Each session uses our 5Ps framework (Prep, Practice, Play, Push, Ponder) with autoregulation built in, so you’re always working at the right level for your body on that day. You build strength, flexibility, and motor control through the Bear, Monkey, Frogger, and Crab, and the program adapts as you improve. It’s delivered through the GMB app with daily sessions ready to go.

Animal Flow gives you the creative vocabulary. Once you have the physical capabilities, the strength in your wrists, the comfort on the ground, the coordination to move smoothly between positions, AF gives you a system for self-expression through movement.

The practical pairing looks like this: use Elements to build (or rebuild) your foundational capabilities. Use Animal Flow for creative practice and flow development. Come back to Elements when you hit a wall and need to address a specific limitation. A number of coaches are certified in both systems because they complement each other that cleanly.

If you want the full breakdown of how the two compare, we’ve written a detailed comparison of Elements and Animal Flow.

The Bottom Line

Animal Flow is a well-designed system that does what it sets out to do. If you want a creative, self-directed movement practice built on ground-based patterns, it’s worth trying. Start with the 14-day free trial on On Demand and see how the movements feel in your body.

If you want structured, progressive training that gives you a starting point, advances you through increasing challenge, and adapts to your level each day, that’s what we built Elements for. Many of our best clients do both.