Animal Movement Exercises: Weird Looks Guaranteed, Powerful Mobility Unlocked

Why should you care about crawling on the ground—and likely getting some weird looks at the gym? Because it’s likely the missing piece in your training.

It builds strength, mobility, and control in ways traditional exercises don’t, unlocking movement freedom you know you’re missing. Maybe you bend over with straight knees to pick stuff up off the floor because you know squatting down will make your knees hurt. Or reaching overhead to grab a dish on the top cabinet shelf is way harder than it should be.

These situations are unfortunately very common and come down to restriction in three main areas:

• Strength you can rely on at any time
• Mobility and flexibility through all joints
• Control and confidence in your ability to move smoothly in any range of motion

How can we make sure we have all of that?

There is this powerful type of exercise often called “animal movement”. In our work we refer to it as locomotion, – more simply – crawling because that’s simply what it is, using our hands and legs in coordination to move around in a variety of ways. As soon as you spend a few minutes doing it, you’ll find it surprisingly effective, and a lot of fun! Here’s Dr. JJ Thomas showing some moves that get her ready for the day ahead, she’s a superb example of how this kind of training can improve how you move and feel.

 

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What Is Locomotion?

Quite simply it’s moving your body through space. You stand up and walk from your desk to get your keys, then you walk out the door to your car.

A little more specifically, locomotion involves the combination of two movement categories:

• Closed Chain – this is where a limb is fixed and the rest of the body moves around it.
• Open Chain – in which a limb moves around freely.

Walking is an easy way to understand this, where the foot on the ground is the base of a closed chain for that leg. As your body is propelled forward, the leg that is swinging forward for the next step is an open chain movement. Put your hands on the ground and crawl and you are now doing that for your upper body too!

So what does this mean beyond just being a neat biomechanics terminology lesson? 🤔

It’s useful because we need both types of movement for our bodies, and unfortunately most of us don’t get enough, and as the old saying goes:

“Use it or lose it!”

One great distinction in locomotion work is that the very act of putting your hands on the ground to move makes your spine and “core” automatically more involved. You simply have to work harder right away, and that’s a good thing! This is a stimulus we don’t always get in our day to day lives, and once you start it improves your upper body strength and mobility very quickly

Another is how the movements change our normal orientation in space. Check out the position of the Bear walk here. Butt up, head down, weight on your hands. 👇

Most of our days are spent upright with the head level and on “top” of the body. In the Bear, you are inverted (upside down) and this simple change of position has a host of distinctive upshots:

• One benefit is the traction of the spine in this position. It puts your spine into light traction, enough to decompress your neck and upper spine a bit. This along with the active motion can be a very good relief of tension.
• Another benefit is the shift in body position, which changes circulatory and respiratory responses. This can counteract the long periods of sitting we have to do at our desks and commuting.

These are just a couple of the broader benefits of practicing locomotion exercises in general, let’s take a look at some specifics.

4 Animal Moves For A Stronger, More Able Body

Our programs on the Bear, Frogger, Monkey, and Crab. All of these movements have you down on all fours, moving your body through space.

These animal exercises are fun, playful movements that go way beyond just being good for warm-ups. When you do them properly, and in a variety of ways, these exercises stimulate and build high levels of strength, flexibility, and body control, everything you need that most sport-specific, singular programs cannot fully cover.

For years, these locomotive patterns have been used in calisthenics, gymnastics, martial arts, and playground games, and their positive effects reach beyond just being fun exercises. Take a look at a few of these benefits for each pattern.

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The goal isn’t to be the “best crawler in the world” instead it’s to do the work so that you gain the benefits. I’m pretty sure most of us aren’t exercising to get better at exercising! We want our time spent in our workouts to directly improve our lives and health. And simply put, crawling around absolutely helps us do that.

Crawling Builds a Better Back and Shoulders

Our backs are very complex, but we can talk about it in the general terms of the big movements it performs: forward bending, backward bending, side bending, and rotation. Keeping our back straight and “long” in crawling movements require our muscles to work hard!

This is where stability and control come into play, as we have to contend with forces and stress from all angles when alternating our arms and legs in a crawl.

Build a Stronger Back

The contralateral movement pattern (right leg moving forward with left arm, and right arm moving forward with left leg) cause spinal rotation and side bending. So we have to use our muscles to control these motions.

It’s important not to think of “locking” the spine in place; instead it’s all about appropriate control of motion.

We don’t want to move around with a stiff back, we want a spine that is strong and mobile at the appropriate times.

The positioning also counteracts the two primary issues in the upper back, the classic slumped forward posture from sitting at a desk or steering wheel, let’s improve that!

Make Stronger Shoulders

The scapula provides the “moving platform” of the shoulder girdle. Reaching forward and overhead, as well as lifting and carrying, the shoulder blades move to help your your hands do their thing.

This situation is reversed when your hands are placed on the ground and your body moves around them. In this case, your shoulder muscles resist different types of forces.

This is necessary for optimal shoulder girdle performance in the many activities we do every day and in sport. Practicing and training them are keys to maintaining and improving shoulder health.These animal movements automatically do this for you!

Also the infamous “rotator cuff ” muscles are activated in a unique way in these positions.

By keeping your elbows close to your body and rotating your fingers outward, and actively pushing through into the ground works the rotator cuff in a more functional way compared to typical band or dumbbell exercises.

While those open-chain exercises are great for strengthening weak muscles, incorporating closed-chain movements as soon as possible provides a more complete approach for better results.

Relax Your Back and Shoulders

Another great benefit is how locomotion helps to relax your back and shoulders. This can seem counterintuitive, how can strengthening exercises help you relax?!

Well, when you crawl, the upper body becomes the stabilizing counterforce as the load comes down through the hands and upper body. This is the opposite of standing, sitting, and walking, where our low backs can take the brunt of that force. So we are getting some relief of low back tension at the same time we build up our upper body strength. That’s a great tw0-for-one deal!

Animal movements can also give your overworked upper traps a much-needed break.

For many people, the upper trapezius is tight and overactive—thanks to stress, tension, and the strain of carrying and lifting throughout the day. But when you flip your body upside down, you give it a chance to do something different.

The upper traps still contract, but under a different and lighter load. This shift helps break the cycle of constant tension, reducing strain and promoting better movement.

Making Locomotion Part of Your Practice

As you can see, it’s not just about crawling around on the ground just for the sake of it. There are numerous benefits to moving mindfully this way, and playing with the various positions and movement.

And that’s true of any type of locomotion. You can get a lot out of making crawling of any kind a prominent part of your practice.

The movements above are the four main exercises you can work on. But there are many more variations you can explore, but often, the ability to explore a movement confidently comes from first getting comfortable with the standard form of that movement.

The Bear, Monkey, Frogger, and Crab are excellent tools to help you work on whatever needs the most work – be it shoulder mobility, elbow strength, spinal stability, or whatever other areas you need to address.

We cover locomotion and the ways it can be used to address strength, flexibility, and motor control in our Elements program.

Elements uses these 4 fundamental locomotor movements to help build a strong foundation, which allows for confident exploration of movement, as well as the ability to move on to more advanced skills and goals down the line.