Crawling patterns and animal flows have gotten incredibly popular in many training programs. And for good reason. They do a ton of amazing things for you. But like most things in the training world, we can get carried away from the real reason we are doing something. And often times an just be looking at an exercise on the surface, you may miss the subtle details to it.
Crawling is something that I try and incorporate with all of my clients, not just those training for an obstacle course race. Many will see the obvious benefit when training for an OCR. You will probably crawl in the race at some point so it is good to train for it. While this is true, this is not the main reason I use crawling in so many workouts. And really how many are actually bear crawling under barbed wire at a Spartan Race? Come on, admit it. You roll with everyone else.
Let us look at some deeper benefits and reasons why you need to be crawling in most of your workouts.
Crawling is a fundamental developmental pattern that we learn as infants to move around. Crawling stimulates the brain and helps improve the communication of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This is how we will eventually learn to coordinate movement for walking and other higher level motor skills. When infants skip this major developmental step, they may have coordination issues later on that may take longer to learn. (Not always though. Don’t freak out if you or your kids do skip this step.)
The important aspect of crawling to consider is this coordination of arm and leg movement. This is the main reason we are training with crawling. To improve this arm leg pattern, all while stabilizing the core so energy is transferred properly.
Crawling will eventually lead to walking and climbing as we stand upright. We first learn these skills or pattern by actually crawling. Then when we develop the strength and stability to stand up, we turn that into walking. It is surprising still to see how many people how issues with the crawling pattern. And when we see an issue there, I’m willing to but there is an issue with their running.
Picture a running who barely uses their arms. They might look ok from the waist down, but when you see their arms and shoulders they are stuck in place. They may rotate slightly, but they are losing a tremendous amount of power by not involving the arms correctly. Plus, like Molly Shannon’s character on Seinfeld, they will get made fun of for not using their arms at all.
Or we might see someone who struggles crawling have issues when climbing. They can’t seem to get the arm reach and opposite leg push to climb over a wall or cargo net. These higher level challenges must first be addressed in more fundamental forms.
So, let’s look at crawling. It shouldn’t be that hard right? Just get on the floor and crawl. What is so difficult? While it seems like a simple move, this exercise requires a tremendous amount of coordination of strength, stability, and mobility while the arms and legs are doing different movements. While we can pick apart many aspects of crawling, I want to focus on the two biggest mistakes I see.
Mistake #1 – Not Coordinating Arm and Leg Movement
As I mentioned earlier, imagine someone running with no arm movement. Or better yet, imagine someone walking and they stepped with their right leg, then left arm swung forward, then left leg and right arm. It would look like a robot walking down the street. Instead we want to see a fluid, coordinated movement with the arms and legs moving simultaneously. This simultaneous movement allows for proper strength and power to propel yourself forward into the next step.
As an added bonus, when you perform your crawls this way, it dramatically increases the need for stability in the shoulders, hips, and core since only 1 arm and 1 leg will be in contact with the ground as you move.
So the takeaways here are to practice with simultaneous movement. It might be a good idea to start on all fours so your knees are still on the ground. Just practical crawling like a baby with your arm and leg moving at the same time. Try this moving forwards and backwards, even sideways. The key is to coordinate the arms and legs properly.
Another great drill, when you are ready to lift your knees off the ground, is to crawl in place. Take one step forward with your right arm and left leg and then step back to the start. Repeat it on the opposite side.
If you find some of these moves are too hard you may need to build up your strength in the crawl position. Just start on all fours and lift your knees 1 inch off the ground. Hold for 30seconds and relax. Get really strong here before you start crawling. If you don’t have the strength you will just continue to teach your body poor movement patterns.
Mistake #2 – Not Keeping A Stable Spine
As you crawl we need balance. You need the ability to move your arm and opposite leg forward, while creating stability at your spine. Your “core” is the connection of the upper and lower body. It is made up a lot of different muscles to accomplish this. It connects the upper and lower body by helping energy transfer through. Just picture a sprinter. When they push out of the blocks you see the front foot driving into the block, sending the back foot forward. At the same time the arms are working together to power into their acceleration.
This movement would not be possible, without a strong stable core holding steady to transfer that power through. A great analogy is picturing a garden hose. If you had a brand new hose just out of the package and hooked it up to the water, it will pump water out full blast. But after years of misuse and being left out in harsh weather, a small hole might pop up. Now the water leaking out is minimal at first, but what happened to the powerful spray that once came out of the nozzle? It doesn’t have the same strength anymore. And the bigger that hole gets the weaker the spray will be.
Our body will work the same way. If we have these “holes” in our core, we cannot create the powerful movement we are looking for. Not to mention, that hole is taking a beating with every use and getting bigger. And will eventually break with enough uses. We don’t want that to be our spine during a race or workout.
So we use this exercise to create a stable core and allow us to be as efficient as possible. Next time your try a crawling exercise take your shoes off and see if you can make it the entire distance with your shoe on your lower back. If you lose your shoe you know you were not staying stable.
Try some of these drills out in your next workout. I recommend doing them to start your workout to better prep your body for other movements to come. Plus these might be more difficult than you think and it won’t hurt to be fresh when you attempt them.
Keep training smarter!
Mike Deibler MS, CSCS, SGX
OCR Underground
