Crawling for Total Body Strength

Through crawling as a child, you established neural connections in your brain that allowed it to become more efficient at communicating between the right and left sides (Herbert, et al.). This not only makes you more coordinated, but it also unifies your sensory systems and overall makes you better at processing information.

Why we should do this

Anytime you need to get under and through a tight space (such as the crawl space in your house), descend an uneven surface like when you go on a hike, or do any type of sport like martial arts or wrestling, you are using crawling-type movements. It can also help you with body control in other areas of your fitness life, like with push-ups and any movement requiring coordination, balance or total body strength and agility.

Crawling can be hard for adults

It may take a little time to regain coordination and to get the shoulders and hips to work together, but the pathways you created as child are still there to “dust off.” You could see improvement in this activity very quickly.

What we can do about this

Start crawling - simple as that.

Some of us may have some mobility issues where we may struggle to do this at first, so be sure to talk to your favorite fitness professional, or even you doctor, to see how you might be able to start. You may want to try some quick and easy crawling exercises to try to start regaining this aspect of your youthful physical fitness, or you may wish to play around with mountain climbers, another great exercise that incorporates crawling movements.

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Check out our new Workout Center to explore workout programming designed to help you achieve your goals, regardless of you current ability level.

References

Crawling is associated with more flexible memory retrieval by 9-month-old infants., Herbert J1, Gross J, Hayne H. Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK. J.S.Herbert@sheffield.ac.uk