If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do – you have to keep moving forward.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
If you’re into obstacle course racing, I’m sure you know that the bear crawl is more than a raw, primitive way to tap into your wild self. It’s a way to enhance your efficiency with obstacles, and improve mobility and performance as an athlete. It’s a way to improve hand-eye coordination and strength. It’s a way to become a more resilient athlete.
So what exactly is the bear crawl?
The bear crawl is an “animal flow” style bodyweight movement that challenges your muscles from head to toe. By itself, it’s more of an intermediate exercise, but can be scaled up for more advanced athletes or scaled down for beginners. The super cool thing? It can be done anywhere. Personally, I tend to do them from my own Bair cave, but the bear crawl can also be done on trails behind unsuspecting hikers or in rushing rivers while hunting for salmon.
Word of caution: Don’t actually do bear crawls behind unsuspecting people or in rivers, lest you get mistaken for a cuddly grizzly bear.
What muscles and joints does it work?
The bear crawl is a killer core exercise, but also challenges the shoulders, chest, back, quads, glutes, and hips. However, you can place more or less emphasis on many of these groups by altering how you execute the bear crawl and depending on whether you’re static (like an isometric) or dynamic (moving).
Why is it important for OCR?
Bear crawls help with the “push” movement of scaling walls and low crawling obstacles like the barbed wire crawl. The contralateral movement of bear crawls (left hand/right foot, right hand/left foot) also helps with obstacles like the Tyrolean Traverse, where you can see a similar style of movement executed.
If you’ve never done them before or it’s been a while, I’d suggest warming up your wrists which take a lot of force while doing bear crawls. Here are some exercises to help with that.
Wrist Rolls:
Instructions: In front of your chest, press your hands together with your fingers laced. Then slowly roll your wrists as shown (10-15 reps in each direction).
Wrist Extension & Flexion
Wrist Extension
Instructions:
- Get into a 6-point bear crawl position (hands, knees, and toes touching the ground)
- Rotate your left hand to face your left knee
- Gently rock your torso back and forth 10-15 reps
- Repeat with the opposite side
Wrist Flexion
Instructions:
- Get into 6-point bear crawl position
- Flip one hand over into a supinated (palm up) position with fingers pointing to your knee
- Gently rock back and forth 10-15 reps
- Repeat for other hand
Now, if you’re ready to dive in, there are three main types of bear crawls: forward, backward, and lateral. Allow me to demonstrate:
Forward Bear Crawl & Backward Bear Crawl
Forward Bear Crawl
Instructions:
- The first step is getting into a 6-point-contact position with hands, knees, and toes on the floor.
- Corkscrew your elbows so they’re facing your hips.
- Ensure your spine is neutral from head to tail.
- Lift your knees about an inch or two off the ground.
- Move forward in a contralateral fashion (opposite limbs moving at the same time). That is, you move your left leg and right hand, then right leg and left hand, and so on until you’ve gone a particular distance. If you’re a beginner, try 10 feet to start.
Backward Bear Crawl
Instructions:
With the backward bear crawl, you’re doing the same thing as the forward bear crawl, but in reverse. Establish a neutral spine. Knees an inch or two off the ground. Then, move backward in a contralateral fashion: right leg + left hand, then left leg + right hand, and so on.
Lateral Bear Crawl
This should start to look a little familiar by now…
Instructions:
- Establish 6 points of contact.
- Lift your knees an inch or two off the ground.
- This time, move sideways – either left or right – in a contralateral fashion (right hand and left leg, then left hand and right leg).
- Once you’ve moved about 10 feet in one direction, simply move back the other direction to your starting point.
If you’re not quite ready for the bear crawl or are struggling with it, try getting comfortable with the following exercise first, which is more of a regression:
Bear Iso Hold
Instructions:
- Get into a 6-point position
- Corkscrew your elbows (point them back to your hips) with elbows fully extended
- Lift your knees off the ground couple inches
- Establish a neutral spine and neutral head
- Hold 15-30 secs or up to 1 min
Caution
If you’ve had a previous shoulder or wrist injury, please work with a physician or personal trainer to see if this is a movement you can perform safely and what variations may work if the standard bear crawl is a no-go.
No drooping. When executing, brace your core and keep your head, shoulders, and hips in a straight line. That’s the neutral spine I’m talking about. If you don’t do that, you increase your chances of an injury and you also don’t get the full benefit of the exercise.
Not sure if you are maintaining a neutral spine? Have someone put a cone in the middle of your lower back and see if the cone falls off while performing the bear crawl. This is a good test to see if your hips are moving and you’re maintaining core stability.
Putting It All Together
The bear crawl is an awesome exercise for building the core, shoulders, chest, back, quads, and glutes. It also improves mobility in the hips. In obstacle course racing, this is important for not only scaling obstacles like walls, but also for low crawling obstacles like the barbed wire crawl. Of course, if you’d rather just learn the bear crawl for the sake of entertaining your kids, you can learn them for that reason too.
If you’ve never done them before, you can start with a Bear Iso Hold like I’ve shown above. If you’re ready to get down to business, you can try one of the 3 main bear crawl movements: forward, backward, and lateral. Start with something like 10 feet forward, then 10 feet back. Or try 10 feet to the right, then 10 feet back to the left.
Want to test your limits? You can gradually increase the distance you cover. You can try sinking your body and hips lower to the ground. You can move faster. Or try doing them on a hill.
Want more resistance? Add a weighted vest. Or put on a harness tethered to a sandbag and pull like a sled dog.
Don’t be afraid to get real with it either. Get outside. Dig your hands into the earth or some sand on the beach. Smell the grass. Listen to the pounding waves. Enjoy the visceral reliving of one of nature’s mightiest beasts!
Take it a step further and do your bear crawls in the rain! That’s a sure-fire way to boost your resilience. After all, we can’t control how the weather will be on race day so simulating your training in various conditions will help better prepare you for the discomfort of adverse weather.
Was this post helpful for you? Share your bear crawl stories and questions below!
