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The Bear Crawl is a strengthening, stabilizing and cardio exercise that involves nearly all your muscle groups including the ones in your lower body, upper body and core. This dynamic exercise fires up all three of these muscle groups which, in turn, fires up your heart rate and burns calories.
Besides firing up your metabolism, this move is one of the most effective upper body moves around. The muscles in your chest, arms, shoulders, upper back and abdomen will be burning after you finish because your knees can’t touch the ground, so the pressure is constant on your upper body.
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How To Do Bear Crawl
- Crouch down with hands in front of you shoulder-width apart and feet behind you with hips up in the air and eyes forward.
- Crawl forward starting with your right hand and your left foot following with the left hand and the right foot. Take four steps or more depending on space, then turn around and bear walk back.
The Benefits of Bear Crawl
The movements will probably feel awkward at first, because they are not familiar, but stick with it because this exercise gets results! There are many reasons you should incorporate Bear Crawl into your workouts. Here are just a few:
Sculpt Your Arms And Shoulders
You don’t have to pick up heavy weights to shape your upper body and get strong. Bodyweight will do the trick. This move puts the majority of your weight into your upper body so you will notice it in your arms, shoulders, and upper back immediately. It’s a great way to tone your arms without using any equipment.
Work Your Lower Body And Core
While the weight of the body goes into the arms and shoulders, the legs and butt are pushing your along to get you moving, so you’ll definitely feel it in your legs. In order for the legs and arms to coordinate properly you also need a nice strong core to hold you up as you move the Bear Crawl across the floor. Learning how to do Bear Crawl is a great way to engage the internal obliques and the transverse abdominus—the muscles in your core that help keep your belly pulled in tight and your pelvis and spine straight for proper posture. This is because the Bear Crawl requires control and stabilization, while moving!
Get Your Heart Pumping
Moving the weight of your entire body across the floor is hard work! The Bear Crawl will get your heart pumping and your body burning calories. As much as this move will strengthen your muscles, it is a great cardio exercise as well.
What Muscles Does Bear Crawl Work?
Bear Crawl is an awesome full body exercise that works multiple muscles, including your arms, shoulders, chest, back, core and legs. Bear Crawl gets you to move your own bodyweight around on all fours so even though it is low-impact, it is high intensity and gets your heart rate up while it tones your muscles.
How Many Calories Does a Bear Crawl Burn?
People often ask how many calories they are burning in their workouts. Bear Crawl, along with other exercise, will generally burn about 100 calories for every 10 minutes you are working. Just keep your intensity up and make sure you are breathing through your mouth. That won’t be a problem with the Bear Crawl!
The Bear Crawl is a great exercise to add as a warm up, cool down or as part of circuit training.
