Animal Flow| Scorpion

Animal Flow is a ground based movement system that leverages multi-planar movements, transitions and various crawling patterns to create an effective form of exercise.  

Scorpion, is a unique exercise with roots in Yoga, yet adapted and modernized by Animal Flow.  

The benefits of practicing exercises like Scorpion on a regular basis are many, and discussed throughout this post.  

Scorpion is a versatile exercise.  We can slip it into warm ups, workouts, movement sequences and improvised flows.   

The aim of this post is to give you information on Scorpion technique, benefits and ideas on how to integrate this great exercise into your current or future workout regimen.  

More information on Animal Flow will be provided at the end of the article.  

Benefits of the Scorpion exercise

• Lengthening of the hamstrings and lats
• Opening up and activating the hips
• Thoracic spine extension and rotation
• Shoulder strength and stability
• Rotational core training
• Uniquely challenging multi-planar movement
• Ground based, bodyweight, equipment free, minimal space requirements

Just one exercise, all of those benefits. 

Ground based movement exposes your movement flaws.

To be blunt, expect to feel stiff and weak.

Newbies to ground based movement training should anticipate getting tripped up for a while.  

The mechanics of the new exercises are foreign, the spatial awareness is new, the timing, tension, breathing, range of motion, etc… is new.  

Consistent practice yields improvement. 

Scorpion Movement Technique

Bottom Position

The bottom position of Scorpion involves trunk flexion and a bit of rotation.  

You can see my spine flexed, core hollowed out.  

Cues:

–  Eyes toward the hands

–  Shoulders over the hands

–  Round the back slightly to make room for the knee coming across

Slide the knee across the midline of the body to the opposite side elbow. 

Once there, “kiss” the knee cap to the elbow.  

Reverse the motion to start the upward phase of Scorpion.

* Tip:  Limit momentum from the cross-body knee touch.  Move slow and with control.  If you cannot touch the knee to the opposite side elbow without compensating, that’s fine!  Work the range of motion that you’re able to control.  

 **Warning: core cramping possible and likely***

Driving the knee across the midline to the opposite side elbow is difficult shit.  

People who practice this type of training regularly (Yogis, etc) make it look easy, but it’s not.  

Cramps and whole body shaking is likely.  

Top Position

At the top of the Scorpion, the body moves into trunk extension and rotation. 

Cues:

–   Ears between the arms

–   Keep anchored leg as straight at the knee, heel down.

–   “Reach” with the elevated foot, squeeze the glute

–   Relax the jaw and neck (breathe)

 

What you should FEEL during Scorpion…

Moving is a multi-sensory experience.  

You hear, see and feel with every movement.  

Knowing what to feel can speed up the learning curve with new movements and also give feedback that you’re doing the movement correctly. 

Bottom position of Scorpion

•  Shoulder and chest burn from stabilizing bodyweight in the high plank position.  
•  Intense core burn from the cross body knee to elbow.

Top position of Scorpion:

•  Suspended glute is WORKNG HARD, feel the burn here.  
•  Hip flexor stretch. 
•  Backside stretch running down the anchored leg from glute to the heel.  
•  Side body stretch from the rotation (mainly the lats) 

Personally, my lats (hips to arm pits) get a big stretch while practicing scorpion. 

How to Use Animal Flow Scorpion into Workouts

Scorpion is extremely versatile for workouts.  

Slip it into warm ups, the workout itself or use it as part of a flow.  

Warm Up

Animal flow exercises are ideal to use in warm ups.  

Here’s how: 

Active mobility training

Ground Based Conditioning (Animal Flow)

Resistance Training

Cardio

Cool-down

This is a very simple and effective workout template.  

Spend 15-20 minutes working through foam rolling mobility and movement flow.  Keep it brief and focused.  

Resistance Training

Scorpion is a great filler exercise when paired with lifts (chin ups, squats, deadlifts, lunges, pressing, etc).  

Filler exercises don’t take away from your main lifts while being more productive with rest periods.  It’s active rest.  

Here’s tri-set that uses Scorpion as a filler exercise:

A1)  Chin Up

A2) Squat

A3)  Alternating Scorpion

Chin-ups training upper body pulling, squats for lower body pushing, and Scorpion for a bodyweight based multi-planar movement.  

Cardio-Strength

10 Kettlebell Swings

10 Push Ups

10 Alternating Jumping Split Squats

10 Rows

 Scorpions 5 each leg

Perform 5 rounds of this circuit for a time efficient total body cardio-strength workout.  

Movement Sequences 

For beginners to movement flow, moving beyond isolated exercise practice is best done with movement sequences.

Generally, a movement sequence is 2-3 exercises strung together.  

Sequences introduce another incredible benefit of flow training, transitions.  

Transitioning between exercises requires careful coordination, strength and control, balance, timing and spatial awareness.

The benefits of ironing out transitions between movements until they are seamless cannot be overstated.

Movement Flow

Ready to flow?  Perfect.

Set a timer and go.  

I’ve dabbled with 20-25+ minute improvised flow sessions.

Start with simple crawling exercises integrated with switches and transitions.

Add in traditional exercises like:  push-ups, planks, squats, lunges, hinging, pulling, etc.  

Check out this video

Explore the space.  MOVE!

Multi-Planar Movement Training KICKS ASS

Animal Flow movements are multi-planar, and very unique compared to what most people are doing in daily workouts. 

Exercises like the Scorpion move the entire body through a unique range of motion, challenging the core, hips and shoulders.

Ground based movements condition your body’s spatial awareness, strength, mobility, stability and efficiency.

Lunges, squats, kettlebell swings, over head pressing, push ups and vertical pulling exercises such as pull ups and chin ups are all great exercises, but they lack rotation.

Training your body to move well on a whim, in a wide variety of environments, on different terrain, over/under/through various obstacles or while completing unique tasks amplifies your movement capacity.  

If you’re currently lifting weights and doing cardio, GOOD!  

This article is NOT a call to stop doing those activities.  

Animal Flow style training and a quality resistance/cardio training regimen can and should coexist.  

Combining strength, conditioning and forms of natural movement creates the new gold standard in fitness. 

Scorpion is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ground based movement.  There’s so much more to explore. 

If you really want to received full benefit of flow work and ground based training, I highly recommend checking out Animal Flow.

 

Benefits of the Crab Reach Exercise

The Crab Reach is a great bodyweight exercise with a whole bunch of options of use before, during and after a workout.  

For a simple bodyweight move, this exercise offers a lot of benefits. 

Benefits of the Crab Reach

• Posterior chain activation and hip extension
• Active Thoracic Mobility
• Anterior body stretch (hip flexors, quads, torso)
• Shoulder stability/endurance emphasis in loaded shoulder
• Trunk rotation
• Right and Left Side 
• Low-impact

Combat Sitting 

The Crab Reach is a great exercise to battle/off-set the negative effect of long duration sitting. 

It’s not “the cure”, the only tool or the “best” tool, but it’s a good one to implement on a regular basis.   

Reversing aches and pains caused by primarily long duration sitting requires dedication, discipline, and volume.  There is no quick fix.  

A quick hip flexor stretch, thoracic mobilization, and glute bridge are not going to cancel out 8+ hours of sitting in the same turtle-like, wound up position.  

Body restoration takes time, effort, consistency and volume.  Lots of repetitions, likely lots of time and an aggressive mindset.  Assuming you’re doing everything right, expect improvements over time.

Most people slump like a turtle while sitting.  Sitting like a slouchy turtle for 8-10 hours per day, 5 days per week isn’t good for our bodies.

We become the positions we use most.  

Fill in Gaps with Movement Training

Strength and conditioning built from traditional resistance training can benefit greatly from practicing multi-planar movements like the crab reach.   

Deadlifts are great.  Chin-ups are great.  Rows, push-ups and rotational core training are all great.

These are fundamental movements to build a strong body.  

But there are movement gaps leftover from each of these exercises.  

Once you’re on the floor crawling, transitioning between locomotion exercises, you find out pretty quick there’s a difference between squatting up and down with lots of weight on the bar and moving gracefully through space.  

It’s humbling. 

Exploring bodyweight oriented movement is a key piece of the fitness puzzle that will improve your movement IQ and create a well-functioning body.  

What’s a well-functioning body?

Strong (proportionate to what a person needs to thrive in daily life), mobile, confident in many different postures/positions/patterns, conditioned, free of aches and pains. 

Ground-based conditioning is a great way to backfill any gaps resistance training is not designed to address.  

Free-flowing, multi-planar fitness. 

Practicing postures and movement patterns less common to daily life. 

Improving strength, mobility and stability in uncommon movements make everyday exercises feel easy. 

Rotation

Looking at the average person’s exercise favorites, it’s usually a shortlist made up of linear resistance training and a sprinkling of cardio. 

Break out of the linear matrix. 

Every repetition of Crab Reach moves the body through a multi-planar, active range of motion.  

Through the range of motion, the body will extend and rotate.  

The twist is visible from the hip flexor, moving diagonally through the mid-section to the loaded shoulder.  

How to Use Crab Reach in Workouts

Ground-based bodyweight movement is extremely versatile.   

Keeping it simple, here are a few different options to integrate the crab reach into daily fitness:

•  In the warm-up
•  Filler exercise during a lifting session
•  As part of a flow sequence

Crab Reach can be practiced in isolation or as a combination. 

I recommend practicing new movements in isolation to increase focus on technique. 

Practicing an exercise in isolation is better to understand the mechanics and demands is best. 

Isolating the exercise will give you the opportunity to focus on the mechanics of the movement and spatial awareness.

Warming Up with the Crab Reach

Movement flow exercises are perfect for pre-workout warm-ups. 

These movements are generally dynamic, full range of motion exercises that require movement into and out unique body positions, angles and tempo.  

Crab reach can serve as a valuable movement prep before exercises like deadlifts or kettlebell swings.

Crab Reach as Part of the Workout

Positioning the Crab Reach as part of a Tri-Set is a great way to isolate and practice the exercise while staying active/productive during a strength training session. 

Here’s an example a simple Tri-Set:

Exercise A) Front Squats

Exercise B) Chin-Ups

Exercise C)  Crab Reach

Crab Reach acts as a non-competing exercise with the front squats and chin-ups. 

Flow Training

Crab Reach can be used to create a simple bodyweight flow.

Start with two exercises separated by a switch to keep it simple.  Here’s an example:

The video above is an example of a simple movement sequence.

For an added challenge, increase the number of exercises in the sequence to 4, 5, 6 and beyond. 

Adding more exercises to create longer flows is great for the mind-body connection. 

The ultimate goal of movement training is improvisation, which is essentially moving without a plan.

Improvisational movement is an idea I plucked from Ido Portal’s movement hierarchy, which looks like this:

Isolation —> Integration —>  Improvisation

Read more about Ido Portal Method here.

Reps/Sets/Time 

In the beginning, keep the reps low.  

6-8 reps per side is a good place to start.

Focus on a slow and controlled tempo through the fullest range of motion you can make happen.

After you are feeling good about the mechanics, increase the volume. 

Don’t be shy about bumping up the reps to 15-20 reps per side.  Setting a timer can be a nice option.  

Not interested in counting reps?  

Set a timer and go.  Alternating right and lefts for 2-5 minute timed sets can free’s you up from having to count reps. 

Summary…

• Bodyweight ground-based movements are effective for building strength, mobility, endurance, and movement IQ
• Crab Reach is a versatile exercise that can be performed anywhere and anytime.  
• Benefits of the Crab Reach include posterior chain activation, anterior body lengthening, thoracic mobility, body awareness in space.
• The Crab Reach is great to include in warm-ups, during the workout or as flow training.  
• The Crab Reach is an effective exercise to help mitigate aches/pains from sitting, restore function.

Want to Go Deeper? Check This Out…  

Vahva Fitness has created a fully streamable bodyweight-based movement program called Movement20XX.

The movement curriculum in Movement20XX is progressive, challenging, and scalable for beginners, intermediates and all the way up to people seeking movement mastery.   

Movement training is easily scaled to suit each person’s skill level.

Movement20XX is one of a small number of hand-picked online fitness programs I support. 

 

Movement Training for Beginners

The beginner mindset, frequently called the White Belt mindset, is extremely powerful.  

So while the title of this blog post may be directed at “beginners”, the content is for everyone.  

I intend to share a 20,000-foot view of movement training.  

It’ll be packed with exercise and movement sequence videos, descriptions, pictures, links to valuable resources and ideas on why movement, a rarely talked about sub-category of fitness, might be exactly what you need.

And nothing expert-level here, just a few basics of movement training.  

I believe in integrating many different methods.  

Over the years, I’ve evolved from being a “traditional resistance training + high-intensity interval training” advocate, to:

a crawling, climbing, steady-state aerobic enduring, macebell wielding, kettlebell flow, rowing, running, skierg shredding, brachiating, flow sequence dabbling, active mobility training, gymnastics exploring movement enthusiast.  

The day I stepped outside the box of traditional resistance training, a whole world of exciting physical challenges began to appear. 

Locomotion and ground-based conditioning changed my entire outlook on what a workout can be.  

All fitness gains accomplished from my home gym.

I started combining the better elements of yoga, gymnastics, locomotion/crawling, strongman, natural movement methods, and bodyweight strength training.

Today, my daily workouts look NOTHING like the days of old, yet I couldn’t be happier with the way I move and the transfer it’s made into my daily living.  Training should enhance life in some capacity.  

My body feels stronger, resilient, better conditioned, and more capable than it ever has.  

Yesterday’s workout looked like this:  

1a) Hybrid Turkish Get Ups

2a) Box Elevated Dragon Squats

3a)  Parallette Bar L-Sits

4a)  Lizard Crawl Flow

All of these “GAINZ” were earned after competitive college athletics, a time when a lot of people would say, “That was my peak athletically and physically”.  Blah blah blah.  

You’re done with competitive sports, not dead.  Keep moving and moving often.  

The human body will either adapt and allow you to expand, or it will adapt to stagnation/lack of effort and constrict.  

Success leaves clues, and habits compounded are powerful.

James Clear’s book, “Atomic Habits” does an amazing job articulating the power of building good habits.  

Either way, our bodies are products of what we repeatedly do, good or bad. 

Weekly, I’ve experienced incremental improvements with strength, expanding movement capacity, joint range of motion control, and endurance.

And I love my workouts, they’re hybrid in how they mix a little bit of this and a little of that.

The movement rich training I’ve integrated into my workouts keeps sessions fresh without losing discipline, challenging and effective.  Most of all, it’s engaging.  Taxing for the body, but also for the mind.  A deadly combination. 

The lizard crawl (and variations) is now my favorite upper body exercise.  

Interestingly, I’ve lost absolutely NOTHING when it comes to basic lifts (squats, pressing, deadlifts, pulling core strength, and stability).

Hmmmm… 

Beginner Movement Patterns

The list below is not everything.  But does highlight some of the more notable movement patterns a beginner should begin to familiarize with.

•  Crawling
•  Reaching
•  Twisting
•  Balancing
•  Rolling
•  Climbing
•  Jumping
•  Transitions between movement (common and uncommon)
•  Movement Sequences
•  Improvised Movement

Beginner Movement Training

This blog post is all about the beginner.  The newbie to the movement training.  

The rolling, crawling, transitioning, exercises, and flowing sequences rarely written about in fitness magazines.  

Why don’t fitness magazines grab ahold of movement training methodology?

I have my own theories, but the infatuation with luring people in to read about the next great muscle building routine, fat loss and weight loss is addicting.  Pure aesthetic trickery.  

And there’s nothing wrong with using exercise for body transformation.  

It’s the fact that these magazines repetitively create new angles on the same old, worn out, tired topics.  Plus, judging by the exercise videos I’ve watched from some of the better known mainstream fitness magazines, the fitness editors might sport lean bodies, but they DO NOT MOVE WELL.  

Standing bicep curl technique?  Expert level.

Transitioning from a low crawl into a single leg squat variation back down into a 90/90 position?  Nope.  

Movement training encompasses a lot of the stuff that exists BEYOND lifting weights, sets/reps/rest, racing the clock, WODs, and treadmills.

Crawling.  We crawl as babies, but revisiting basic crawling patterns in adulthood is packed with benefits.   

Ground-based movement training is missing from the average person’s workout regimen, and it’s a key element.  

Free of equipment and fancy gadgets.  

Just your body moving around a space.

Squatting on uneven surfaces, with a staggered stance.  

Pressing up from the floor, stepping through, dropping back down into a Cossack squat, sliding the legs across, and mirroring this combo on the other side.   You could do this for 5 minutes straight.   

Rotation.  A lot of exercise and workouts lack rotational training.  Some workouts overly stress the importance of anti-rotation exercises, paying little attention to the fact that we must be able to produce rotation also.  

Injuries.  People often injury themselves (to varying degrees) when the stress exceeds the body’s tolerance to handle the stress.  

Progressively expanding movement by introducing manageable patterns, loading and positions can help mitigate injuries.

Pertaining to injury mitigation, active mobility training becomes essential.  Increasing range of motion and CONTROLLING (building strength and stability) in these newfound ranges.  

Supplementing resistance-based exercise and natural bodyweight movement with a progressive mobility-focused regimen is the gold standard in injury prevention.

With this recipe, you’re gaining strength, movement IQ, and establish a useable joint range of motion.

Movement Training For Life

On one hand, I believe in general physical conditioning versus attempting to mimic the exact movements of daily living.

On the other hand, conditioning the body for common everyday movements makes a ton of sense.

Exertion in daily life often doesn’t look like the average gym routine.

There are no symmetrically weighted barbells, chalked up kettlebells or dumbbells waiting to be lifted and move.

Real-world movement is less predictable.

We fall into and out of weird positions, often require on-the-go improvised corrections, rebalancing, and constant transitions in and out of body positions.  On top of that, toss unique environments with uneven surfaces and odd-shaped objects.

This is not to say barbells, kettlebells and dumbbells are bad.  There are FANTASTIC tools to leverage.  But at some point, you’re no longer in the gym, you’re no longer pistoning a barbell up and down for robotic reps.

And how about that gym perfect, flat-backed, technically sound bodyweight squat?

Squatting in my life looks like something else entirely.  A hybrid combination of movements and transitions.

Maybe you’ve got to navigate moving from the floor to standing without the use of your arms.

Every day, real-world movement is full of imperfections.   

Interestingly, years of pounding on movement patterns didn’t make me a more efficient mover in the real world.  I mean, to some extent it did, but I started to encounter a lot of different scenarios where I felt weak, uncoordinated, and immobile.

We cannot train for every quirky experience in life, but I strongly believe supplementing resistance and cardio training with movement rich tasks, challenges, and ground-based conditioning would help a lot of people increase their

I find myself squatting out of mechanical alignment, twisting, bending, reaching, rolling, lifting, and moving objects with a technique that most gym fanatics would consider unacceptable.

Picking up heavy, awkward shaped, slippery sh*t from the garage requires a creative approach, which is rarely addressed in a structured workout.

Fully flexing the lumbar spine while assuming a modified lunge stance, driving off the forefoot while my feet slide inside of my Crocs.

This is life.

Sometimes I’m moving by fusing 2-3 of those patterns at one time.

When it’s time to perform in life, it’s time to perform.  Sometimes we get to step up to a heavy object, get situated and lift similar to our gym lifts.  Most times, this is not the case.

Much of movement in daily life is reaction-based, rarely planned, and happens quickly.  There’s no time to externally rotate the hands, pull the shoulder blades down and back, tuck the rib cage, etc.

Real-life movement is unpredictable, deviating from “flat neutral spines”, perfect posture, and ideal foot placement.

It’s life.

The human body is a movement machine.

Ground-based movement drills improve a person’s movement capacity and address a lot of these in-between life moments that a barbell squat or deadlift simply doesn’t.  

Improving your ability to interact with the ground, using nothing but bodyweight will help you as a mover, and probably make your traditional lifts that much better. 

And to be completely honest, engaging in movement-based training is as fun as it is challenging.

One great benefit of practicing movement based drills is how quickly a person builds confidence in unique and unfamiliar body positions.

We knowingly (and unknowingly) avoid activities we know our body isn’t suited for.  After a few months of movement training, this starts to shift.  You begin to look at daily tasks differently.  Situations you used to avoid become worthy challenges you’ll meet head-on with a new-found confidence in your abilities.

Twisting and rotational movements are absent from most workouts.

Walk into a big box membership-based gym and you’ll witness 95% of the members slaving away on fixed range of motion cardio machines, ab machines, or and crowding the bench press area..

I’d shred my chest and core by ramping up the volume of lizard crawl versus laying lifeless on a bench while pressing the weight up and down… ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.

Rotation is a basic human movement action and training it consistently can provide some noticeable benefit with regard to performance and postural integrity.  It’s quite common to have people comment on their spine feeling “locked up” or “stiff”.

Insufficient mobility at the mid-back region can cause excessive motion at the lower back, as the lower back tries to pick up the slack to make everyday movements possible.

Rotational drills are great for training mid-back mobility while opening up the hip flexors and activating the powerful glute muscles.  The stretch from the hip to the shoulder is incredible.  

Injecting multi-planar and multi-joint exercises into a workout regimen can (and will)_ bridge the gap that many traditional compound lifts simply do not address.  

More examples… 

Training movement patterns in isolation is best for learning mechanics and giving the body an opportunity to adapt.  

The range of motion of each exercise can be modified to suit what you can comfortably handle at this moment and will improve with time and consistent practice.  

The human body is a brilliant adaptation machine.   

Most of my early ground-based movement flow practice involved spending focused time on 1 or maybe 2 movements in isolation.  I like to work new exercises with a “do less but do it better” type approach.    

As my movement efficiency improved, I began to string together 2, 3 even 4 exercises in a row, flowing and transitioning between each for reps or time.     

 

Every exercise has progressions leading up to mastery.  I cannot stress this enough.  Movements can be progressed for YEARS.  

Interested in getting a cardio conditioning effect from the workout?  Great.  Increase the tempo of each exercise or add time to the work set.  Flowing around a room for 8-10 minutes will elevate your heart rate as much as traditional cardio.  With the added benefit of training more movement patterns and improvisation to increase the brain’s processing speed.  

Crawling is great for loading the upper extremities, core, and sequencing.  Extremely slow tempo crawling remains one of the most eye-opening physical challenges for people.   

10-15 minutes of ground-based movement training will leave you exhausted, particularly if you’re new to it and inefficient.  

Are you going to be sore all over from this?  Yes.  Expect soreness in the days that follow.  

Newbies to ground-based movement training should consider implementing such training after the warm-up, but before resistance training in the day’s workout.  

Movement 20XX

Movement 20XX is a program I’ve become a huge fan of across the last year.

Eero Westerberg and I have a lot of similar ideas and approaches to building physical freedom, exploring different avenues of exercise and how to integrate those methods into a pre-existing regimen.

Movement 20XX is loaded with exercise progressions, bodyweight strength training, moving into ground-based movement, and sequences.  

Sequences are a series of pre-planned movements fused together.  Like a movement sentence.

Everything in Movement20XX can be adjusted for beginners/novice movers or progressed to challenge the elite mover.  

Movement training will improve all other areas of fitness.

Watch for more posts sharing exercises, combinations, and flow!

 

 

Cheers,

Kyle

Beginner Lizard Crawl Exercise Variations

The goal of this article is to present several of my homemade lizard crawl regressions to get a newbie acclimated.  Most of these drills were designed to help myself better understand the mechanics of the lizard crawl, and I’d like to share them with you…  

The Lizard Crawl exercise, from my point of view, is the king of the ground-based locomotion drills.  It’s a monster of an exercise, best broken down into digestible segments if you’re a beginner to such training.

Lizard crawling is jam-packed with physical benefits that spill over into all other areas of one’s physical practice.  The lizard crawl will test joint range of motion and stability, muscular endurance and strength, core strength/stability/endurance and motor control all in one shot.  

Another positive side effect of lizard crawling is conditioning.  It’s pure work when you’re inefficient and learning.  Expect to be winded with heart rate will be soaring after several yards.  

Although a successful lizard crawl is a total body effort, the upper body is tested to a great degree.  The lizard crawl elicits a similar training effect to more common crawling variations (bear, crab, etc) and progresses it a step further.  

Remaining in the low position for the duration of the crawl is what does most people in.  

A full blown lizard crawl is deceptively difficult.  Watching someone like Ido Portal lizard crawl (a world class movement practitioner), it’s easy to think, “Doesn’t look too bad, it’s just crawling, I could do that”.  And maybe you can.  If so, good on you.

But for most people, the mechanics are complex.  As mentioned earlier, joint position and range of motion, the timing of the hands and feet, core activation in difficult positions may completely foreign.  

Foreign = struggle bus.     

I do suggest you watch several of these videos and test abilities to give yourself a baseline for improvement.  

Even if you’re able to crawl several feet on both sides, the next challenge is to add some distance to the movement.  

Without further ado, here are few more lizard crawl variations to slip into your workouts demonstrated by yours truly…

Lizard Crawl Variation #1 – 2 Hands + 1 Foot

In this variation, keep two hands in contact with the floor while practicing hip range of motion and foot placement.  Softly move the knee up beyond waist height and place the ball of the foot on the floor.  Lower into the bottom of the push-up, chest hovering roughly 2 inches above the floor. Pause, looking forward, return to the start position.

Lizard Crawl Variation #2 – Soft Arm Reach

Introduction to reaching with the lead arm.  We will remain stationary for the time being.  Expect the complexity to ramped up significantly once movement is introduced.  This variation involves a soft slide of the lead arm, straight out and back in.  This also provides some sensation of what it will feel like supporting the body on one arm, another challenging aspect of the lizard crawl.  

Same exercise cues as the previous variation, lower step with the leg, plant with the ball of the foot, lower down with control, but now slide the hand out softly.  Breathe. 

Lizard Crawl Variation #3 – “Alligator” Arms and Legs

To give you a taste of some dynamic movement, here is the short-arm variation of the lizard crawl.  

I refer to it as an “alligator” progression.  The idea is to reach with a limited range of motion, keeping the elbows flexed and close to the rib cage.  This elbow position is far more manageable versus reaching out into full extension.  

Also, notice the limited range of motion on the foot placement.  Plant with the ball of the foot, stabilize and gain control, breathe, now move the hands and support.  Slowly move forward, don’t rush it.  

This variation is a humbling introductory training stimulus to the full lizard crawl.  Many will begin to understand the sheer complexity of the lizard crawl pattern after trying this.  

The path to improvement is practice.  Don’t be discouraged by your initial attempts.  It may be a frustrating experience, even if you consider yourself to well conditioned.  

It’s common to find joint mobility, stability, core strength and endurance to be lacking, all of which can be practiced using the three progressions I’ve shared.  

Practice the progression that allows for technique achievement.  

Each will lead you to the next and continual progress will be made.    

If you’re interested in learning more about the Ido Portal Method training philosophy, check out this popular article I wrote several years ago…

• “Basics of the Ido Portal Method”

 

Cheers…

Kyle 

Animal Flow: Movement Training for Fans of Ido Portal Method

“Animal Flow is an innovative fitness program that combines quadrupedal and ground-based movement with element from various bodyweight-training disciplines to create a fun, challenging workout emphasizing multi-planar, fluid movement.”  

If you’ve been hunting for a movement system to deepen your understanding of Ido Portal’s locomotion exercises, Animal Flow is the system to follow.  

Animal Flow’s training methodology embodies the evolution my own fitness practice has experienced over the last several years.  

The “your body is a barbell” is cliché statement, but a true statement about bodyweight training.  Everywhere you go, no matter what the circumstance, bodyweight training is a tool to be leveraged.  

Don’t stop at isolation…

A lot of people stop the bus at basic bodyweight training:  push-ups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, etc.  I have nothing against basic bodyweight training because it’s brutally effective for improving performance, it’s free and it’s arguably the most functional form of resistance training.  

You can live a great life by hammering away on basic bodyweight movements.

However, as I mentioned in my post “Basics of the Ido Portal Method”, a lot of people have an innate desire to explore what’s beyond isolation movements.  

After a while, it’s common to feel like your workouts are being reduced down to numbers (quantified progress):  more reps, more sets, more time, etc. 

There’s nothing wrong with quantified progress.  Quantifying your workouts practice is a great way to measure improvement or stagnation.  Scanning your numbers can help you evaluate if your current training plan working the way it should.  

It’s not much different than following a recipe in the kitchen.

But there is another realm, one where you’re moving without being restricted to reps and sets and time.  

This realm explores your body’s movement capacity through space.  

Twisting, turning, reaching, pulling, pushing, shifting, transitioning, flowing.

Some of these body positions are common and familiar, some are not.  Training uncomfortable positions is important to prepare the body for unpredictable scenarios.

Movement capacity development.  

 

Ground-based movement training benefits ANYONE and EVERYONE.  Why?  Because it is life played out through the movement lens.  Everywhere you go, your body is right there with you.  

Enter: Animal Flow…

• Anything in BLACK is information from the Animal Flow website.  
• Comments in RED are my interpretation and elaboration on those points.  

What comprises the Animal Flow program?

“Animal Flow includes a wide range of exercises and movement combinations that are grouped into six components, each designed to elicit specific results. The six components can be mixed and matched in many ways, and you can incorporate one, some, or all of them in your workouts! The six components include:

Wrist Mobilizations

“Wrist Mobilizations include a range of simple exercises designed to increase the flexibility and strength of your wrists, which is particularly important for any practice where you are spending a lot of time on your hands.”

– Although most of human life is spent either sitting or standing, training the hands/wrists/arms to tolerate a more robust range of motion and loading stress in various positions is important.  

Our wrists and arms aren’t designed to hang at our sides or flexed up on a keyboard for all day every day.  Hanging, brachiation, crawling, climbing are all activities humans should be able to do.  

More specific to the Animal Flow program, wrist preparation ensures your body is prepared to handle the load stress.

Activations

“Activations are static holds we perform to connect the body before we start our practice. Examples include Static Beast Hold, Static Crab Hold, and Limb Lifts.”

– Activating dormant muscles is helps protect our bodies against acute injury and chronic aches and pains.  It boosts our ability to accomplish common daily tasks efficiently.

This is sometimes referred to as “pre-hab”.  Again, cliché, but important.

It’s not necessary to suffer an injury to begin paying attention to muscle activation.  Basic maintenance can keep a person functioning on a high level without pain or risk of injury. 

Imagine how much better a squat would be if your glute muscles knew they were supposed to participate in the exercise.

Isolated activation exercises remind these muscles they’ve got an active role in the exercise to come.

Form Specific Stretches

“Form Specific Stretches are full body stretches that start in an animal form and then move through a wide range of motion. This increases your mobility and flexibility throughout the entire body. Examples include the Ape Reach, Beast Reach, Crab Reach and Scorpion Reach.”

– Stretching is not dead, so don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Mis-directed, poorly performed stretches are dead.  Stretching areas that don’t need to be stretched is dead.  

Smart, intelligent stretching in combination with passive and active mobilization techniques are a smarter way to achieve a more functional range of motion.  Hello, KinStretch.

Traveling Forms

“Traveling Forms are exercises that mimic the movements of animals. You’ll start with the “ABCs” – Ape, Beast, and Crab – to get you going on these full body conditioning moves. The traveling forms are essentially how we move like animals to improve the function of the human animal.”

 

– The human body is designed to navigate many different forms movement.

The ability to handle your body while performing uncommon movement tasks (example: crawling) beyond standing and walking will serve you well across life.  It gives quality to your years.    

Crawling (and the many variations of crawling) is a major component of Traveling Forms.  Yes, this is a similar crawling we do as infants.  Funny how we regress back to our earliest forms of movement as a reset later in life.

Crawling is an under-estimated, challenging form of movement that trains the body to handle unique body positions, transitions, upper extremity loading and core activation.  

The other, a less scientific reason to crawl, is it’s fun.  Plain and simple.  Crawling is an uncommon activity that is fun.  Life’s too short to not have fun.  

Fact:  a person is more apt to stick to training if there is fun involved.  Prove me wrong.

Switches and Transitions

“Switches and Transitions are dynamic movements that we perform one after the other, creating the “flow” of Animal Flow. You can transfer from one form to another, or repeat the same one as a drill. Examples include the many variations for Underswitches, Side Kickthroughs, Front Kickthroughs, and Scorpions.”

– Combining 2-3 exercises is a great way to create a training effect beyond what’s possible by practicing only one drill in isolation.

Transitioning from crawling, to kick throughs into hollow-body rocks will challenge your body to adapt to several different patterns and planes of movement and muscular stress.

Here’s an example:  Animal Flow Workout – Long Cycle Ground Based Movement 

These sequences can be practiced for extended periods of time to increase the demand on endurance and cardio.

A workout becomes an experience at this stage.  Switches and transitions is where people begin noticing they’re having fun. 

Flow

“Flow: Your Flow is where the real magic happens. You’ll combine the Animal Flow moves by linking them together in a fluid sequence, seamlessly transferring energy from one move to the next. Flows may be a choreographed sequence practiced over multiple sessions, or may be created freestyle!”

No secrets here, it will take dedicated practice and patience to arrive at the “flow” stage.  Those who stick to the plan will make the gains needed to begin moving freely, improvising each movement as you go.  

Like words making a sentence, exercises stitch themselves together, “flowing”. 

In sync, the mind and body connection is extremely powerful.  Flow a physical demonstration of a mind that is free.

Bringing it home…

A balanced approach of traditional resistance training, gymnastics, and ground-based exercises can make a person dangerous.  Each philosophy improves the others.

If you’re a fan of Ido Portal’s methodology, Animal Flow is a logical training system to look into.  

Ido hasn’t produced a product for the masses yet, and I suspect he will never release a product.  

The current options to train under the Ido Portal Method are private online training or attendance of a seminar.  Not ideal and both cost a small fortune. Ido is in high demand right now.  

You could always cherry-pick drills from YouTube videos (as I have done), but you’ll never progress as quickly as if you were following a system.  

Training systems are designed with an end goal:  results.

If you’re interested in expanding your movement capacity, check out: Animal Flow 2.0

 

Cheers to discovering your movement capacity, 

Kyle 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are Several Other Ido Portal Push-Up Variations

The effectiveness of the Ido Portal Method is no longer a secret.  

Ido’s knowledge is quickly becoming the premier system for building body weight dominance.

Before you watch the videos below, remember that the best gains are made when following a system, which is basically a recipe.  

Keep the movement recipe simple:

Find an effective training system and practice it relentlessly.

Everything works… for a little while.  Literally everything.  Some programs are more effective than others, but people who commit themselves to any one system are going to see results from their effort.  If you’re not getting results, it’s time for a self-audit to identify what’s missing.  Chances are high the audit will reveal it’s something you’re not doing, or in some instances, not doing, that’s holding you back.

Allow me to rant on the value of practice…

Practice until you are sick of practicing.  Then practice some more.  Had a bad training session?  Come back tomorrow and do it again.  Build

There is no substitute for hard work.  You’ve got to tear up your hands, sweat and have a willingness to be sore and humbled by the difficulty of the movements.  

Practice increases understanding, awareness and insight, motor control, strength/stability/endurance/power/mobility.

The “elite” become “elite” because they practice.  A lot of athletes who are household names across the world, practice 10x more than people think.  When you’re watching them on television, you’re seeing the finished product.  Thousands of hours of behind the scenes blood, sweat and tears prepared that athlete to execute on the main stage.

Exercise #1: QDR: Beginner Rotational Push-Ups

Now, while doing something is generally better than doing nothing, it is possible to practice incorrectly, which is why receiving feedback from a mentor or a teacher so valuable.  A teacher is an advanced practitioner.  The teacher, through experience, has acquired understanding, knowledge to share with students.

The best teachers maintain the humble student mentality despite being experts at their craft.

Exercise #2:  NDA Beginner Lateral Push Ups

With movement, more specifically body position, it is very easy and quite common to think that you are practicing technique correctly when you are not.

Improper body alignment or stopping short of a full range of motion are two extremely predictable situations that a teacher has the eye and understanding to verbally cue or re-position.  

Exercise #3: Beginner Hybrid Push-Ups

A person could slip any (or all) of these exercises into their current workouts and get the full benefit.  Remember, each of these exercises is a puzzle piece that makes up an entire program.  Progress will always be faster when working inside of a system, which is a well drawn out plan.

Exercise #4:  Dive Planks

Another problem the distanced onlooker has with Ido Portal’s current portfolio of work is there isn’t a clear and defined starting point for a beginner.  Beginner in my world means someone who’s unfamiliar with all of this stuff.  Not someone who’s banging out unsupported handstands, looking to move on to an iron cross.

 
Exercise #5: Push-Ups with Toe Touch

One option a beginner has is a tedious scavenger hunt through old information on Ido’s previous blog.  Before I started to assemble the puzzle pieces, this is what I did.  It sucked.

If sifting through hundreds of blog posts seems a bit tedious, there are other fantastic training programs similar to the Ido Portal Method approach. These books serve as a logical stepping stone into the Ido Portal Method movement philosophy.

Are they identical?  No.  Are they extremely similar?  Hell yes.  Will you get results?  Hell yes.  

Here are those alternative training systems, should you decide to investigate further…

Animal Flow (Mike Fitch)

Overcoming Gravity (Steven Low)

Ultimate Athleticism (Max Shank)

Complete Calisthenics (Ashley Kalym)

A quick word about equipment…

Whether you’re a novice or advanced trainee, a simple equipment set up can catapult your progress and increase your enjoyment.  Actually wanting to workout because you enjoy the process is just as important as training intelligently.

For the beginner, gymnastics rings and parallettes are the best starting point and will provide big bang for your buck.  There are endless exercise progressions and variations using rings and parallettes.

L-Sit progressions, tuck and push-up variations, vertical and horizontal pulling exercises, hanging challenges just to name a few.

Nayoya Gymnastics Rings

The Nagoya Gymnastics Rings (Amazon, $30) currently have a 5-star rating and over 1,007 customer reviews.  You’re welcome to shop around, but for the price and quality, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better deal with similar quality.

Best-selling author and movement enthusiast Tim Ferriss has raved about these gymnastics rings after testing them himself in past newsletters and blog posts.  

Gymnastics rings are an unbeatable buy in my opinion.

For parallettes, I constructed mine from PVC using these exact instructions.  It was inexpensive, simple and fast to assemble.  They work fantastic.

If you aren’t in the mood to DIY, I recommend these parallettes.

Cheers to you.

Kyle

A 1000 Words of Movement

It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, so a video of free-flowing movement ( what it can and should be) may be worth 10,000 words.

That could be truth or extrapolated mathematics.

I won’t have much commentary on the video below from Diewey Nielson.

All that I will add is that this is what my warm-ups have evolved into.  Sure, I still recommend activating known weak areas and also mobilizing known restricted areas, but ground based movement like this may do more for re-educating our bodies on what baby-like movement feels like.

I look at ground based movements like this almost as a dynamic yoga, with far more transfer into your everyday movement.

Some years back, I was blown away by how challenging these movements really are.  5-10 minutes of this and you’re sore in weird places in the days following.  After viewing myself on video playback, I also realized that what my mind thought I was doing, was not what my body was doing.  I looked stiff, out of sequence and in some instances, un-athletic.

For any of you that thinks this type of training is “soft” or “un-extreme”, I would tell you that I used to feel the same way.  I used to think that workouts meant big weights, iron, chalk and balls to the wall effort.

I still believe that it is important to pick up heavy things, but I have a distaste in my mouth for the extreme these days.  A lot of us should be starting from ground zero with moves shown in the video shown below, not huffing and puffing over a loaded barbell or swinging like a chimp from a pull up bar.

I suggest that all of you learn a few of these moves and find a way to work them into your warm-ups and your workouts.

 

Cheers to the ground based flow…

Kyle