A Call To Crawl

Categories: Blog Jan 10, 2016

And now, a guest post by Mark Limbaga....

As the new year springs in renewed faith, chances, and opportunities, may I offer an invite to everyone?

LET'S GET CRAWLING

Yes, for most this may sound crazy but hear me out first okay?

We've all heard the wonderful benefits we get from crawling such as how it helps restore mobility, how it's a form of gentle strength training, how it helps us get lean,  and how it can improve our stamina to name a few...

So why aren't we doing it or doing more of it?

Is it because we are confused how to start? Is it a lack of space? A lack of time? Do any of these sound familiar?

Let's take a few bits of Wisdom from two people:

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can" - Arthur Ashe

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." - Theodore Roosevelt.

With those words of wisdom being said, I know that there's a crawling regression or progression that we all can do.

If you can't spiderman or leopard crawl yet, then fear not, the baby crawl is for you.

Maybe you have two left feet and you can't seem to figure out the coordination. If that is you,  no worries! We can begin with cross-crawls and bird dogs. They are regressions to crawling.

Whatever our goal is, whether it is a crawling goal, or a strength goal,  we can get there one step at a time (literally) is by starting where we are and doing what we can. The starting place is the point from which we can build upon. We don't need to jump into the deep end right away.

Having said all of that, here is a simple crawling progression plan I have used to work up to leopard crawling for 10 minutes:

Let's initially start with baby crawling and maintain a 1:1 work to rest ratio

1 minute crawl : 1 minute rest, repeat this for 10 sets.

Once this gets easy, reduce the rest periods to 45 seconds.

So the progression could look something like this

1 min work 1 min rest x10
1 min work 45 sec rest x10
1 min work 30 sec restx10
1 min work 15 sec restx10
1 min work 45 sec restx10
1 min work 30 sec restx10
1 min work 15 sec restx10
2 mins work 1 min restx5

So, as you can see, at the end of roughly 8 sessions, you could potentially go from a 1:1 work to rest ratio, to a 2:1 work to rest ratio. Once you have yourself comfortably crawling for 2 minutes straight, you can repeat the cycle again and now work up to crawling for 3 minutes straight. Once you hit 10 minutes straight, you could repeat this whole cycle from the beginning using leopard crawling.  It is simple, but not necessarily easy.

As always, pay attention to how you feel. If your mouth pops open, or your butt goes higher than your head, or you need to rest, stop and recover. Again, do what you can and discover where you can go.

I look forward to hearing from you and what new horizons you have seen.

Let's get crawling!

Mark Limbaga SFGII SFB

Mark is the first Strongfirst level 2 kettlebell instructor and bodyweight intructor based in the Philippines. Also an Original Strength alumni, Senior coach at Eclipse gym 247 and the heaf strength and conditioning coach for the Philippine boxing team.

When he is not helping others move better and get stronger, he spends his time watching movies, playing with his dogs and everything fun and interesting with his wife, Kathleen

his blog is marklimbagastrength.wordpress.com

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