Crawling can work wonders for you, according to body and fitness experts who believe channeling your inner baby is the new wave. Imagine a nation of adult babies crawling into happiness and health.
Crawling motions, according to experts, improve balance and mobility and activate parts of your body that you’ve neglected to use consistently since you were a tiny infant. But it isn’t as easy as it used to be, before we knew how to walk on two wobbly legs. (Try it.)
Chiropractor Justin Klein, a crawling fan, advises all his patients to do it for everything from injury rehabilitation to daily exercise (notice that the bear crawl is a regular part of many workouts). Klein has proclaimed: “Crawling is the new plank.”
The Washington Post reports:
Klein’s unconventional approach to treating pain comes from his belief in Original Strength, a fitness system that encourages people to practice the movement patterns found in young children. In Original Strength parlance, crawling is a “reset.” And by “pressing reset” on your body — the way you would on your phone — you can bring back the strength and mobility you’ve lost over the years, he explains.
It’s strange if you think about it. Why do we stop crawling? Why is it that we don’t keep crawling into adulthood?
Kids’ bodies are Gumby-like for a reason, says Original Strength co-founder Tim Anderson:
There’s a reason kids learn to crawl before they take their first steps, he explains. It helps them develop a healthy gait pattern. “It should take four limbs to walk,” he says. His message is that too many adults have forgotten this, and are in pain as a result.
“The cool thing is pretty much everyone has crawled before,” says Anderson. Yes, people have been doing it forever in the gym, in fact, sometimes as a bear crawl or a core-strengthener called the bird-dog, which are both in the school of what’s known as “contralateral” moves.