The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 4: Wrap-Up

If you were able to Forward Leopard Crawl for 10 straight minutes in Week 3, you are really well tied together and mentally tough as well.

If you were able to Backwards Leopard Crawl for 10 straight minutes at the end of Week 4, what can you not do? You can do anything you want! You have tremendous reflexive strength!

If you were not able to achieve 10 straight minutes of Leopard Crawling yet, It is okay. I am sure you have made wonderful progress as you have been laying a solid foundation of reflexive strength with each and every step you have made. If you keep at it, you will be able to reach 10 straight minutes of crawling soon. If you can crawl for 10 minutes, you can crawl for 20. Really, you can. There are no limits to what you can do once your have a solid foundation of reflexive strength, your original strength.

Tim Anderson is co-author of Original Strength: Regaining the Body You Were Meant To Have and Original Strength Performance: Becoming The Superhero You Were Meant Be. He is cofounder of Original Strength Systems, LLC. To learn more about regaining your original strength, check out OriginalStrength.net.

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 4, Day 3 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 4: Becoming Bulletproof

Day 2

Backward leopard crawl for 10 minutes of work.

How it is done:
Backward leopard crawl on your hands and feet. Your knees should track inside of your elbows and not touch the ground. Keep your head held up so you can see the world, and keep your butt down below your head. This is not a bear crawl.

If you can, breathe in and out through your nose.

Time Rules:
Backward leopard crawl for 10 minutes of work. Use a stop watch to keep track. If you stop to rest, stop the time. When you recover and start again, re-start the time. If you can achieve the whole 10 minutes without resting, that is awesome!

Have fun!

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 4, Day 2 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 4: Becoming Bulletproof

Day 1

Forward leopard crawl for 5 minutes of work. Then, with as little rest as possible, backward leopard crawl for 5 minutes of work.

How it is done:
Forward leopard crawl on your hands and feet. Your knees should track inside of your elbows and not touch the ground. Keep your head held up so you can see the world, and keep your butt down below your head. This is not a bear crawl.

Backward leopard crawl is the same in reverse.

If you can, breathe in and out through your nose.

Time Rules:
Forward leopard crawl for 5 minutes of work. Use a stop watch to keep track. If you stop to rest, stop the time. When you recover and start again, re-start the time. If you can achieve the whole 5 minutes without resting, that is awesome!

As soon as you can, begin your backward leopard crawl. Accrue 5 minutes of work just as you did the forward leopard crawl. You are striving for 10 total minutes of crawling time, like in week 3.

If you can make 10 minutes straight, without rest, you are rock solid!

Have fun!

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 4, Day 1 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 3: Strength Training by Pressing Reset

Day 2

Forward leopard crawl for 10 minutes.

How it is done:

For the leopard crawl, crawl on your hands and feet. Your knees should track inside of your elbows. Keep your head held up so you can see the world while keeping your butt down below your head.Note: this is not a bear crawl.

If you can, breathe in and out through your nose.

Time rules:

Leopard crawl for 10 minutes of work using a stop watch. If you have to stop to rest, stop the time. When you recover and start again, restart the watch. Crawl until you’ve accrued 10 minutes.

This is a repeat of Tuesday’s workout. Try to reduce the time it takes to accrue 10 minutes of leopard crawling. If you already did 10 continuous minutes, then strive for 11 minutes. Good luck!

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 3, Day 2 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

We all have our own reasons for training. Some of us want to be top athletic performers. Some of us want to strong, fast, or powerful. Some of us train for aesthetics and some of us train because we simply want to feel good and be healthy. Whatever our reasons for wanting to train and improve our bodies, I think they all have one underlying reason: we want to be capable. We want to be capable of physically handling life’s challenges if and when they should arrive. This desire, or this drive, though some of us may never articulate it, is deep within all of us. From the first day of our lives, we are born to be overcomers.

What It Means to Be an Overcomer

When you were born, you overcame the forces of gravity to lift your gargantuan head up in the air. Every day after the day you arrived on this earth, you worked and labored to get just a little bit stronger and defy gravity just a little bit more. As you grew stronger and became able to explore your surroundings, you constantly tested your ability to overcome obstacles or challenges. You crawled across the room to check out an object, or you tried and tried to climb up stairs or onto a couch. The fact that you learned how to walk in itself is evident that you were once filled with tenacity and you were driven to overcome. No doubt you fell repeatedly. No doubt you probably broke your fall several times with your watermelon-sized head. Yet, despite the goose bumps and bruises, you kept trying. Everything about your life was an attempt to overcome and embark on the next challenge.

Why? Because you were born to overcome. You were born to be capable. Deep down inside all of us, there is background noise of “go,” be more, conquer, succeed, win. Some people have been successful in ignoring this background noise. They have silenced it. It is evident in their lives because they are just here. They exist, but they don’t live unless it is vicariously through watching others. They get up in the morning, and they go to bed at night. They don’t smile too often, and somewhere along the way, life has piled up so high on them that they are too lethargic to fight back. They no longer have any drive or fight to overcome, because they have ignored it for too long. You know these people. They are the ones who cannot overcome themselves. They know they should make better choices, but they don’t. They know they need to take a walk, but they won’t. They know fast food is not what they need, but they eat it anyway.

The Life of the Driven

You are probably not like that. You are driven. You have not silenced your desire to overcome. You want to be capable of anything, and able for everything. You might not know what really moves you, but yet you still move. And that is probably why you are still driven: you move.

Movement is what you were made to do. The internal drive you had as a child, the desire to be an overcomer, was the fuel that put your body in motion. The drive got you moving. The more you moved and conquered, the more you fed your drive. In our early years, drive and movement fueled each other. They also perpetuate each other now. The biggest reason many people have been able to successfully silence their drive is because they have decided to stop moving. When we quit moving, our drive’s nemesis starts to take over the scene: apathy, boredom, complacency. Whatever you want to call it, not moving snuffs out our drive.

When you are born, your drive gets you moving, but when you are older, your moving keeps your drive. If you are driven, if you engage in physical training to better yourself, you are obviously a mover. If you know a person who has a hard time overcoming their own apathy, or mental inertia, you can probably observe that they don’t move too often, at least as much as they should.

The Cure for Those Who’ve Ceased to Move

The fix for these people is really simple: they need to start moving again. The best fix for them is actually to start moving the same way they did when they were a kid. They need to learn how to move on the floor again. They need to overcome gravity and learn how to move their heads again. They need to learn how to crawl again. It is ridiculously silly, except it works. It restores their movement, and their ability to move by restoring their reflexive strength.

Having reflexive strength can also restore their drive and it can reawaken their desire to be capable because it gives them the ability to regain something they thought they had lost – their capability. For many people who have lost the drive and the lives they were meant to have, remembering how to move and regaining their reflexive strength can restore them. It can reawaken their drive and allow them to see they can be capable.

The Solid Foundation for the Driven

But this article is not about the people who have lost their drive. It is about you, the driven. Your drive still moves you and your movement still drives you. You want to succeed. You want to overcome and live life. But what if you are not as capable as you could be? What if you could not only become capable, but you were always able? To truly be as able as you could dream to be, you need to own all of your original strength as well. You, too, need to have a rock solid foundation of reflexive strength. It is your reflexive strength that allows you to remove all the brakes on your body. It enables you to perform at an optimal level. It keeps you healthy and resilient, almost impervious to injury. When you have a solid foundation of reflexive strength, you can do almost anything.

Here is the crazy part: you can regain or fortify your reflexive strength the same way our friends who have lost all of their drive can. Remember how to move the way you did when you were a child. Rolling, rocking, and crawling on the floor can all help you recover and build your reflexive strength. These movements are hardwired into your brain and they sharpen the reflexive connections between your nervous system and your body. A simple way to say it is that moving through the developmental movements you once did as a child is like pressing a reset button on your body. It is an easy way to turn on all the right switches. It turns your reflexes on. Reflexive strength is simply the body’s ability to anticipate movement before it happens, and its ability to react to movement as it happens.It allows your body to let your stabilizers become stabilizers again, and it allows your prime movers to move again without having to be stabilizers. In other words, pressing reset and regaining your reflexive strength allows your body to become stronger and more mobile because all of your muscles are “on” and performing the way they were designed to perform.

What does this mean for you? It makes you capable and able to do anything. It allows you to compete at a higher athletic level. It allows you to move better, making your body more efficient. Your brain becomes more efficient at communicating within itself and to your body. In fact, all you becomes more efficient – your metabolism, your cardiovascular system, your immune system, all of you.

Best of all, reflexive strength helps keep your drive alive. Owning your reflexive strength allows you to always be capable of moving well. Moving well fuels your drive. Moving well and being driven enables you to embrace, conquer, and overcome life along with all its adventures. It allows you to be capable and able to enjoy life. You were made to move.

If you have not tried the 4-Week Crawling Challenge, give it a try. It is so simple, even a baby could do it. After all, simple works and it just might be the missing link in your training.

The post What’s Underneath: Our Inner Desire to be Overcomers appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 3: Strength Training by Pressing Reset

Day 1

Forward leopard crawl for 10 minutes.

How it is done:

For the leopard crawl, crawl on your hands and feet. Your knees should track inside of your elbows. Keep your head held up so you can see the world while keeping your butt down below your head. Note: this is not a bear crawl.

If you can, breathe in and out through your nose.

Time rules:

Leopard crawl for 10 minutes of work using a stop watch. If you have to stop to rest, stop the time. When you recover and start again, restart the watch. Crawl until you’ve accrued 10 minutes. Good luck!

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 3, Day 1 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 2: Increasing Reflexive Strength and Strength Training

Day 3

Backward baby crawl for 5 minutes, then backward leopard crawl for 5 minutes.

How it is done:

Baby Crawl backward on your hands and knees. Keep your head held up so you can see where you are not going. Try to push the tops of your feet across the ground. It may help to wear socks.

For the backward leopard crawl, crawl in reverse on your hands and feet. Your knees track inside of your elbows. Again, keep your head held up, so you can see the world, and keep your butt down below your head. This is not a bear crawl. Remember to breathe in and out through your nose.

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 2, Day 3 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 2: Increasing Reflexive Strength and Strength Training

Day 2

Forward baby crawl for 5 minutes, then forward leopard crawl for 5 minutes.

How it is done:

For the baby crawl, crawl on your hands and knees. Keep your head held up so you can see the world. Drag the tops of your feet across the ground. It may help to wear socks.

For the leopard crawl, crawl on your hands and feet. Your knees should track inside of your elbows. Again, keep your head held up so you can see the world while keeping your butt down below your head. Note: this is not a bear crawl.

If you can, breathe in and out through your nose.

Time rules:

Baby crawl for 5 minutes of work using a stop watch. If you have to stop and rest, stop the time. When you recover and start again, start the time. Crawl until you’ve reached 5 minutes. Then, leopard crawl for 5 minutes of work using a stopwatch. If you have to stop and rest or take a knee, stop the time. Good luck!

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 2, Day 2 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 2: Increasing Reflexive Strength and Strength Training

Day 1

Forward baby crawl for 5 minutes, then forward leopard crawl for 5 minutes.

How it is done:

For the baby crawl, crawl on your hands and knees. Keep your head held up so you can see the world. Drag the tops of your feet across the ground. It may help to wear socks.

For the leopard crawl, crawl on your hands and feet. Your knees should track inside of your elbows. Again, keep your head held up so you can see the world while keeping your butt down below your head. Note: this is not a bear crawl.

If you can, breathe in and out through your nose.

Time rules:

Baby crawl for 5 minutes of work using a stop watch. If you have to stop and rest, stop the time. When you recover and start again, start the time. Crawl until you’ve reached 5 minutes. Then, leopard crawl for 5 minutes of work using a stopwatch. If you have to stop and rest or take a knee, stop the time. Good luck!

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 2, Day 1 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 1: Laying a Foundation of Reflexive Strength

This week may seem simple, but it may not be so easy. However, even if it is easy, it will still yield tremendous benefits. Some of you may be surprised at the cardiovascular demand baby crawling requires.

Day 3

Backward Baby Crawl for 10 minutes.

How it is done:

Crawl backward on your hands and knees. Keep your head held up so you can see where you are not going. Drag the tops of your feet across the ground. It may help to wear socks. If you can, breathe in and out through your nose.

Time rules:

Crawl for 10 minutes of work, using a stop watch. If you have to stop and rest, stop the time. When you recover and start again, start the time. Crawl until you’ve reached 10 minutes.

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 1, Day 3 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The following four-week plan is designed to help you restore your original strength, increase reflexive strength, and improve your performance in whatever physical area you are passionate about. In the first two weeks, the goal is to ease your way into crawling three days a week. The workouts will be posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but you can move them around to fit your schedule. These training sessions may seem easy for some of you, but give them a shot nonetheless. I think you may be surprised at how this simple exercise can restore and refresh your body.

In weeks three and four, the plan goes down to twice per week. In these two weeks, we start to strength train while we are still pressing reset. These training sessions may seem grueling. You will be left with an even fatigue, yet still feel fresh and able to conquer the rest of your day, if not your week. Again, the workouts will be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays, but you can adjust these days around your schedule.

We are only performing ten minutes of work in each of these training sessions. If you can, perform these training sessions on lighter days within your training week. If you cannot, or do not have lighter training days, feel free to continue your regular training and fit these sessions in when you can. You could even use weeks one and two for your movement prep before your training sessions. If you do this, don’t be surprised if you perform well during your training routine.

For weeks three and four, it may be wise to perform these sessions on their own, at first. Surely you can find two days a week that you can crawl for ten minutes. Be aware, this could become one of your favorite strength training exercises.

Week 1: Laying a Foundation of Reflexive Strength

This week may seem simple, but it may not be so easy. However, even if it is easy, it will still yield tremendous benefits. Some of you may be surprised at the cardiovascular demand baby crawling requires.

Day 2

Forwards Baby Crawl for 10 minutes.

How it is done:

Crawl on your hands and knees. Keep your head held up so you can see the world. Drag the tops of your feet across the ground. It may help to wear socks. If you can, breathe in and out through your nose.

Time rules:

Crawl for 10 minutes of work, using a stop watch. If you have to stop and rest, stop the time. When you recover and start again, start the time. Crawl until you’ve reached 10 minutes.

The post Strength & Conditioning: Tim Anderson, Week 1, Day 2 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In the last three years, there has been a lot of attention given to crawling within the fitness industry. Crawling, the developmental movement pattern that we were all given the ability to perform, is being touted as a rehabilitative, restorative, and even a performance-enhancing movement.

Some people are even calling crawling one of the best strength training exercises a person can perform. It is really quite laughable when you think about it: “Crawling, like a baby, can help your body heal and make you stronger and more resilient.” It would even be hysterical, if it weren’t for the fact that is true.

Yes, crawling, a seemingly childish and foolish “exercise,” could be the one thing that improves your health, your strength, your mobility, and your performance in any athletic area. It could even improve your ability to think, focus, and reason.

I know what you are thinking, and yes, I am serious.

The Benefits of Crawling

Crawling is a developmental movement pattern that ties everything about you together. In developing children, crawling activates and integrates the different parts of the brain.

Through crawling, neural connections and pathways are established in the brain that allow the brain to become more efficient at communication between the left and right hemispheres.

The better the brain can communicate and process information, the better the body moves.¹

Crawling also unites your sensory systems. It integrates your vestibular system (your balance system), your proprioceptive system (your sense of self in space, or your self awareness system), and your visual system (your visual system). It can even improve your hand eye coordination.²

Perhaps the greatest benefit to crawling is that it builds a foundation of reflexive strength, the original strength you were born to develop.

Your reflexive strength, also known as your reflexive stability, is your body’s ability to anticipate movement before it happens and/or reflexively react to movement as it happens.

The faster your reflexes are, the more resilient you are. Your reflexive strength is your foundation of strength. If you are lacking reflexive strength, you cannot be as strong and as mobile as you are meant to be.

Imagine that your body was one big “X.” It is in the center of your “X” that your body transfers the forces that you generate from one side to the other, from the bottom of you to the top of you. In other words, the center of your body is where the powerful forces you generate intersect and cross over.

The more solid your center, the better the forces that you generate, or forces that you encounter, can be transferred.

If your center is not solid, those forces could end up going into areas you don’t want them to go and this could lead to injury. The more solid your “X,” the more resilient and capable you are.

Having your reflexive strength is having a solid center, and having a solid center is having a body that is strong and mobile – a body without limits.

Yeah, but how does crawling tie your body together?

The Foundation of Your Gait

Crawling is the foundation of your gait pattern. It is the contra-lateral movement (coordinated opposite limb movement) that our walking pattern is built upon. Crawling teaches our shoulders and our hips how to work together in a coordinated fashion – it “ties” them together.

Crawling also reflexively stimulates the muscles throughout your arms, legs, and torso to fire through the sensory nerves, or mechano-receptors, in our hands and feet. These sensory nerves act like buttons. When these buttons get pressed, the muscles throughout the body instantly contract.

Every step you take, every time your hands touch the ground, you are reflexively firing the muscles throughout your body. Every step makes your reflexes just a little more efficient, just a little more crisp. This is gentle strength training – foundational strength training.

Crawling is also a reset for your central nervous system. It restores your central nervous system, lowers your stress levels, and allows you to recover faster from the rigors of your training or your day-to-day life.

Babies Crawl, Adults Walk

Yes, babies were meant to crawl and adults were meant to walk. You are right. But be honest, how much walking do you do? And is the walking you do the walking that is built off a foundation of crawling?

Do your shoulders and hips work together in a deliberate, coordinated, contra-lateral fashion? Walking is supposed to be a reset, a restorative movement that keeps our nervous system operating at peak levels.

Walking is also supposed to keep our bodies tied together by keeping us reflexively sharp. But most of us don’t walk like that. Most of us might need to go back and reestablish that crawling pattern that walking was meant to be built upon.

Crawling is hardwired into each one of us. Even though we are no longer children, the program for crawling is inside of us today. Even if you skipped crawling as a child for whatever reason, you still have the “crawling program.”

That program still works. You may have to dust it off a little, but it will still tie your body together in the same way that it did when you were a child. It will still nourish your brain and intimately integrate it with your body.

Crawling can even still help improve your hand-eye coordination. Everything it once did, it can still do. You were made to crawl.

It is the pattern that was designed to keep you healthy, strong and resilient throughout your entire life.

Don’t believe me? Do you think you being able to Spiderman crawl for a mile might indicate health and strength?

Regaining Your Original Strength

If you have mobility restrictions, if you have nagging pains and injuries, if you feel fragile at times, it may be simply because you are lacking your reflexive strength – your original strength. You can regain the reflexive strength you were meant to have.

Crawling can help you restore your original strength and allow you to improve your life in many areas.

Your physical strength will improve, your mobility will improve, your mental focus will improve, your response to stress will improve and so will your mood. When you are moving better and feeling better, it is easier to be in a good mood.

Test this out for yourself and see what crawling can do for you.

Yes, it is childish, but the ways of a child are much simpler and wiser than our ways today. Children develop and build strength the right way – on a solid foundation. It is like building a house on rock.

It will last. As adults, we try to add strength to a faulty, eroded foundation. It is like trying to build a house on sand. It doesn’t work too well. To be as strong as we were meant to be, we need a very solid foundation.

Over the next four weeks, I will introduce you to a crawling progression program.

This program is designed to help you rebuild your solid foundation of strength, your reflexive strength, and help you regain the resiliency you were meant to have.

The hope of this program is to help you improve your physical performance in whatever area you are passionate about, but ultimately, my desire is that it simply improves your life and allows you to live without limits.

If you embark on this program over the next four weeks, pay attention to how you feel and don’t be surprised if you hit personal records in lifts or activities that you’ve never reached before.

Resetting the nervous system and restoring reflexive strength doesn’t have to take a long time before the benefits come calling. The more you crawl, the more you establish, restore, and cement your reflexive strength.

Owning your reflexive strength is like takes the brakes off your body. In the beginning, we will start out easy and establish our crawling pattern. In the end, if you make it to the end, you will be strong enough to do almost anything.

Again, crawling improves and integrates the whole person, the whole you. What do you think? Are you up for the challenge? Don’t let the simplicity keep you away.

If you would like to get an idea of how crawling works and what it should look like, check out this video:

Click Here to Start Tim Anderson’s Free 4-Week Crawling Program

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