A great coach once told me this:
“If you are not capable and comfortable demonstrating strength and unrestricted mobility on the ground, you are missing a key component to a powerfully active and confident quality of life.”
I am a big believer of this as it applies to any age and any stage of life and because I practice, benefit from and pass on this wisdom to all who seek a highly capable body and quality existence on this planet.
For the life of me, I can’t remember the specific coach who said this, but I remember their wisdom of incorporating ground work into one’s training program and the performance gaps these movements fill.
But I’m guessing it would have been either Steve Maxwell, Charles Staley, Josh Henkin, Dan John or Mike Mahler as I have learned much about building and maintaining a sustainable and highly capable fitness foundation from these men.
Here’s a sample ground workout where I demo doing crab walks, bear crawls and the sit through exercise:
Training like this subjects your body to a lot of quality time under tension which will really charge up your metabolism.
Think of these types of layered training drills as one long, continuous intense total body repetition
It’s even more challenging when you perform these exercises on an unstable terrain like sand as the subtle shifting of the sand forces your body to engage its entire portfolio of stabilizer muscles to compensate – resulting in a more powerful metabolic effect.
Individually, these three ground exercises yield solid fitness dividends, but layer them together and you will drive your strength, mobility, durability and conditioning to even more powerful levels.
Check out the links at the end of the article where you can learn about the merits of each of these ground exercises – the crab walk, bear crawl and the sit through and how you can apply them to your own training.
Working Ground Exercises Into Your Training
There are many ways to layer ground work exercises into your training.
I will use them as a brief, yet powerful warmup to ramp up to an intense training session like sprinting, heavy squats or kettlebell clean and pressing variations.
I will layer them in to a weighted carry training session
I will pepper some ground exercises into my hikes to inject a little powerful excitement, mobility component and just a great additional fitness value for my time investment.
Every now and then I will even dedicate my entire training session to ground work as that’s how much I value staying connected to these movements.
Experiment with the distance of your ground walks/crawls and reps(in the case of the sit through exercise) and how many rounds you perform based on your fitness level and what your body tells you it can handle on your particular training day.
I prefer to perform multiple rounds combined with short distances and low reps which allows me to preserve my joint health and integrity while still banking a lot of total fitness value.
Fill In Those Fitness Gaps
Don’t let your valuable fitness foundation you are earning or maintaining stagnate by only training in one dimension.
We all have gaps in our training that keep us from the ideal life quality most folks want in order to stay fit and capable for themselves and their loved ones.
Meaningfully designed ground training is deceptively powerful as it subjects the entire body to a lot of time under tension that will stimulate your metabolism in a highly challenging manner without pounding your joints to dust.
So dare to hit the ground and expose your body to some meaningful moves that will add to your fitness foundation while improving your power quality and capability in the real world.
Related: Crab Walks Keep You Fit And Young
Related: Bear Crawls For Roaring Fitness Results
Related: The Simple But Challenging Sit Through Exercise
I’m Mark Mellohusky
I know my last name looks like an eye chart exam, but it’s pronounced (Mellow-Husky)
I enjoy sharing my fitness training and health philosophies I practice that I have either adopted or tweaked from some of the fitness greats in history or designed myself. Most of my adult life has been spent testing out and experimenting countless fitness methodologies.
I filter out and keep the most productive and sustainable methods that pay the most fitness dividends for my precious time invested and dumping those methods with the least value.
While I share a bunch of tips, techniques, and fitness philosophy on my site, it is unrealistic to try to adopt it all into your fitness plan as we all have different health and fitness gaps in our programs we need to address.
So take what you need to succeed even if it’s just one concept and fill your fitness gaps, dare to get out of your comfort zone and experience the thrill of doing what works and realizing your goals!
Remember that your time on this Earth will ultimately be defined by the quality of your relationships and interactions – Not the quantity of them!