Bear crawls offer a few positive effects but they are not for everyone. Find out what alternatives to the bear crawl you can do instead.
This exercise involves walking on your hands and feet without touching the ground with your knees.
Among the other benefits they offer, bear crawls can strengthen your shoulder, core, chest, quad, hip flexors, and a few other muscles, they can improve mobility, improve balance and coordination, etc.
Whether you don’t enjoy bear crawls, you want to focus more on specific muscles, or you want an alternative for any other reason, these alternatives to bear crawls can offer you some of the same benefits.
1. Mountain climbers
Take the following steps to do two mountain climbers:
- Start with your face facing the floor on your hands and knees.
- Move your feet back until your body is in a straight line. This means that your knees will be off the ground and that you are resting on your hands and feet.
- Move the knee of one leg forward to your chest as far as you comfortably can. Keep your back straight throughout the movement.
- Return that leg to the position in step 2 in a controlled motion.
- Repeat the same movement with your other leg.
Mountain climbers are a great alternative to bear crawls, especially if you don’t have a lot of room available or don’t want to take up all the space in the gym.
This substitute allows you to get in a similar workout for your shoulders, core, quadriceps, chest, etc. On top of that, you train your hip flexors, hamstrings, and cardiovascular health more than bear crawls.
One potential downside is that mountain climbers do not train balance and coordination to the same extent as bear crawls. You also get slightly less chest and shoulder muscle engagement.
2. Pushup shoulder taps
Take the following steps to do a shoulder tap pushup:
- Start on your hands and knees with your hands at about shoulder width and right below your shoulders.
- Move your feet back until your body is in a straight line from your head to your heels and your shoulders are right above your wrists.
- Slowly fold your arms at your elbows until your face is close to the ground. Your upper arms should be at an angle of about 45 degrees to your sides. Another way to put it is if someone is looking down at you from above your arms should make an arrow, not a T.
- Stretch your arms again until you are back in the position from the second step.
- Shift your weight to one side and reach with the hand of the opposite side to your shoulder.
- Put the hand back into the previous position.
- Repeat the same movement but tap with the hand on the other side.
Similar to bear crawls, pushup shoulder taps will help you train balance, coordination, shoulder mobility, and a lot of the same muscles.
One thing to keep in mind is that pushup shoulder taps will be a lot more challenging for your chest and tricep muscles.
Another difference is that this exercise does not train hip mobility and hip flexor muscles to the same extent.
3. Crab walks
There are different versions of the crab walk but the one below will be the substitute that comes closest to the bear crawl exercise. Take the following steps to do a crab walk:
- Sit on the floor and put your hands right behind you with your fingers pointing in a direction that is comfortable for you.
- Lift your hips off the ground. Keep your shoulders pushed down a small amount throughout the exercise instead of letting them come up to your ears.
- Start taking steps with your hands and feet. There is no one correct specific sequence or direction.
Because your body is in the opposite position of bear walks, you engage the opposite muscles with crab walks. That means more glute, hamstring, lower back, and upper back muscle engagement.
At the same time, you are still engaging your shoulder muscles and training mobility, balance, and coordination.
These things together can make crab walks a good alternative to, or exercise to combine with, bear walks to keep your muscle distribution balanced.
4. Spiderman pushups
Take the following steps to do a spiderman pushup:
- Start on your hands and knees with your hands at about shoulder width and right below your shoulders.
- Move your feet back until your body is in a straight line from your head to your heels and your shoulders are right above your wrists.
- Slowly fold your arms at your elbows until your face is close to the ground. Your upper arms should be at an angle of about 45 degrees to your sides. Another way to put it is if someone is looking down at you from above your arms should make an arrow, not a T. At the same time move one knee to the elbow on the same side.
- Stretch your arms again and move your foot in the air back until you are back in the position from the second step.
Spiderman pushups are another bear crawl alternative with more focus on training the chest, tricep, and core muscles.
At the same time, you still get relatively similar shoulder, mobility, coordination, and balance training. Another benefit of spiderman pushups is that you need less space than bear crawls.
5. Renegade rows
You can do the next exercise with just your body weight to focus more on the balance and coordination aspects.
Another option is using weights like dumbbells or kettlebells to make renegade rows more challenging for your back and core muscles.
Take the following steps to do a renegade row with dumbbells:
- Place the dumbbells on the ground at about shoulder-width and the grips at horizontal lines with each other.
- Get into the position where your face is facing the floor with your hands on the dumbbell grips. Your arms stretched with shoulders above your wrists, and your knees on the ground.
- Move your feet back until your body is in a straight line. If you notice you need more stability during the exercise you can put your feet slightly more apart.
- Raise one dumbbell upward until it is at the height of your upper body. Keep your elbow close to your body and mainly use your back muscles for this movement.
- Lower the dumbbell back into the position of step 3 and raise the dumbbell on the other side in the same way.
Similar to bear crawls, renegade rows will help you challenge your balance and coordination and core, shoulder, tricep, quadricep, chest, and hip flexor muscles.
On the other hand, renegade rows, especially with heavy dumbbells, will be more challenging for the upper back muscles. Besides that, renegade rows do not really train hip mobility.
If you want to make the exercise more challenging for your chest and triceps on top of these things, you can do a pushup between each renegade row.
6. Walkouts
Take the following steps to do a walkout exercise:
- Stand up straight with your feet at about shoulder width.
- Reach down to the ground with your hands. Preferably while keeping your legs stretched but initially you can bend through your knees if you are not very flexible.
- Walk forward with your hands as far as you can without lowering your hips lower than a straight line from your heels to the top of your head.
- Walk back with your hands until you are back in the position of step 2.
Instead of walking back with your hands, you can also walk forward with your feet which is called the inchworm exercise.
Walkouts are an exercise that can help you train balance, coordination, and shoulder mobility, and a few muscles like the core muscles, shoulders, hip flexors, chest, and quadriceps.
Besides less hip mobility training, walkouts are an alternative that offers very similar benefits as bear crawls.
7. Walking planks
Take the following steps to do a walking plank:
- Start in the high plank position. This means on your hands and front feet with stretched arms and a stretched body. Keep your shoulder above your hands.
- Shift your weight to one arm, lift the hand of the other side, and lean on the elbow of this side. Try not to swing back and forth too much.
- Shift your weight to the side with the elbow on the ground, lift the hand of the other side, and lean on the elbow of that side.
- Shift your weight to the side that just put the elbow on the ground, lift the hand of the other side, and lean on the hand of that side.
- Return your other hand to starting position and repeat with the other side first.
Walking planks will train core, chest, and tricep muscles more than bear walks. On top of that, you get a nice amount of shoulder mobility, shoulder muscle, quadricep muscles, balance, and coordination training.
The downside of this option is that you train hip mobility and hip flexor muscles less than with bear crawls.
