Mountain climbers are an incredibly rewarding exercise with countless benefits. It impacts your cardiovascular endurance, builds muscle, and increases core strength. Even though mountain climbers can be a difficult exercise as it requires agility, coordination and balance, it is important to understand the proper form, as this will help reduce your risk of injury and maximize the benefits.
Benefits of Mountain Climbers
Mountain Climbers are an effective full-body exercise as they target multiple major muscles including your arms, shoulders, core, quads, hamstrings, and calves at the same time. In addition, mountain climbers increase cardiovascular endurance and metabolism, and if done properly, improve coordination and balance.
Here are a few more benefits of mountain climbers:
• Increased balance and agility
• Strengthens and develops core muscles
• Increases heart rate
• Improves stamina
• Improves flexibility
• Great fat-burning exercise
Safety Precautions
Before you begin doing mountain climbers, it is important to keep in mind a few safety precautions. Make sure that you warm-up before any strenuous exercise, as the jolting motion of mountain climbers can shock your muscles and joints. Warming up will help you avoid injury. Additionally, always pay attention to your posture and keep your back straight. Allow your abdominal muscles to do the majority of the work, and support your form with your arms and legs.
Learning the Technique
Mountain climbers are performed in a bear crawl position with both hands and feet firmly on the ground. Place your hands directly under your shoulders, and your feet roughly hip-width apart. Extend your right leg behind and your left leg forward, with your arms in a straight line and your core engaged. Follow with the opposite movements: your left leg behind and your right leg forward. That counts as one rep. Here are a few tips to focus on while completing mountain climbers:
• Keep your abs tight; this will support your lower back
• Keep your elbows close to your body and not flared out
• Keep your feet parallel to the ground and not extended up
• Move with control; your legs should not be swinging
• Avoid jumping too far forward
Variations of Mountain Climbers
Mountain climbers can be tailored to anything from beginner to advanced athletes, as there are a variety of variations to fit your skill level. To make the exercise more difficult, you can add a few variations. Here are a few examples:
• Alternating Slingshots: Extend one arm and opposite leg simultaneously and repeat on the other side.
• Frog Mountain Climbers: Start in a frog plank position and maintain the mountain climber movements.
• High-Knees Mountain Climbers: Instead of extending the leg backwards, raise to the knees to hip height.
• Single-Leg Mountain Climbers: Extend one leg and leave the other in a bent position close to the chest.
Intensity Level
Mountain climbers are excellent for any level of fitness as the intensity can be varied by the size of the steps, how quickly you move, and the number of sets and reps. To start, you can perform two sets of 15-20 reps. If this is too easy for you, you can add more reps or switch to a different variation of mountain climbers.
Mountain climbers are an incredibly effective full-body exercise with a variety of benefits, but it is important to pay attention to your form and take safety precautions. Before attempting mountain climbers, it is important to warm up, focus on correct form, and maintain a straight back. Additionally, a beginner should start with two sets of 15-20 reps, and then progress as your fitness level improves. With the right technique and proper safety measures, mountain climbers can be a great addition to your fitness routine.
