Why Crawling Like a Toddler Might Be the Best New Exercise Trend in Ages

Fitness crazes come and go, often involving special equipment and strange diets. But a new approach that’s gaining popularity is something anyone can relate to. It involves crawling. Yes, the kind of crawling on all fours you used to do as a child. 

Already popularized in physical therapy, crawling has been gaining traction to increase strength and fitness in the U.S. as well as in China.

Why does it work? 

“You can crawl in many ways. You can crawl on your hands and knees. You can also prop up on your toes and just hover, one or two inches above the ground, which is really going to pull in those core muscles and work those muscles effectively,” said Danielle Johnson, a physical therapist at Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic Healthy Living Program. “Then, as you start to move, you’re working on your shoulder girdle, you’re working on your hips. If I could give one exercise to almost everybody, this would be it.”

The popularization of such an unexpected exercise comes courtesy of the “Original Strength Training System,” whose expressed purpose is to make people “reset their operating system using a way they already know, one which we all used early in our lives”. 

How do people crawling in a hallway look like? Here’s an Instagram peek from the Original Strength folks: