Raise your hand if you've ever wondered what walking like a gorilla does to your body. In that case, just me is fine. Gorilla Walk isn't your typical walking workout in public unless you're willing to face some suspicious looks, so I did it alone for nine minutes every day for a week. Noise is optional.
Gorilla Walk is a popular animal-themed exercise for physical education classes, calisthenics, animal flow classes, and more. It's so much fun to use your whole body to move like a gorilla. As I quickly learned, this requires some space, and moving it around is more difficult than it looks.
Not wanting to miss an opportunity to challenge myself with fitness, I set myself a daily goal of 9 minutes of full-body exercise. Here are my thoughts on what happened and whether this is worth adding to your routine. Grab your yoga mat and give it a try!
How to do gorilla walk
There are several ways to perform the gorilla walk, and like many exercises in the fitness world, it's open to interpretation.The variations of the gorilla walk that I practiced can be used for both. quadrupedal walkingwhich means supporting the weight with the limbs.
Here's how a gorilla walks sideways.
- Start in a low squat position with heels slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and knees pointing in the same direction as your thumbs.
- Don't slouch, keep your spine neutral and strengthen your core.
- Start swinging slowly from side to side, moving your arms heavily. Think about lowering your butt toward the floor and pinning your shoulders back.
- Swing your hands to the right in front of your body, then lower your right and left hands down.
- Use your core to drive the movement, following your feet and jumping over them to land on your right foot, then your left foot.
- Continue to move laterally in one direction, then return in the opposite direction.
To perform the forward movement variation (see video below), start in a low squat position and follow the starting cue above. Now make fists with both hands and place both fists on the ground in front of your body. Squeeze your forearms and jump forward with your feet toward the outside of your hands and continue moving forward.
I did a 9-minute gorilla walk every day for a week — here's what happened
I enjoyed working in mobility.
It was much gentler when I warmed up beforehand before walking.That said, gorilla exercises are commonly used as Warming up for functional training. As I lowered myself into the starting position of the squat, I felt how tight my muscles were. I'm glad I scheduled 9 minutes a day to keep things running smoothly. It's a boring joke.
Gorilla Walk is great for developing mobility in your hips, shoulders, and wrists, and it works key muscle groups, including your core muscles. Although I didn't feel like my upper body was more mobile by the end of the week, I did notice a difference in my lower back and hamstrings.
heart rate increased rapidly
I divided each day into 9 sets of 60 second efforts. On the first day, I felt like I was gassed up after only a minute. Although the instructor makes it look easy, it takes a lot of strength to move your body by shifting your weight between your upper and lower extremities. Moving quickly and creating momentum also required coordination, which increased my heart rate.
I felt that the sideways walking of the gorilla was more difficult.
This is not surprising, considering that we humans move sideways much less often than we move forward and backward. I don't know about you, but I don't have much time to walk around on all fours either. As with the lateral movements, I enjoyed the variations that worked the obliques and lateral glutes harder. And it was a great test of balance and stability.
Gorilla Walk isn't your typical walking workout in public, unless you're willing to face some suspicious stares.
But the gorillas' forward movements were much more painful to their upper bodies than their lateral movements, especially their fists, wrists, forearms, and shoulders, which put weight on them for nine minutes a day. He alternated between forward and lateral variations each round, collapsing into a heap by the 9 minute mark each time. No wonder gorillas get jacked.
I didn't expect the work rate of my arms.
If you have a wooden floor, be careful when balancing on your fists, wrap your thumbs around, and keep your fists tightly gripped as you move. This is what I learned quickly. Your upper body tires much faster than your legs (at least for me), so you may need to adjust your sets and reps accordingly, or add a resistance band over your knees or ankles to increase activation. not.
Moving to the right side (my stronger side) felt more natural, while moving to the left required more adjustment to find my flow. But most importantly, no matter how he worked this week, he learned that pace is key, that 60 seconds per round is enough for him, and that he needs to build more forearm strength. It has expanded. Who would have thought that walking a gorilla would put so much strain on its muscles?
verdict
Animal Flow instructors spend a lot of time on all fours, which is a great way to improve coordination, mobility, functional strength, and range of motion. Furthermore, we do not fully appreciate the bodyweight exercises found in calisthenics and animal flows. These are some of the hardest things to do consistently as you learn to move regardless of your weight.
So, should you include gorilla walking in your training menu? Yes and no. I wouldn't program it in a hypertrophy or strength training program, but how about his HIIT class with bodyweight training? perhaps. If you're focused on improving your mobility or enjoy calisthenics, I think this full-body exercise is worth trying.
Rather, it's effective as a warm-up exercise before CrossFit-style or bodyweight training. This movement activates nearly every muscle group, helping to prepare your muscles and joints for exercise, as well as eliminating the uncomfortable muscle tension you face when heading to exercise after a day at a desk. It also helps get rid of stiffness.
The downside of this exercise is that it makes your forearms weak, but to compensate for that, we have prepared a dumbbell forearm workout. If you want to avoid putting your weight on your fists, place your hands flat on the ground instead.
