Conditioning
Mountain climbers
- Kit
- No kit
- Works
- deep core · hip flexors
- Also
- front delts · chest · quads · glutes
Mountain climbers are a plank with the knees driving in and out, one leg at a time. They raise your heart rate while asking the shoulders and trunk to hold a stable position, so they work as a conditioning effort that still trains the front of your core. They suit anyone who can already hold a solid plank and wants a low impact way to breathe hard.
Form
How to do mountain climbers
- 1Set up in a high plank: hands under your shoulders, arms straight, feet about hip width, body in one line from head to heels.
- 2Brace your stomach and squeeze your glutes so your hips sit level with your shoulders, not sagging or piked up.
- 3Drive one knee toward your chest, keeping the foot off the floor, then return it to the start as the other knee comes in.
- 4Keep alternating at a pace you can hold, shoulders stacked over the hands the whole time.
- 5Breathe steadily in rhythm with your legs rather than holding your breath, and slow the tempo before you let the plank collapse.
- 6Hold the plank for a moment at the end of the effort, then lower your knees to the floor.
Watch for
Common mistakes
The hips bounce up into a pike with every knee drive.
Fix: Shorten the range of the knee drive and keep your stomach braced so the hips stay level.
The hands creep back and the shoulders drift behind the wrists.
Fix: Reset with your hands directly under your shoulders and press the floor away to keep them there.
Racing so fast that the feet slap and the form falls apart.
Fix: Pick a pace you can hold for the whole effort and place each foot down under control.
Variations
Easier and harder
Sessions
Put it in a workout
None of the fixed workouts uses it. Pick a workout for your kit, or start today's session on /gym.