MONKEY VS LIZARD | Animal Movement Motivation

December 16, 2017 by VAHVA Fitness

Animal movement compilation featuring the notorious monkey and lizard movements. 

Here are two of the best movements available and they have been taken to the absolute extremes.

In movement training there is endless progress to make even with the most basic movements. There really never comes a point when you have fully "mastered" a movement since there is always room for improvement.

There is real progress to be made. These movements should act as a motivation and inspiration to move more and train harder.

Obviously beginners start from the basic variations and gradually move towards harder exercises and movements.

Especially the lizard crawl may look almost impossible to do at first, but squatting 200 kg (440 lbs) should feel almost impossible in the beginning as well. 

Everyone has been blessed with the gift of self-improvement and the ability to make progress. Before you learn how to squat 200 kg, you learn how to squat 20 kg. The exact same principle applies to movement training. 

No one is naturally good at crawling like a lizard, because that's not what humans naturally do! But once you master the feat, the benefits are numerous.


MONKEY MOVEMENT


monkey walk monkey movement ape walk ape movement
  • Build strength and mobility in the shoulders, arms and core.
  • Great transition element between other movements.
  • Fun way to move while making the body limber.

Monkey movement is one of the best movements out there because not only it's very fun to do, it's also effective for loosening up and strengthening the body.

The monkey movement can be adjusted for all difficulty levels and there are plenty of variations to choose from (as you can see from the video).

Beginners learn to do the basic monkey variations and do them well, whereas the advanced trainees should learn to add control and stability to the movements.

Even the basic monkey will become a killer movement when you do it slowly with control. This way the monkey walk almost becomes a controlled cartwheel. 

The best monkey walks to train different parts of the body are covered in Movement 20XX program. There are even 2 flow routines named "happy monkey flow" and "crazy monkey flow".


LIZARD MOVEMENT


lizard crawl lizard walk movement
  • Build immense strength in the chest, shoulders and triceps.
  • Develop strength and mobility in the abs, obliques and hips.
  • Final lizard crawl progressions are some of the hardest movements anyone can do.

Mastering the lizard crawl is one of the goals of Movement 20XX course and there are 10 exercise progressions and 10 mobility drills (from easy to difficult) for just this purpose.

The final form lizard crawl is one of the hardest push ups (pressing exercises) you can do, except the lizard crawl is far more multi-dimensional than any push up out there.

You will be working the pressing muscles (chest, shoulders and triceps) from many different muscle lengths and arm positions which is like doing many different push up variations in one fluid motion. This is EXCELLENT for strength and mobility.

Surprisingly, the lizard crawl is also very intense for the core musculature. You will be bending A LOT from the waist which means your obliques are getting trained to a high degree. The abdominals will work as a stabilizer.

The greatest benefit of the lizard crawl is that it will make your entire body strong and limber. 

You simply cannot be tight like you are in a push up - you have to crawl like a lizard or more like slither like a snake by bending the waist from one side to another.

In the video you saw many ultra-advanced variations of the lizard crawl. Just mastering the basic form will make you a certified badass, but once that's done, there is endless room to improve.

Combine both the monkey and lizard crawl into your workouts and you have already covered majority of the upper body.

Train hard, stay safe.



samuli jyrkinen

About the author 

Samuli Jyrkinen

Samuli is the ninja behind the scenes (photography, videography, websites, program platforms and more). He has been training religiously for over a decade and has a firm grasp of physical and mental fitness. You will find our story here.

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