Stationary monkey walk variation for fat loss and conditioning. Movement training is excellent for full body conditioning.

We covered many monkey walk variations for speed and agility in one of our previous videos. Here is a new variation for conditioning and fat loss.

The monkey walk movement is easy enough for almost everyone to learn, but what makes it great is that it can be scaled and adjusted for many different purposes and difficulty levels.

You will be working on core and shoulder strength and stability. The monkey walk is also a great transitional element between other movements in a flow.

What makes the stationary monkey walk special is that it requires no space at all (you can practice it at home) and it's super intense when it comes to cardio and muscular endurance.

You can expect your arms, shoulders and core get very tired and your heart rate go up. Basically the stationary monkey walk can be called "upper body jogging".

The reason why conditioning and muscular endurance matters, is that your work capacity is very limited.

If you focus on strength alone, the frequency of strength you can produce will be very limited and that wouldn't work well in complex physical systems like sports and martial arts. 

You want to be strong, but you also want to have the work capacity to perform for longer periods of time without losing your strength levels.

This is how the stationary monkey walk was invented and how we create any movements that we do. We needed a movement that was upper body focused and that was also good for conditioning purposes. 

Jogging is great, but it's very lower body focused, your upper body also needs to have similar type of work. This is where the stationary monkey walk (or many other monkey walks step in). 

The monkey walk is not a all-in-one movement though - you also need other movements to fully target the body. Monkey walk is great for shoulders, arms and core, but there are other muscles in the upper body as well.

One of the flow routines of Movement 20XX program called the fat loss flow routine consists of 4 movements and it's excellent for full body conditioning and rapid fat loss because you are targeting the whole body and not just the upper body.

It has become more clear that when it comes to complex full body conditioning, movement training is one of the best ways for this purpose. Push ups are great but they aren't complex enough for high level conditioning. 

The stationary monkey walk is not one-dimensional - it can be adjusted to target different parts of the upper body and modified for all difficulty levels.

The normal shoulder width monkey walk will work the shoulders, serratus anterior, arms, core and legs. The shoulder girdle needs to be pushed forward (protracted) during the exercise and you should lean slightly forward. 

Wide stationary monkey walk is the hardest of them all and will require further stabilization from the chest muscles. Your shoulders also need to work extremely hard to stabilize the movement.

Narrow stationary monkey movement on the other hand will emphasize less the chest and more the shoulders and arms. For beginners the shoulder width monkey walk is the best option. 

In addition to modifying the arm width, you can also change the angles and distance of your steps and how you move your legs. This adds further complexity to the movement. 

Your pace is obviously the determining factor when it comes to fat loss and conditioning. Beginners can focus on just hopping from side to side and it should be quite tough.

Advanced trainees should add speed and really try to push the limit. You will notice that it will be incredibly tough for your upper body and cardio!

How much and how often? Monkey movement like this can be utilized as a warm-up or as a workout on its own done a couple of times per week. 

You have done the movement enough when your form starts to suffer, your heart is bouncing and you no longer can go on! 3 to 6 sets to max can produce great results.

Train hard, stay safe.