Some people run. Some walk. But one of the best overall movement practices for seniors is crawling.
Babies start off by rolling, then crawling. Adults forget how. Yet crawling is one of the most fundamental of human movements. Not only are there a lot of different levels of crawling [progressions] that lead to more difficult moves, the crawling movements themselves have a number of benefits on their own.
There are the benefits of quadruped and cross-body moments that crawling provides. Plus crawling is an easy starting point for some good arm, shoulder and full body movements that benefit the entire body.
Let’s begin with the basic crawl. You simply get on your hands and knees and move from point A to point B. Most of your weight is on your knees, hands and wrists. You are using your entire body to move, and the weight pressure on your arms and shoulders are a great benefit for the beginning exerciser. It’s the way babies begin to increase the strength in their tiny bodies. The hard part? Getting down to and up from the crawling position. If you use your bedroom to exercise while in our current “quarantine”, the bed makes a great support to help you get up and down — if you really need it.
Other animals crawl too. Bears, big cats, and lizards, are a few. While I’m not sure you can really call them “crawls”, in fitness lingo, “bear crawls”, “cat crawls”, and “lizard crawls” represent the high, medium and low levels of crawling and represent the various degrees of difficulty. You can do a quick search using those terms online and see what those crawls actually look like. You will see that they are essentially crawling with your knees off the ground and your torso at a different height off the ground. Lizard crawls are very low to the ground and are the most difficult. Bear crawls and cat crawls are variations of the basic crawl and are relatively easy to do for most seniors.
If you have been diagnosed with severe osteoporosis, you must be very careful when doing anything more than normal crawling on all fours because of the pressure on your wrists, arms and shoulders. So if bone density is a factor, start with ordinary crawling like a 4 month old.
An added benefit to crawling is the “cross body” movement involved. While you are not really crossing your arms or legs, scientists who have actually studied the benefits of crawling have shown that crawling provides right and left brain stimulation in the same manner as true cross body movement.
So, give crawling a try as an exercise. While it seems simple, it can be a great exercise for your entire body. If your spouse or significant other asks what you are doing crawling around on the floor, just tell them you dropped your hearing aid battery and are looking for it somewhere on the floor. That’s what my mother-in-law used to do.
Thank you for reading.