Bear Crawl Shoulder Workouts

The "bear crawl" is a simple but challenging body-weight exercise that you can do almost anywhere with enough floor space. To do a basic bear crawl, position yourself on your hands and knees and then lift your knees off the floor a few inches. In this position with your feet and your hands on the floor, crawl forward. This exercise particularly works your core and upper body. You can modify the bear crawl to focus on building strength in particular areas, such as your shoulders.

  1. Sets

    • The simplest way to create a bear crawl shoulder workout is to do sets of bear crawls. For example, do three sets of bear crawls that cover a particular distance. Whether it's 60 yards or four times back and forth down the hallway, make sure you choose a distance that's challenging for you. Take a short rest of about 60 seconds between each set to let your body recover for the next set.

    Simple Variations

    • Whenever you're in the bear crawl stance, you're working your shoulders. Changing the bear crawl -- by moving not just forward but backward and sideways too -- will still work your shoulders, but it will do so at slightly different angles to make the workout more challenging. Do three sets of forward bear crawls, but at certain intervals, change how you move. For example, do 20 yards of forward bear crawls, 20 yards of backward bear crawls and then 20 yards of sideways bear crawls for one set.

    Add Planks

    • After each set of bear crawls, hold "push-up position" (also called plank) for a specified length of time, such as 10 to 30 seconds. Make sure you have good form -- your hands and toes should be on the ground and your back should be flat. Because you've already been working your shoulders and arms by doing bear crawl, this should be more challenging than usual, particularly for your shoulders.

    Add Push-Ups

    • You can also incorporate traditional shoulder exercises into your bear crawl workout. For example, after a certain distance, you can add a traditional push-up or a pike shoulder press push-up. To do a pike push-up, simply straighten your legs in the bear crawl stance and bend your arms as you would in a traditional push-up until the top of your head touches the floor. Add one, five or more push-ups to the end of each set of bear crawls.