Fundamental 'Lizard-crawl' progressions
'Quadrupedal' locomotion: foundational patterns & conditioning
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4m 8s
THE WHAT & HOW:
The 'lizard crawl' is a quadrupedal locomotion pattern which develops understanding of movement through space as close to the floor as possible, WITHOUT touching the body. Before entering these lower regions, however (i.e the 'Low-lizard'), coordination, structural-awareness, strength & conditioning are developed in a range of straight & bent-arm strength (SAS/BAS) progressions, and sometimes a combination of both (i.e. 'Reach +. pushup'). Whilst beginning as a strength & conditioning-development context, the ultimately objective here is development of EFFICIENCY, i.e. learning how to make the pattern EASIER, rather than harder.
RESOURCE CONTENTS:
0:00 - Contralateral pattern
- Notice how WEIGHT is distributed between hands & feet, noticing the increasing DIAGONAL line of tension through the torso with every step as the spine stabilises the counter-rotational force. PUSH through the floor with the hands to maintain a stable upper-body structure, step DELIBERATELY place weight FIRSTLY in the HEEL of the hands toward the ulnar-corner (the 'pisiform'), then ROLLING diagonally through the hand to the forefinger in a 'HEEL-TOE' pattern, as in walking. This hand-patterning applies to ALL variations.
0:19 - Pattern + pushup
- Keep the elbow of the dominant pushing-arm CLOSE TO THE BODY for greater support & structural stability. Notice that, rather than being evenly distributed as in a traditional 'sagittal' pushup performed to the front of the body, the load is more predominant on ONE side, as the HIPS/body favour rotation in this direction (this is emphasised in further variations).
RESOURCE CONTENTS:
0:42 - Pattern + forward reach
1:07 - Reach + pushup
1:44 - Low lizard
2:05 - Lizard + arm sweep
2:27 - Lizard + arm sweep + internal knee
2:56 - Wide-reach lizard
3:32 - Wide-reach lizard + arm sweep + internal knee
LEARN MORE & PROGRAMMING (subscriber-only):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1evMt5VIvIcF4hQv23pl1_iDdYyP0Zi5Z/view?usp=drive_link
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