- Mountaineers are an effective exercise for developing core strength without a gym.
- Common mistakes, like sagging your lower back or lifting your hips, can make the exercise less effective.
- To get the most out of mountain climbers, focus on a solid plank position and move slowly at first.
Mountain climbers are a popular bodyweight exercise that can increase your heart rate and help build full-body strength without a gym.
Done correctly, mountaineers and other variations of planks can be more effective crunches than crunches. fried miriam, New York-based personal trainer and founder of Strong MFhe told Insider.
“What people don’t realize is that you can’t cut fat locally, you can’t do a lot of sit-ups and shed the fat,” he said.
“Instead, I changed from the mentality of ‘I need to work to have a flat stomach’, to thinking of the core as an important foundation for everything, and the abs are not functional.”
Mountaineers can help you improve the stability of your core, which helps prevent injury and increases effectiveness in other types of exercise.
However, common mistakes, such as unstable hips or misaligned arms, can make the exercise less effective. To get the most out of your mountain climbers, focus on a strong board and slow, careful movement and work your way up to longer or faster exercises.
Mountaineers need a firm plank position
To climb mountains, you should start in a plank position, with your hands on the ground under your shoulders, your legs and back straight, and your toes planted on the ground behind you.
The plank position is effective in building full-body strength and stability on its own, and it can be quite challenging on its own.
If you are still working on your board, practice holding a board longer with scaled versions of the exercise like raising your hands on a box or chair, or dropping your knees to the floor.
Common mistakes include lifting the hips too high or sagging in the center
Once you’ve lowered the board, mountaineers involve bringing one knee to the elbow and then returning it to the board position behind you, alternating sides.
Sometimes the movement can throw people out of position with their plank, Fried said, losing some of the stability and effectiveness of the movement.
“What I often see is that people’s hips start to lift or their lower back starts to sag,” he said.
Both can be signs that you are not involving your core, using your abdominal muscle to resist gravity and the rotation of the movement. To fix this, tighten your abs and glutes and keep your hips lower than your shoulders without dropping them to the floor. Maintain a straight, diagonal line from head to heels.
Keep your hips square and avoid moving them up and down or side to side to touch your obliques (the abdominal muscles along the sides of your core).
Another common mistake is placing your hands in front of your shoulders, rather than directly under them. As you tire, you may be tempted to let your shoulders sink behind your hands to ease the weight of your body, but that can ruin the position of your hips. Instead, keep your wrists, elbows, and shoulders stacked at all times.
If you have a hard time maintaining good shape during mountain climbers, Fried recommends moving more intentionally. Frantically lifting your knees or speeding up your exercise can distract from maintaining a stable base, which is key to getting the most out of the movement.
“Slow down so you can focus on maintaining plank position,” he said.
It can also be helpful to focus on shorter sets of the exercise, doing 20 to 30 seconds of fit mountaineers and progressing to longer sets.
