Exercise Tutorial: Mountain Climbers
Table of Contents
What Are Mountain Climbers
Mountain Climbers are a fantastic full body exercise to quickly increase your heart rate while simultaneously strengthening your core.
How to Do Mountain Climbers
Start in a high plank position. Arms are extended approximately shoulder width apart with hands underneath our shoulders and feet together or slightly apart while keeping the core tight and our back and neck in a straight line.
Drive your right knee up towards your chest.
As you return your right leg back to the starting position, quickly alternate your legs and drive the left leg towards your chest.
Repeat this process for the desired number of repetitions.
Mountain Climbers Form
Mountain Climbers are a high intensity exercise that is performed typically at high speeds. As a result, it’s often found that clients compromise form for speed, especially when fatigue sets in. Here a few cues that you can use when performing the exercise:
Maintain a neutral spine (no rounding of the back)
Keep shoulders down and back (don’t let them drop or round forwards)
Hands stacked under your shoulders
Keep core engaged throughout the movement
Mountain Climbers Benefits
There are numerous benefits to performing Mountain Climbers, some which will have you incorporating them into your exercise routine immediately!
Does not require equipment.
Enhances core strength and stability.
Improves cardiovascular fitness and endurance.
Can be incorporated into HIIT workouts or circuit training.
Targets nearly all major muscle groups.
Why Are Mountain Climbers Useful
The Mountain Climbers exercise is useful because combines cardio aspect with the dynamic movements along with core strengthening from being in a plank position. This is truly a fantastic full body exercise that anyone can do. The lack of equipment and space needed to perform the Mountain Climber makes it a valuable for clients who have limited space or don’t have access to a gym.
Mountain Climbers are also useful because anyone can do it and it is such a versatile exercise. If you’re a beginner, you can perform fewer reps, perform the exercise on an elevated stable surface or even simply hold a plank to build strength in this position. More experienced clients can increase the intensity of their push up planks by performing more reps, performing the exercise on an unstable surface such as a bosu or stability ball, or by trying a Mountain Climber Variation.
Mountain Climbers are a highly versatile exercise. They can be added as a finisher to strength workout, added to you ab days, used as a part of a warmup or even be incorporated into a HIIT workout or circuit style training.
Mountain Climbers Muscles Worked
Mountain Climbers are a killer full body exercise that targets nearly every muscle group including:
Are Mountain Climbers Good for Abs?
Modern climbers are actually very effective for your abs now. What we need to remember is to engage your core while doing the mountain climbers, ensuring that your core is braced and your stomach is held firm while bringing your knees up.
Mountain Climbers Variations
Mountain Climbers variations will add variety to your exercise routine and there are numerous variations that you can try if you’re looking to up your game and further challenge yourself. Here’s a couple you can try:
Modified Mountain Climbers
The modified modern climber is basically a variation of the original modern climber, where you hold onto something stable, such as a barbell, push up bars or a bench. This variation is recommended for beginners and those with wrist problems, as the stable surface keeps the wrist in a neutral position. It’s also referred as the incline mountain climber.
Cross Body Mountain Climbers
Cross Body Mountain Climbers are performed the same way as our typical mountain climbers. The only difference being is we drive our legs towards our opposite arms instead of a straight path towards our chest. For example, if we’re bringing our right leg forwards, we’re driving it towards our left arm, so the leg is coming across the body.
Mountain Climbers to Pushup
The Mountain Climbers to Pushup is performed exactly the same as the conventional Mountain Climber, we’re simply just adding a pushup into the mix. Start by doing your desired number of mountain climbers (ex. 10), once completed the Mountain Climbers pause in the high plank position and perform a number of pushups (ex. 3) before continuing the Mountain Climbers.
Reverse Mountain Climbers
The Reverse Mountain Climber is a great variation that will provide a challenge to your workout as well as engage the triceps and shoulders more. To complete this variation, our movement mechanics are the same, our setup is just a little different. We start by getting ourselves into a reverse plank. To do so, start by sitting with your legs extended in front of your, our hands placed on the ground just to the side of our hips with our fingers pointed forward.
Next, dig your heels and palms into the ground to lift your hips off the ground. With our hands under our shoulders, our body should form a straight line from our head to our toes. From here, we are going to keep our hips raised and alternately bring one knee up towards our chest, similar to the conventional Mountain Climber. Remember to engage your core and squeeze your glutes throughout the exercise.
Mountain Climber Workout
Regarding the mountain climber workout, typically people do 3 to 5 sets, either in a timed range or by reps. If you're a beginner, start with one to three sets of 5 to 10 repetitions per side, and take longer breaks if needed.