How to Do Mountain Climbers the Right Way to Build a Strong Core
Your core workout is incomplete if you do nothing but staid situps and static planks. Treating your ab training like a slow series of exercises to be repeated ad infinitum is the recipe for wasted time and energy. Add some extra intensity to your program with mountain climbers, which ramp up the movement to hone your core and even add an additional cardio element to get your heart pumping to make you break a sweat.
The bodyweight movement is a popular core training move for good reason. Mountain climbers can also give your ab workout an athletic training boost—especially if you're a runner, or you perform workouts that include running. "The mountain climber is actually a great exercise that's underestimated in how it's going to make you faster, make you a better athlete, and really get your feet moving quickly," says Men's Health fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S.
According to Samuel, however, you shouldn't just flop down in your gym's floor and start pumping your feet and expect a good workout. It's absolutely essential to take on mountain climbers with a firm understanding of the muscles it targets, the most common mistakes people make when they do the exercise, and how you should include it in your own core training plan. He's joined by MH fitness editor Brett Williams, NASM-CPT, to break down the subtleties of the exercise to teach you the perfect mountain climber form. That way, you'll be able to reap all of the core-training, athleticism-boosting benefits.
What Muscles You Work Doing the Mountain Climber
The mountain climber is typically considered an exercise to target your ab muscles. That's because you set up in a high plank (pushup) position, which challenges you to brace your core. Thanks to that position, you'll also bring your shoulders and mid-back into the equation. Once you get moving, your legs and hips are also active.
Benefits of the Mountain Climber
The mountain climber is a useful exercise to train your core, but as Samuel says, it's more than just an ab move. You can hone your athleticism, speed, and quickness by including the exercise in your workout and cycling your feet with full effort. If you're looking for a stationary cardio exercise, the mountain climber is a great choice as well. When you move your feet quickly, you'll push your heart rate up and break a sweat.
How to Do Mountain Climbers
●Set up in a high plank (pushup) position, with your hands stacked directly below your shoulders, elbows turned out, and feet just wider than hip-width apart. Your shoulders should be higher than your hips. Think of this as an athletic position.
●Squeeze your shoulders, core, and glutes to create full-body tension. Look down at the floor, keeping your head in a neutral position.
●Drive one knee up high to your chest, as if you were running. Return your leg to a straight position. Repeat with the other leg.
●Continue alternating reps, working to keep your torso in position with your shoulders higher than your hips. Brace your core to stay level.
Mistakes People Make Doing Mountain Climbers
Keep Your Butt Down
●The most common mistake in the mountain climber: Your butt starts to rise higher than your shoulders. This happens as you fatigue, or if you're not being disciplined with your core. Focus on keeping your hips, at their highest, level with your shoulders. The mountain climber, inherently, is a plank with movement, and when you do a plank, you never want your hips higher than your shoulders.
Keep Your Arms Stacked
●Keep your hands directly below your shoulders. It's common to see people's shoulders drift behind the hands on mountain climbers, especially as they get tired, but that can become a position that's less than ideal for shoulder health if you're dealing with fatigue. Losing that position is also going to destroy the core focus of the mountain climber, too, leading you to raise your butt higher into the air and lose core tension.
Drive Your Knees
●Drive your knees up powerfully on every mountain climber stride. Make each stride count. Don't simply go through the motions and lift your feet off the ground. Your goal, overall, in the mountain climber is to maintain a tight core as you drive your knees up powerfully. This position actually mirrors the front end of a sprinter's stride, with high, powerful knee drive, and that's the underrated usefulness of the mountain climber; through your torso, it's a sprinter's position. Take advantage of create strong knee drive.
How to Add Mountain Climbers to Your Workout
The mountain climber is a super versatile bodyweight exercise that can be added to your workout in a wide range of ways. You can perform the movement for a predetermined number of reps, counting a knee drive with both legs as 1 rep. You might be better served doing mountain climbers for time. Samuel suggests setting a timer for 6 minutes, then performing rounds of 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, making sure to push hard during the work periods. You can also work for longer periods of time, up to 30 seconds or longer. Just make sure that you keep your position strong, with your core engaged and your hips lower than your shoulders.
Want to master even more moves? Check out our entire Form Check series.
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