Animal moves have an endless variety but only a few are needed to get in a really good workout. What you choose to master or utilize in your training is up to you but never forget to respect the movements as you practice them. You can go hard, you can go slow, you can even do them in Isometric fashion (maybe not the jumping ones for obvious reasons). It's about building a foundation and finding what gives you the best benefit.
The wild never stops. You keep finding ways to condition your body and put yourself in awkward positions to strengthen areas that conventional or "traditional" training methods can't reach. One of the reasons why I love doing my Animal Deck Of Cards Workout (The Four Animals Of The Apocalypse). It never goes the same way every time and when a Joker comes into play, you get to pick which animal to tackle for reps or distance. The total reps I've done most of the time is around 500 but have done a 1000 total on a few occasions and feels awesome afterwards. With the 500 I would finish around 15-16 min for a full deck which is still quite a workout in itself. These days the main four are....
Bear Crawls
Crab Walks
Duck Walks
Why did I choose these specific animals? At least 3 are the most basic you see in sports such as wrestling and football since they can be so intense that only a few seconds of them can get you out of breath. The bigfoot walk was what I learned from Vahva Fitness and it's based on movement utilized mainly by wrestlers being in that stance and shifting for balance like in Shadow Wrestling or a match. They get the body in rugged shape pretty fast and when you go hard on even one of them, you're building that explosive conditioning.
One of my other favorite workouts is a 5 min Tabata Workout of just the Bear Crawl. You go as fast as you can for 10 seconds, rest for 20 and repeat until you've done 5 minutes. That may not sound hard but it's not as easy as it looks on paper. When you have to explode at a moments notice and you're practically sprinting on all fours, it becomes quite the exercise. The first couple rounds you might be breathing hard but the more rounds you go, the more it's going to feel like your heart will rip out of your chest. If you're in good health, this might actually be good for you to do (not every single day though). It's quick, fast and can be done practically anywhere. I do it in my living space and it kicks my ass every time.
There are so many ways to do Animal Workouts it's not even funny. When you get the idea of moving like a beast in the wild, it doesn't seem like a workout, it becomes a game you can play and being like a kid again. An ancient style of this type of training can be traced back to the art of qi gong and the Shaolin Monks who mimic animals in their Martial Arts practice. In today's style which can has been seen like with Animal Flow and Ginastica Natural, it's been used to target MMA style training and conditioning for certain aspects of Health. It can be fun especially if you combine them but when it comes down to it, you can do all of that and then some with the Movement 20XX fitness course that shows you how to not just work individual exercises but combine the elements of all of them together to form your own style and goals.
These forms of exercise create an exciting aspect of fitness you don't get with conventional training methods. Yes some exercises may be too advanced for some people but as long as you stick to the basics, you're golden. Just the deck of cards workout I've given you would be a great warm up or a conditioning workout on its own and you can pick your own animal moves to work on. I picked those because they're fun to do. It can be challenging but I find it more interesting to do than hundreds of squats or push-ups. Regular calisthenics are great and should be mastered and practiced whenever possible but at the same time, very few replaces killer exercises like Bear Crawls, Crab Walks & Duck Walks. If wrestlers use them for conditioning, that should tell you how important and brutal they can be. Whether for a few minutes or close to a half hour, animal exercises can be a great asset to your health, your overall strength and conditioning along with building balance, flexibility and durability. Did I forget to mention they're calorie burners as well?
Get moving by training like a wild beast and have fun. The more fun you have, the better your results will be. Keep being amazingly awesome.
