The 30 Day Crawling Challenge

A free report on the myriad benefits of crawling

by Aleks “The Hebrew Hammer” Salkin

“It’s better to spend an extremely high quality ten minutes growing, than it is to spend a mediocre

hour running in place.”

- Angel Chernoff in his article “12 Quiet Rituals of Enormously Successful Humans”

I’m greedy. And unreasonable. And impetuous. And I want you to be, too.

Yes, I’m asking you to be greedy, unreasonable, and impetuous. While these qualities will normally

backfire and encourage the proverbial door to hit you where the good Lord split you, when we’re talking

about physical transformation, these are actually good things. Think about it.

It is reasonable to accept a slow, steady decline of your body as you get older.

It is generous to let go of the best years of your life to the ravages of age.

And it is patient to fall apart, become riddled with aches, stiffness, and constant, unyielding discomfort.

It is normal to become a prisoner in your own body with each passing year – the limberness and

unfettered joy of simply moving your body slowly becoming like a fading thought; a vanishing dream.

Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not meant to be a symptom of getting older. Not even close.

And the answer to escaping it has been lying right under your nose this whole time. And given that

you’ve downloaded this report (thanks!) you may have guessed by now that the answer is none other

than crawling.

Original Strength workshop in Prague, Czech Republic

Think about all the uses of the word crawling in popular turns of phrase and general usage.

“To come crawling back to someone”

“To crawl on your hands and knees, begging.”

“To make one’s skin crawl.”

Not too positive, is it? It evokes negative imagery – imagery of being broken, beaten, brought low,

shamed, etc. I’m not quite sure how this all got started, but I can tell you from my experience and from

the experience of thousands of others, the truth is quite the opposite.

Before I go much further, let me tell you briefly about me, my journey to crawling, what it’s done for me,

and what it will do for you.

My name is Aleks Salkin, and I am an Original Strength Instructor. Original Strength is the system behind

the philosophy that you were made to move. Movement is your birthright, and it’s the first thing you

begin to do as you develop (a famous linguist has remarked that language is mankind’s birthright. Given

that we begin the human sequential development process long before we utter our first words, not to

mention even LONGER before we actually become proficient in our first language, think about just how

much MORE movement is man’s birthright – it’s THAT deeply ingrained in us, into our nervous systems.

All healthy children will learn whatever language(s) they’re exposed to, as different as they may be, but

we are all pre-programmed to follow more or less the same path in going from a breathing mass of flesh

laying on the floor to a full, walking-upright human being, and in less time than it takes to learn to say “It

was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. Movement is so critical and so fundamental to the

human condition that there are a number of linguists who believe that the original human languages

were largely sign language, given mankind’s continuing tendency to gesticulate when speaking. It really

is that basic and deeply ingrained).

I’ve been interested in physical development in all its permutations – strength, conditioning, building

muscle, burning fat, flexibility, mobility, and moving pain free and without restrictions – since I was first

bitten by the iron bug upon placing my hands on a kettlebell for the first time in 2008. Since that time,

my focus has shifted from just my own physical development, to helping spread the message of hope

that strength in all its forms carries with it for all those who would reach out and grab it. And as the old

saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The problem? Well, my most

important client had some high mileage on her body, and kettlebells – as great as they are and as much

as I love them – weren’t what she needed. Who was this client?

None other than my dear old mom.

To give you some background, she’s suffered a number of maladies.

Multiple neck fusion surgeries that have left her with ONE working vertebra

Positively ZERO cartilage in her left knee

A bionic hip (more commonly referred to as a hip replacement)

Extensive nerve damage in both of her hands, which makes gripping power, dexterity, and

control extremely difficult.

Periodic low back problems

A twisted pelvis

As time wore on, her injuries bore themselves deeper into her abilities, stopping her from even the

simplest things, like walking for any significant distance without serious knee pain, as well as aches and

pains from simple things, such as getting in and out of her car and up out of bed. Worst of all, she had a

tendency to fall a lot because of her restricted neck mobility, which big-time screwed up her ability to

balance. And because she was too weak, she often couldn’t get off the floor, and when she did, she was

covered in bumps, bruises, and scratches that made the regular stiffness, soreness, and aches she

already dealt with on a daily basis much, much worse.

Her situation looked hopeless.

After multiple attempts over several years of trying to help her, I had run out of options. I simply didn’t

know enough, and the great stuff that I DID know wasn’t going to help her. I was really in the pit of

despair at this point, and I can only imagine how much worse and how much more hopeless she must

have felt seeing that I couldn’t help. Was there ANYTHING out there that could help?

Fortunately, there was.

Rewind for about a year. I had read a book by Tim Anderson and Mike McNiff called Becoming

Bulletproof, and its central theme was all about how to use our most fundamental, underused

movement patterns to become as resilient and as powerful as we once were, to restore our birthright of

movement, and live as we were meant to. This was the first time I had read anything extolling the

virtues of rolling around on the ground, rocking back and forth, and crawling, and I was intrigued, to say

the least. It seemed too simple. Could it work?

I started including these movements in the warm ups of a few of my clients, and the results were

intriguing. I had to know more. I began in earnest to experiment myself. There was definitely

something to this, I could feel it. In fact, the week before the Becoming Bulletproof workshop I strained

my upper back and could barely move comfortably. But less than a week’s worth of rolling, rocking, and

crawling led me to pain-free movement again – AND a PR on my Turkish Get Up! But try as I might, I

still couldn’t completely grasp it. I didn’t know WHY it worked so well, only THAT it worked. I had to

know more.

Fast forward to November of 2012. Tim Anderson and Geoff Neupert – the co-creators of the system I

am now involved with that would later become known as Original Strength– were teaching an in-depth,

hands-on workshop on Becoming Bulletproof that promised to unlock the secrets to obtaining the most

possible benefit from all of these movements! From my own experience, I knew that there was a lot to

be gained from the system, both for athletic super studs AND for those with high mileage on their

bodies, such as my dear ol’ mom. So naturally I signed up immediately. I had so little money at this time

that I had to take a bus filled with party-hungry college students all the way from Omaha, NE to Chicago

and back (a 10 hour trip each way) all in the course of one weekend. I couldn’t even afford a hotel room

I had to bum it at a friend’s place. But I knew that more than anything I couldn’t afford to miss this

workshop. Not just for my sake, but for my mom’s sake, and for the sake of every client I’d have in the

future who would be faced with similar problems – both greater and lesser – that required an approach

to help become free from physical restriction and frustration and re-open the lost world of movement

to as many people as possible.

It turned out to be the most eye-opening 8 hour workshop I’d ever been to. I spent the rest of the bus

ride back contemplating what I had just learned, thumbing through the manual, and most importantly

formulating a plan of attack to rescue my mom from further decay.

I immediately put her on a program consisting of the new system I was delving into, and within a few

short weeks she was reporting to me how much better she felt.

No longer did she wake up achy and stiff in the morning.

No longer did she have trouble getting in and out of her car.

No longer did her bad knee hurt all the time!

On top of that, for the first time in years she was getting stronger! And more flexible! She could control

her body through a greater range of motion and with *NO* pain! She could walk up and down stairs

without a problem! And perhaps best of all, she was happy again!

Yes, that’s a lot of exclamation points in these last few sentences, but you can’t imagine the frustration

of living with such restriction for so long. Or maybe you can. And if you can, or if you know someone

who does, you will surely understand just how liberating movement is after years spent deprived of it. If

I didn’t know better, I would have thought it was a miracle. And maybe it is. But most importantly, it’s

the Original Strength system that unleashes – step by step – the miracle of movement, and mankind’s

ability to regain it, even from the deepest, darkest despair slowly brought on by a sedentary, restricted

life.

“Move, damn you!”

- Larry Leong

Movement is yours to reclaim. All you have to do is reach out and grab it, wherever you are and at

whatever stage you may need to start. You can go from here to eternity if you’re willing to take the first

step.

And in my opinion, one of the best, most liberating first steps to take is a baby step – one foot (and

hand) at a time. If you have to start somewhere – somewhere that will show you without a doubt how

to get to wherever you could possibly want to go – crawling is where you should start.

Now, keep in mind that it’s only a fraction of the full Original Strength system - about 12.5% of the

material taught in the workshops, to be (almost) precise. So crawling is NOT the end-all-be-all of the

system, but it IS one of the most easily accessible AND most illuminating of the Original Strength Resets

(a movement that literally resets your nervous system by stimulating your vestibular system [your

balance system] and dusting off the cobwebs and dust from your body’s natural operating system ), and

if you do nothing else but crawl in the beginning, it will start to open the doors to the rest of the resets

and even further and greater physical and mental freedom from the standard fare of aching, stiffness,

and an all-around physical decline as you age.

By this point in the saga, most people I talk to might have their interested piqued, and may very well be

intrigued, but they’re not quite convinced yet.

“So you crawl around on the ground. Why does THAT in particular matter so much?”

“That all sounds great, but what does crawling have to do with improving my body? I’m not injured and

I’m already in great shape.”

“Okay, but isn’t crawling still only for babies and maybe injured or fragile people?”

With questions like this in mind, let’s look at the reasons WHY to crawl even if you’re otherwise

perfectly healthy. No matter your age, level of fitness, or personal physical goals, here are a few quick

facts and explanations of why I love crawling so much and what you can expect from practicing it

regularly.

The Top 6 Reasons Why Crawling Kicks @$$

1) Crawling makes your body incredibly resilient

Your body is one big X, and from the tips of your fingers to the tips of your toes, everything is

connected by a vast network of bone, muscle, nerves, and connective tissues. Your body is

made to move cross-laterally, meaning right foot forward, left arm forward, and vice versa.

These patterns strengthen that X – whose center is that ubiquitous and oft-obsessed over core –

and teach your body not only how to move and flow through space, but also how to move and

flow together better as a tight-knit and powerful unit. The stronger these patterns are, the

stronger YOU are. These gait patterns help ingrain reflexive strength – the type of strength that

allows your body to anticipate movement before your conscious mind does (so even if YOU can’t

tell the future, your body CAN with the proper training). The more you train this pattern via

cross-lateral movement patterns such as crawling, the tighter that X gets tied together, and the

more resilient, stable, and powerful your body can become.

The X. Da Vinci saw it – can you?

2) Crawling makes your brain more efficient

Cross-lateral patterns engage both hemispheres of the brain and give information to your

vestibular system, or balance system, as well as your proprioceptive system (the system

responsible for telling you where you are in space). These systems are where the body meet the

mind, and they allow for better communication between not only both hemispheres of the

brain, but better communication between the mind and its corporeal vessel of transport – the

body. The more often you engage in purposeful cross-lateral movements (crawling, marching,

walking with proper arm swing, etc.) the more solid these connections become. The more solid

these connections become, the less brain energy goes in to maintaining them – they get put on

autopilot. This means your reflexes – everything from your posture to your body’s ability to

stabilize itself in all manner of situations, such as safely catching yourself when you slip and

(almost) fall – become so automatic you won’t have to think about them until after your body

has done its job. You’ll even find your eye-hand coordination go through the roof without doing

any silly, esoteric drills.

Better still, as a result of this greater mind-to-body efficiency, your thinking will become sharper,

clearer, faster, and easier. Sounds too good to be true, but countless studies and the experience

of thousands of individuals attests to just how awesome cross-lateral movements (of which

crawling is a part) are for developing and nourishing the brain.

3) Crawling makes your body stronger

And in fact, ALL of the Original Strength system makes your body stronger by providing the

impetus for your bod to wake up and work together toward a common goal by stimulating the

vestibular system – your body’s balance system – and improving proprioception (your body’s

sense of self in space) by literally resetting the nervous system to encourage the muscles to

work the way they were meant to work. All the resets not covered in this report work wonders

for “clearing away the cobwebs” and allowing you to express your body physically (case in point:

rocking has worked wonders for my and my clients’ pressing and squatting, and rolling has made

their kettlebell Turkish Get ups smooth as silk).

We don’t think of crawling as strength training, but it is. It really, really is. And for a number of

reasons. In addition to the reasons listed above that help set your body up to dominate any

number of other movements and sharpen your vestibular system to allow your body to work

together better, the simple act of being under tension for a long period of time works wonders

to GENTLY strengthen your body with essentially zero impact on the joints.

Case in point: When I started crawling seriously back in 2012-2013, I put a lot of other things to

the side, even some of my favorite exercises such as kettlebell front squats and pistols. For two

months, I did no squatting. Not even one rep (I know, shame on me). Finally, one day I decided

to test my front squats and pistols and was amazed. From just spending a few months crawling

– and not even with any added weight – I took my rep max with two 24 kg (53 lb) kettlebells

from 10 reps to 20 in a row! And my pistol, which had fallen back to 24 kgs on each side was

now back to my previous max of 32 kgs! And it was easier than before! And my story is far

from the only one. Karen Rossler, a fellow Original Strength Certified Coach, used lots and lots

of backward crawling to increase her military pressing strength to the point where she was able

to press 1/3 of her bodyweight on one arm at the tender age of 50-something. Volumes upon

volumes could be written on those who have used crawling to improve their brute strength, but

you see the point – crawling makes you freakishly strong.

Dumbbells: Great, but not how you build your Original Strength

4) Crawling torches fat from your frame

One of the hidden benefits of crawling is that it serves as one of the single BEST fat burning

exercises around. It just hasn’t been marketed as such because, well, you don’t have to buy a

damn thing from any major fitness company to do it! You can just start immediately and keep

the dollars/euros/shekels in your pocket!

Why does crawling work so fantastically for annihilating fat? The answer is simple: rather than

just using your legs as you would for walking (though technically you’re using your arms as well

as walking is a cross-lateral pattern as we’ve discussed before, they’re not really working very

hard when you walk), you’re now using your entire body – both your upper and lower halves –

to move through space. And not just the limbs, either; crawl for a few minutes and then do a

mental scan of your body. You feel that sensation in your abs, lats, upper back, and assorted

nooks and crannies of your body that you didn’t even know existed? Yeah, that’s called “work”.

Anyway, as Original Strength co-founder Geoff Neupert has pointed out, getting your upper

body involved in your gait is quite taxing and will do more for your body composition than just

walking alone. This is exactly what crawling does. Best of all, this “tax” you’ll be levying on your

body is one that will be totally paid off by the next morning each day. Crawling – both forward

and reverse – have almost zero eccentric stress, meaning you can ostensibly crawl a LOT every

day and not wake up feeling like you got hit by a train.

The constant coordination and muscular effort over a protracted period of time between both

your upper and lower body from muscle groups as varied as your back, your legs, your entire

midsection, your arms, and everywhere else will not just encourage fat to flee from your frame,

it’ll practically force it!

5) Crawling builds abs of steel

Even though this fun fact is an addendum to point 3, it’s worth mentioning because, well, who

doesn’t want abs of steel? When you crawl, you tighten your X – we’ve already discussed that.

Now imagine your X is two ropes tied together in the center with a knot. Pull hard on all four

ends. What happens to the knot? It gets tighter and stronger! Such is your midsection – it’s the

crossroads between your upper and lower halves, and reacts reflexively to movements from the

arms and legs and head and pretty much everything else. Here’s a fun experiment to try – have

a friend stand at attention in front of you and put one arm out. Now, push up HARD against

his/her arm and instruct him/her to push DOWN just as hard. Ask if they feel their abs lighting

up like a Christmas tree. The answer will be a definite yes.

When you crawl, your abs are under near constant reflexive tension doing one of their most

important jobs – stabilizing your body. Whether it’s standing or crawling, this is one of the most

important actions your dear abbies must perform on a regular basis (NOT crunching up off the

ground). Now imagine how much work your abs will have to do if you’re not only moving your

opposite arm and leg at the same time – a stability challenge as is – but are doing so while

you’re horizontal, meaning they also have to stabilize you against gravity pulling you face down

into the dirt! Double the work, with results light years better for your ab strength development

than mindlessly crunching away on the ground like a bug that’s fallen on its back and can’t flip

over.

6) Crawling is fun as hell!

Seriously, it is. It’s challenging, it’s invigorating, it’s energizing, it’s liberating, it’s stimulating, it’s

vestibulating, it’s everything! And given the fact that you can get stronger, more resilient,

leaner, and better coordinated with it, do you really need any other reason to get started right

this very minute? I think not. So let’s move on to the next (and most important) section…

How to crawl correctly

Now, keep in mind that crawling is a great movement, but ONLY if it’s done right. Done wrong you

won’t really get much out of it and will basically just be spinning your wheels, so pay close attention and

you’ll be able to start practicing sooner than later.

There are a number of progressions and regressions to crawling, and everybody is going to need to start

in a different place based on their physical fitness. With this in mind, before you read on about how to

crawl properly, let me make one thing clear:

All physical transformations are a journey, and the 30-day mark is not the finish line, but the first

benchmark to your progress. You will NEVER arrive at a specific point at which you can say “Yeah, I’m in

shape now.” It will always be a process of honing your skills, developing new ones, exploring how your

body moves, and enjoying your raw, primal physicality. Because it’s a process – nay, a journey – it

cannot be rushed. There are many scenic sights to see along the way, and any attempt to rush through

it will cause you not only to miss these figurative sights, but also will end up in frustration, impatience,

and possibly even starting over at square one. Anything worth doing is worth doing right, and because

as the old Chinese saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, I implore you to

keep amply in mind: 30 days is the first step. You’re planning on getting anywhere between 50-80 years

older, so what’s the rush? Take your time, don’t go to fast. If you race to the finish, you’ll never last.

With that out of the way, here is how it begins.

Here is the starting position. Get to this position and stay relaxed. Doing so helps your reflexive

strength to kick in and allows you to get the most out of the movement. Getting back your reflexive

strength is THE KEY to freeing your body through movement. Important note: Keep your head up

throughout the movement!

Why? For a variety of reasons, but principle among them is because your head is where your vestibular

system is located, and thus control of your head is paramount for control of your body. You’ll notice, in

fact, that if you look over your shoulder, high in the sky, down to the ground, or at any odd angle, your

body will follow. Why? Because it’s made to. So the more you strengthen what your body is made to

do, the easier it is to teach it to do what you WANT it to do. So don’t let it hang lazy-like – keep your

head held high and look where you’re going. Simple, effective.

Well, see, now you just look silly.

Once you’ve got this position down, the next thing to do is start crawling! For whatever reason – likely

due to the sedentary life we lead – we tend to lose our cross-lateral coordination. As a result, most

people I teach to start crawling just end up moving the same side and rather than looking like a graceful,

well-connected human being, they look like a plodding pachyderm and, well, they’re just not getting

anything out of their crawling except for maybe funny looks from their neighbors or family. So, to get it

right from the start, touch one hand to your opposite knee and then place those limbs one step

forward.

So easy a baby could do it.

Regardless of how big and strong you are, you’re going to stay here – knees on the ground, touching

opposite sides – for a while. Until you can do this for at LEAST 10 minutes non-stop. Why?

The reason is simple: to get you better at crawling.

“But I learned how to crawl as a baby, how much more practice do I really need?”

Enough to dust off the cobwebs, shave off the rust, and make this movement like second nature again.

Remember, crawling is a form of gait (walking), and serves as the base for a lot of other movements in

your body. If your base is weak, cracked, crumbling, or heck, just full of cobwebs and rust, how well-

supported do you think your higher-level movements such as walking, running, and all-out sprinting are

going to be?

Apart from that, your body more quickly “solidifies” its motor learning (or more commonly known as

“muscle memory”) when it is put under load. This can be great, but this can also be a double-edged

sword. Harder progressions, such as crawling with your knees off the ground or dragging weight behind

you will solidify that pattern very quickly – even if it’s done WRONG. The last thing you want to do is re-

learn how to crawl wrong. Baby crawling – on the hands and knees – gently reintroduces the pattern,

prepares your limbs to work contralaterally in unison, and gets your midsection prepped and ready for

harder variations.

Besides, 10 minutes is nothing. 10 minutes of a harder variation is a much more telling indicator of how

ready you are for moving on to more difficult progressions, but 10 minutes of baby crawling will do just

fine. What’s more, if you’re REALLY ready for it, your body will adapt quickly and you’ll hit that mark

faster than you can say “crawlin’ is ballin’”.

Once you can baby crawl 10 minutes and make it look so smooth any onlooker would rightfully think he

or she was looking at a human cat or lizard (Master SFG Mark Reifkind likes to call me “Slizzard”

whenever he sees me crawl. Shoot for that reaction among your soon-to-be incredibly

impressed/jealous friends) you’re ready for a few progressions. Now, keep this in mind: from baby

crawling to all of the crawling progressions, you will keep your head up and your butt DOWN below

your shoulders. I explained the head up thing (look where you’re going, better stimulate the vestibular

system through head control), but the butt below your shoulders thing is a secret to rock-hard abs.

Firing your butt up in the air above your shoulders is a great way to get your abs to take a smoke break

while the rest of your body works its ass off. It allows you to effectively “disconnect” them from your

upper and lower halves, which is weak, since you’ll need those abs for pretty much anything athletic or

strength based. Don’t do it. Just don’t. If you can’t help it, some further instructions will do you some

good. Sign up for an Original Strength workshop in your area and learn ‘em all. Heck, even if you can,

sign up for an Original Strength workshop. You’ll learn all this information and much more in much

greater depth, and the change in your body and movement abilities by the end of the first day alone will

change your life for good. Plus, you might just see me there.

Anyhow, when you ARE ready to progress further, you have multiple options. First among them, the

leopard crawl, seen below.

Meow.

The leopard crawl is going to put a much bigger workload on everything at once – your legs, your abs,

your arms, your shoulders, your back, and your heart and lungs are all going to get pumped up, burn,

and scream for mercy. Ignore them and let them burn. IF you’re impatient (and if you’re all those

things I described at the beginning of this report, you most certainly are) and you try this BEFORE you’re

ready (don’t), you’ll likely be surprised at the jump in workload to be had merely by lifting your knees off

the ground. This is why you and MUST take your time. When you’re ready for it, it’s much easier to

adapt. When you’re not, it’s much easier to throw a cog in your Soft Machine and set yourself up for a

bunch of wasted and incorrect effort. But believe me, when you get there, the wait will have been

worth it. Some people will take longer to get there. Maybe you’ll be ready in a day, maybe you’ll be

ready in 6 months. There’s no telling, really, as everyone is different. Start crawling now and you’ll

figure it out.

Next – and my personal favorite – is the Spiderman crawl.

My vestibular senses are tingling!

The primary difference here is that rather than letting your knee track INSIDE your elbow as you would

for the leopard crawl, here your knee will track OUTSIDE your elbow. This puts a bigger stress on the

abs and builds a lot more resilient strength. Once again, you may not be able to just jump into doing this

crawl, and that’s okay. The baby crawl and leopard crawl have a lot in store for you, and when the time

is right and you’ve built up your base of movement better, you’ll get there. Again, if you’re planning on

getting 50-80 years older, it means you’ve got plenty of time to improve, so slow your role and enjoy the

trip.

And that’s that! Hard to believe how quick that tutorial was at only a few pics and pages, but crawling

really is that straight forward. To recap:

1) Keep your head up and your butt down (below your shoulders)

2) Move your opposite arm and leg

3) Stay relaxed

Simple, but powerful. Life-changing, in fact. I’ve not come across a single individual who put some hard

effort into crawling who DIDN’T benefit huge in terms of strength, resilience, better soft tissue health,

more discomfort-free movement, better lung capacity, a leaner body, and better coordination.

So here’s where the challenge comes in…

A lot of people relegate crawling to the roll of JUST a part of their warm-up, and that’s okay. They’ll still

get a major benefit from it. But why stop there? If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing a lot. And

while you’re likely to get dinged up, worn down, and flattened out by doing an excessive amount of, say,

deadlifting or pressing right out of the gate, you are not likely to suffer any such problem by doing a lot

of crawling. Even when done ‘til the point where you drop on the ground in a puddle of sweat, heart

pounding like a jack hammer and lungs screaming at the top of themselves for vengence against you,

you’re still unlikely to see any negative effects as a result. Even if you do this daily, you’ll STILL more

than likely be a-okay. Crawling is that natural, and it’s that ingrained within your body to do, and do a

LOT.

Wrestling coach and athletic legend Dan Gable has famously quipped “If it’s important, do it every day.

If it isn’t, don’t do it at all.” So guess what? You – lucky dog – are going to crawl for a total of 10

minutes, every day, for 30 days.

Read that last sentence again: a total of 10 minutes a day for 30 days. This doesn’t mean 10 minutes

non-stop – not yet, anyway. Just 10 minutes total. This might mean that you wake up, crawl for a

minute. Put the coffee on, crawl for two minutes. Prepare your things for work, crawl for a minute.

And come back home and finish out your last five minutes at the end of the day.

Why 10 minutes? Simple. It’s challenging and requires a commitment, but it’s very doable by even the

busiest of movers and shakers. Even if you don’t have 10 minutes per day, trust me, you can find 10

minutes throughout the day. 10 minutes out of 24 hours amounts to 1/144th of your day. Even if you

only count your waking hours – say, 16 hours – it’s still only 1/96th of your day. And even IF you’re

absolutely terrible at time management, a minute here and a minute there is something you can find. If

not, wake up 10 minutes early. Problem solved.

Furthermore, 10 minutes of focused, conscious practice every day is all it takes to spark a big, life-

altering change, particularly with a movement that makes as deep an impact as crawling does. And you

can do ANYTHING for 10 minutes a day and turn it into a habit. This is probably the fastest, simplest,

and (dare I say it) EASIEST way to turn movement, health, and fitness from a hard-to-define goal into a

daily reality. And for all the impact that crawling has, it will only ever give you more than it takes from

you. This is one of very few 30-day challenges you’ll encounter that builds you up rather than breaks

you down in an effort to get you to your goals. And if you can do this, you can do anything. Start from

where you are and go as far as you’d like.

Get started today. All you have to lose is your physical restrictions, aches, stiffness , discomfort, fat,

weakness, and lack of coordination.

And you stand to gain so much more – now and forevermore.

You were made to move. Now move!

Q & A

Q: I don’t think I need the baby crawl. I’m a pretty strong guy/girl – can I just start with the leopard or

spiderman crawl?

A: Regardless of your current physical strength, you will start with the easiest crawl: the baby crawl.

This is for a few reasons.

1) Regardless of how strong you are, you first want to get the pattern down – much the same as

you would if you were weight training. This is a much simpler affair when it’s not the absolute

hardest you can do for a number of reasons, but first suffice it to say that you simply need to re-

learn the pattern in its easiest form before adding any more difficulty onto it.

2) If you’re really good and ready to move onward and upward, you’ll nail 10 minutes straight of

the baby crawl quite quickly. But first, you must put in your time like everybody. You’ve got 30

days, so why rush? Remember: The primary goal of the crawling challenge is to take your first

step toward resetting your nervous system by stimulating your vestibular system on a regular

basis, NOT beating yourself into the ground. Besides, you’ll get far more out of baby crawling

correctly than spiderman crawling completely wrong.

Q: Is this 30 day challenge 30 days in a row or 30 days total?

A: Your best results will come from 30 days in a row. Why? You’ll be making it a habit, which means

taking the emotional component out of it. From my perspective, the biggest issue I’ve seen with people

is that they rely on motivation, which (gasp!) is a mistake. Motivation means emotionally motivated

toward doing something, which is a rocky ship that you don’t want to be on. Your emotions change

from day to day; some days you have great days, others you have really bad days. However, habits carry

you through ALL of your days – both good and bad. The “challenge” here is consistency, NOT intensity.

So seven days a week, you will crawl for a total of 10 minutes, simply so that you get used to 1) moving

more often and 2) making it an inseparable part of your day-to-day life.

Q: This is kind of a big step as I’m not currently physically active. How do I even get started doing such

a thing?

A: Little by little. Remember: it doesn’t have to be 10 minutes in a row from the outset, just 10 minutes

total. Here are a few ideas to get you started for your first week of crawling.

1) The minute you roll out of bed, go and put on your coffee and then hit the deck. Crawl for a few

minutes, then have some coffee (if you even need it. Crawling will wake you up like a double shot of

espresso!). Finish up the rest of your crawling after your coffee and get on with your day.

2) No time after you’re done with you’re coffee? No problem. Drop your briefcase on the floor when

you get home and finish your crawling. Whether it’s 5 minutes or 30 seconds, just make sure you get all

your time in.

3) Do a minute at a time throughout the day. In all honesty, this is probably the best option for most

people if you can swing it. The more often you reset your body throughout the day, the more your

practice will stick. This isn’t always easy for most people – particularly if you work in an office – but this

would be something to consider on Saturdays and Sundays when you’re off work.

4) Morning/evening. Just commit to doing 5 minutes in the morning and 5 in the evening. This is the

second best option as it will prep you for the beginning of your day and help you reset from the

sedentary inactivity that you faced throughout the day.

5) All 10 minutes at once. You can do this every day if you’d like – you’re not required to, but you

certainly will gain a lot by doing so. This is where strength, endurance, fat loss, and mental toughness

get built, as moving for 10 minutes while engaging so much muscle is where the magic really happens!

This, too, would be something to shoot for at least once a week once you get the ball rolling. It’s not

required, but absolutely recommended – particularly once you move on to leopard and Spiderman

crawling.

No matter what your schedule looks like or how much your family/job demands your attention, 10

minutes a day spent on bettering yourself and your health is the absolute bare minimum you can do –

and indeed may just be the bare minimum you need to kick-start making your own health a priority.

Q: I feel like I’m losing motivation. What should I do?

A: World-famous strength coach Dan John has said that when you’re holding someone’s hand who is

going through a diet or exercise challenge and they’re on the verge of quitting, all you need to do is

encourage them to give you ONE more day. By doing this, they can usually get their feelings sorted out

and keep on keeping on without breaking down.

My take on this (as I mentioned a few paragraphs ago) is that you shouldn’t be relying on motivation at

all. This is a hard concept for most people to pick up regarding fitness, as “motivation” seems to be the

operative word in every fitness-related commercial, viral Facebook/Twitter/Instagram pic, and most

importantly the psyche of everyone who is into fitness. But take it from me, habit is far more powerful

in building fitness for life, NOT motivation, which – as previous mentioned – is subject to your wild and

sometimes unpredictable emotions.

On days where I’m feeling elated, on top of the world, on cloud 9 – I move.

On days where I’m feeling down in a hole, depressed, downright in the pit of despair – I move.

Why? It’s my habit. It feels weird to me if a weekday goes by that I don’t get some physical exercise in,

and that’s the point. Exercise isn’t always gonna feel like a mile-a-minute thrill ride at Disney Land, and

if that’s what you’re aiming for, just ask yourself: If I went to Disney Land every day, how long would it

take before I got sick of it and started looking for something else to do? I’m guessing not long.

The moral of the story here: Whether you’re feeling into it or not on any particular day, follow Nike’s tag

line: Just Do It. It’s easy to do what you set out to after you’ve just done it.

Q: But doing the same thing day in and day out can get a little bit boring. What can I do to break up

the monotony?

A: I’m glad you asked!

Yes, if all you ever do is the same thing you’ve done day after day, it CAN get a bit boring. If that seems

like a deterrent for starting, fear not; I’ve dropped plenty of mini-hints throughout the report as to how

to break up that monotony. It can be done in two ways. First, by changing up the amount of time you

crawl, and second, by including what we call specialized variety, i.e. doing the same thing, but different.

Think about it like doing pushups with a narrow grip versus a wide grip. You’re still doing pushups, but

different kinds.

Here’s a sample of what your week may look like.

Sunday: one minute at a time. Every hour on the hour you crawl for 1 minute until you reach all 10

minutes.

Monday: Slog out of bed, prep coffee, and crawl for 5 minutes. Drink first cup, take a shower, go to

work. Come home and do another 5 minutes.

Tuesday: Crap! Overslept! Coffee, 2 minutes of crawling, race to work and barely make it in time.

Come home and crawl for 4 minutes, get the kids to soccer, and then crawl for another 4 minutes.

Wednesday: Easy Challenge day: today you’re gonna be leopard crawling instead of baby crawling. Rest

as much as needed between sets. 1 minute on, 1 minute off. Repeat 5 times, head to work. Repeat

upon returning from work.

Thursday: Got up a bit early, so 7 minutes of crawling in the morning, finishing the final 3 in the evening,

switching between baby crawling, leopard crawling, and spiderman crawling.

Friday: Super tired, so only doing baby crawling. 3 minutes in the morning, 3 minutes upon returning

home, and 4 minutes before dinner.

Saturday: Feeling well rested! Time for the weekly challenge! Gonna shoot for 10 minutes STRAIGHT of

either leopard or spiderman crawling! Gonna try to throw some backward crawling in the mix too for an

extra challenge.

Frank Sinatra once caught a Vegas Showgirl daintily sipping a martini at a paint-could-dry-faster pace.

He remarked “I spill more than you drink!” The truth is, we ALL “spill” time throughout the day, and we

can turn it from wasted time to “tasted” time by taking a gulp at every sneaky opportunity. You’ve got

an unforgiving work/home life? Great! Join the club. Take advantage of your quirky, unpredictable,

and seemingly “air tight” schedule by doing something that requires no equipment and very little floor

space in the minutes you spill throughout the day. Best of all, it’s something that will catapult you from

aches, stiffness, discomfort, and that feeling of being trapped within your own body, to slowly but surely

reclaiming all of that lost movement and being able to go forth and conquer your day like you were

meant to!

For a final recap:

1) Re-learn to crawl with the quick tips and tricks listed a few pages above

a) Keep your head up and your butt below your shoulders

b) Move cross-laterally

2) Mark your calendar: for 30 days, find 10 total minutes throughout your day and invest it in you –

invest it in crawling.

a) Vary your crawling daily – distance, time, difficulty, slowness, etc.

b) Get it in however you can – either all at once or in convenient chunks.

The difference will be noticeable within a week. Undeniable within a month. And it really is as simple as

it sounds!

Now go forth and reclaim your birthright of movement. And if you have any questions, feel free to get

in contact with me through my website: www.AleksSalkin.com

Have fun, and let me know how you do.

- Aleks Salkin, Original Strength Certified Coach, SFG II, SFB