Are your core muscles strong enough to let you crawl like a crab? And, do you have the quads to squat like an ape? We’ve all admired the agility and endurance displayed by a host of animals. And now, a new workout regimen inspired by the movement of animals can help enhance your fitness quotient so that ‘as strong as a horse’ may not just be a phrase any more.

It’s called the Animal Flow workout and it entails exercises that mimic a gamut of animal movements to help develop your core muscles, gain strength and improve balance. The idea is to use your body weight to build strength and endurance. The workout also enhances one’s mobility and flexibility.

Animal Flow exercises are inspired by the movement of creatures like the crab, crocodile, ape, frog and scorpion. Since most animals are quadrupeds or walk on four limbs, the exercises combine quadrupedal and ground-based movements. So, from the freestyle walk of a beast to crawling forward like a crab, the workout combines all this and more.

“Any workout technique that involves quadrupedal movements like crawling challenges the body and increases our stamina,” says Vani B. Pahwa, a Delhi-based fitness specialist, who uses the Animal Flow workout in her fitness workshops.

Let’s first start with an exercise called the ‘ape squat’. You start in a crouch position, squatting with your knees bent out to the sides and arms stretched forward between the legs and touching the floor. The heels are down and feet flat on the ground. Then, as you lift your torso and stretch your arms on the sides, you raise your heels off the ground and straighten your back. It’s an effective workout for the shoulders, back, triceps, abs, butt, quads and calves.

Then there’s the ‘scorpion reach’, which begins almost like the dog pose in Yoga and involves moving the leg inwards and outwards while rotating, flexing and extending the trunk. “This helps strengthen the back muscles,” says Pahwa.

You can do each Animal Flow move individually, and then build a circuit with a mix of moves. “If done for 30 minutes, it will exhaust you completely,” says Neeraj Surana, a certified Animal Flow instructor in Calcutta.

So, where can you learn the workout? It was created by American fitness expert Mike Fitch in 2011. And trainers from his US-based fitness chain, Global Bodyweight Training, travel to India regularly to conduct workshops to train instructors in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta.

Around 20 fitness trainers from India are certified as instructors every year and there are around 70 certified instructors in the country. Gagan Arora of Kosmic Fitness, a health club in Delhi, attended the training session
in Delhi last year. “I chose it because it’s 100 per cent bodyweight training. So, there’s no need of any equipment,” he says.

This also means that you can do the Animal Flow exercises anywhere.  “Once you’ve mastered the basic steps, you can tailor your own freestyle animal movements,” says Arora.

One can also easily combine the Animal Flow workout with Yoga, kick-boxing, aerobics and weight-training. Arora recommends practising the exercises for 30 minutes, two to three times a week.

Pahwa also recommends it as an exciting workout for youngsters. “Kids relate quickly to movements like sitting like a monkey or crawling like a crab,” she says.

The different Animal Flow exercises have different advantages. For instance, Surana, who teaches Animal Flow exercises at the Rush Fitness gym in Alipore, says that a crab-style workout  “opens up the shoulder”. Jumping like a
frog, meanwhile, helps activate muscles of the upper as well as the lower body.

“Beginners can start with simple exercises like crawling like a crab. As the body becomes more flexible, you can move to more dynamic steps like the scorpion moves,” says Vesna Pericevic Jacob, a Delhi-based wellness expert.

Fitness expert Mickey Mehta recommends the workout for enthusiasts who have moderate to advanced levels of fitness. “It’s a dynamic fitness regime that includes squatting and crawling, and people with back or muscle issues should avoid it. One can, however, perform it under the observation of skilled professionals,” he says.

So go ahead, learn how to crouch like a tiger or crawl like a bear — and perhaps be as fit as them.