The mountain climber works your core muscles, shoulders, chest, and back, as well as being a high intensity cardio exercise and good for balance and coordination. It makes a good addition to home circuit workouts as it doesn’t need equipment or much space.
How to do the mountain climber
Alternatives for beginners
The mountain climber isn’t an ideal exercise for beginners. This is partly because it’s high intensity and partly because getting the technique right can be difficult for beginners. If you’re a beginner, you can build up to doing the mountain climber with other exercises:
You can build up your cardio fitness with walking or running.
To strengthen your hip flexors, which are the muscles that bring the knees to the chest in the mountain climber, you can do knee lifts.
The basic mountain climber position is the same as plank position, so doing plank holds will train your core and upper body to hold the position.
Workouts that include the mountain climber
