Crab Walk
The Elite Hockey Drills app builds drills like this into your personalized off-ice program, week by week. Your first week is free.
How to Do It
Sit on the floor with feet flat, knees bent, hands flat behind you (fingers pointing toward your hips, NOT away). Lift the hips UP off the floor until the torso is roughly parallel to the ground. Walk forward (or backward, or sideways) by moving opposite hand and opposite foot together. Hips stay HIGH the entire time — never let them drop back down. Distance: 10-15 meters per trip. 3-4 trips total. Slow and controlled. Quality over speed.
Why It Works
The crab walk is the POSTERIOR mirror of the bear crawl — same contralateral coordination training, but loading the triceps, glutes, and posterior chain instead of the chest and quads. Critical for youth athletes because they spend so much time in flexion-dominant positions (sitting at desks, leaning forward to skate) that they lose the ability to extend the hips while bracing the shoulders. Crab walks reverse this: hips up, shoulders open, posterior chain firing.
Hockey Transfer
Builds posterior-chain coordination + shoulder/triceps strength + core stability all at once. The opposite-pattern of bear crawl — kids love it, and it patterns the cross-body coordination hockey demands. Pair with bear crawl for full coordination day. Both contralateral patterns, both critical at 9-13.
Coaching Cues
- "Sit on the floor"
- "Hands behind you flat on ground"
- "Feet flat in front. Lift hips UP off the floor. Walk forward / backward / sideways"
- "Moving opposite hand and foot. Hips stay HIGH the whole time."
Common Mistakes
Hips dropping — turns it into a seated shuffle. Keep them lifted. Fingers pointing away from the body — torques the wrists and shoulders; reverse them. Moving same-side hand and foot — wrong pattern; must be opposite. Going too fast and losing form — pattern integrity matters more than distance covered.
Progression / Regression
Crab walk with a band around the ankles — adds glute med activation.
Glute bridge hold (hips up, hold still, no walk) — builds the position before adding the walk.
Primary Muscles
Energy System
Strength/neural
Put it to work
on the ice.
The Elite Hockey Drills app builds exercises like this into a personalized off-ice program — created by a sport scientist and former national-team coach. Your first week is free.
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