Mountain Climber

How to do it

1. Take a push-up position with your hands under your shoulders and your body in one line.
2. Brace your stomach and squeeze your glutes so the hips stay level.
3. Drive one knee toward your chest without letting the hips rise.
4. Return that foot to the start as the other knee drives forward.
5. Continue alternating at a steady pace.
6. Keep the shoulders stacked over the hands throughout.

Common mistakes

• Letting the hips pike up. The body holds one line; hips rising is the trunk giving up and it turns the movement into a jog on the spot with the hands down.
• Bouncing the feet rather than driving the knees. The knee travels toward the chest under control — a bounce moves the feet and not much else.
• Letting the shoulders drift behind the hands. Stacked shoulders are what makes the top position holdable for the length of a set.
• Treating speed as the goal. Faster hides a sagging or piking trunk, and the position is what the exercise is.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Quads

Secondary

• Pecs
• Hamstrings
• Shoulders