The CrossFit wall walks is a bodyweight gymnastic movement that can help improve your balance, coordination, and strength. If you want to gain a more powerful core and shoulders, enhance your total body control, and develop the necessary skillset for a handstand, then this ultimate guide to CrossFit wall walk can get you there!
Although wall walks or wall climbs will not require any other equipment aside from a wall and space, it’s more complicated than it sounds. You’ll need to have excellent handstand strength, balance, core strength, and stability. However, once you get the hang of it and complete a high-quality wall walk, you’ll gain access to the incredible benefits of this exercise!
This Ultimate Guide Will Cover:
- How to Perform CrossFit Wall Walks Correctly
- Benefits of Doing CrossFit Wall Walks
- Common CrossFit Wall Walks Mistakes to Avoid
- CrossFit Wall Walks Muscles Worked
- CrossFit Wall Walks vs Handstand Hold
- Our Trainer’s Suggested Reps, Sets, and Programs
- CrossFit Wall Walks Variations
- CrossFit Wall Walks Alternative Exercises
- FAQs About CrossFit Wall Walks
How to Perform CrossFit Wall Walks Correctly
What You’ll Need:
- Wall – if you plan to set up a wall or a stacked structure to do this workout, make sure that it’s sturdy and stable, so you won’t falter once you proceed with the walk.
Step 1: Begin on the Floor
Start by lying with your stomach on the ground. Place your feet up against the wall and do a push-up position with your hands at the bottom. This is the wall walk starting position.
Step 2: Push-up to a Plank Position
Perform a Push-Up. But instead of going down, hold at the top and once you’re in a plank stance, engage your core and start your walk.
Step 3: Walk-Up the Wall One Foot at a Time
To start your wall climb, move one foot up the wall at a time (do small steps if you’re having difficulty). After, carefully walk your hands back until your reach a handstand position with your nose just a few inches away from the wall.
Step 4: Walk Down Away From the Wall
Once you’re already at the top of your handstand or as high up the wall as you can, walk your hands forward until your feet are back on the ground. Then, bend your arms, so you’re back to the starting position.
If you want to add a tape marker to properly count your reps, start by laying down on the ground with your back on the ground and your feet flat opposed to the wall. Your chest and tights must touch the floor, and your legs must be stretched.
Then, put the tape mark on the floor at the top of your shoulder and another at about 10 inches between the wall and the tape’s far border.
5 Benefits of Doing Wall Walks
1. Enhance Coordination and Balance
Wall walks are a difficult move, so athletes need to balance carefully and control their bodies efficiently. Doing this exercise regularly and incorporating it into your workout will help you enhance your coordination, balance, and proprioception. Once you gain all these, you’ll have better control, movement, and understanding of your body!
2. Boost Muscle Growth
This exercise calls for a significant amount of time under tension and forces your muscles and body to work hard. This is the exact thing your need to induce muscle hypertrophy. In addition, since the movement is unusual, it can introduce a new stimulus for your body and kickstart it to grow and adapt in new ways!
3. Build Core Strenght
Performing wall walks can enhance your core strength as it requires a rigid and tight core that can manage the body’s movement through the stages of the range of motion.
4. Develop Confidence
It can be challenging to get used to upside-down exercises like handstand push-ups or just a regular handstand hold since you’ll need a certain degree of commitment and confidence. You can augment and build up that sense of confidence and control when you do wall walks.
5. Improve Stability
Doing wall walks can improve your overall body stability, which is helpful for other types of exercises like running and lifting. Generally, this activity can boost your fitness level.
Common Wall Walk Mistakes To Avoid
The entire movement pattern of a wall walk is complex and can put you at risk for injuries. Make sure to avoid these common mistakes and focus on completing the exercise in proper form.
Going Too Fast
When you execute wall walks at a fast pace, your shoulders will quickly get tired. You need to have a steady pace and make sure to take a good breath once you reach the bottom of each rep.
Not Keeping The Arms Straight
The first part of your body that will fatigue once you do this workout is your upper body. Ensure that you keep your arms very straight (don’t bend your elbows) throughout the ascension to save them from early burnout.
Focusing On Quantity, Not Quality
The best way to fully experience the benefits of a wall walk is by doing it in proper form. You need to exercise control to avoid being injured and to be able to build strength. If you’re having difficulty with this, just do fewer reps in the correct posture.
It’s better to do the incomplete movement (not finishing the complete handstand) with control than the whole movement without. Also, as you continue to practice, you’ll eventually be able to complete the motion and add more reps.
Wall Walk Muscles Worked
The wall walks target a variety of muscle groups throughout your body, including:
- Core and abs
- Deltoids
- Rotator Cuff
- Triceps
This workout involves a variety of isometric and moving contractions, activating different muscles in your core, back, shoulders, arms, and glutes. It’s perfect if you’re looking for a workout that can target multiple muscle groups in different parts of your body.
Wall Walks vs Handstand Hold
The wall walk is an excellent exercise to introduce the basics of inversion. Rather than immediately kicking your legs up to a standalone inversion in the form of a handstand hold, you walk your feet up against the wall while you’re in a push-up or plank position.
Both exercises can be challenging in their own ways. While it’s easier to achieve an assisted handstand with wall walks, it can be difficult if you don’t have the essential skill set to perform the entire range of motion. Alternatively, if you’re doing a handstand hold for the first time, it can be scary to kick yourself upside down and try to remain in control.
Neither wall walks nor handstand hold is better than the other. They both need a good level of mastery to execute the movements in proper form and with correct control.
Our Trainer’s Suggested Reps, Sets, and Program
Depending on the end result you’re after, the number of set and rep schemes may vary. Here’s what our trainers suggest.
As An AMRAP Workout
You can follow this AMRAP workout menu if you want to give your whole body a good burn. Make sure to complete these exercises in the prescribed sequence and within nineteen minutes.
Do four-wall walks, fourteen jumping air squats, twenty-four mountain climbers (left + right = one rep), and thirty-four jumping jacks. All the movements in this plan are accessible and not that technical. However, since the time domain is more extended, you’ll need to pace around eighty to eighty-five percent to avoid burning out.
For Strenght Training
To build strength will wall walks, you can incorporate them with other strength-building exercises for a more effective program. Perform one hundred double under, ten wall walks, and twenty Box Jump Overs (the box should be twenty-four to twenty inches). Aim to complete it within four minutes.
Wall Walk Alternatives
If you’re looking for a way to diversify your upper body routine, try mixing in these alternative exercises. With this, you’ll be able to target more muscle fibers and have fun challenging yourself with different moves!
Handstand Walk
Although handstand walking is a much more challenging alternative to wall walks, it’s undoubtedly an impressive functional fitness move to master. Aside from that, this exercise will not only improve your upper body strength, particularly your arms, shoulders, and upper back but also develop your core strength.
Don’t rush in to walk your hands if it’s your first time doing a handstand walk. Even if you’re in the best condition, getting into the correct position and walking your hands back and forth can be difficult.
Handstand Push up
Another excellent alternative that can also increase your upper body strength is the handstand pushu up. Like the wall walk, this exercise targets the same muscle groups and helps improve your calisthenics skills. It can also reduce your back pain and relieve stress!
Bear Crawl
Bear Crawl is a sure way to develop power and strength, fire up your metabolism and enhance your cardio fitness! In addition, this workout can also challenge your head as your brain needs to focus on managing balance while keeping all your limbs moving forward.
The CrossFit wall walk will definitely give you more diversity in your workout routine and increase your fitness level. You can monitor your improvements by adding tape guides on the floor! Also, make sure to avoid making the common mistakes in executing it, and always warm up before your start! Keep your core tight as staying tight stabilizes your movement.