Standing Crab Walks

Standing Crab Walks are a versatile way to target and strengthen your glutes, and the best part is you can do them practically anywhere. For added resistance and enhanced results, you can incorporate weight such as dumbbells, a barbell, or a weight plate. This exercise is an excellent addition to any leg or glute-focused workout routine.

Here we will delve into the muscles worked, how to perform Standing Crab Walks, benefits, common mistakes to avoid, reps and sets, how to progress this exercise, how and where to fit it into your workout plan and finally other exercises targeting the same muscle groups.

Muscles Worked when Performing Standing Crab Walks

Standing Crab Walks are a compound exercise, meaning they engage multiple muscle groups, including:

Glutes: The primary muscle worked during this exercise is the glutes, this muscle is responsible for shaping and toning your buttocks. From a functional perspective your glutes are the largest muscle in your body, responsible for keeping you upright

Quads: Your quads, located in the front of your thighs, help to stabilise and support your legs throughout this exercise.

Hamstrings: The hamstrings, at the back of your thighs, are involved in leg extension and flexion. In this exercise they work in conjunction with your glutes and quads to maintain stability and control throughout.

Core: Because this is a standing exercise it will naturally recruit your core muscles.

You can use the muscle highlighted image at the top of this page for a visual guide of the muscles worked.

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How to Perform Standing Crab Walks

1. Stance and Position: Begin by standing with a wide foot stance, ensuring your feet are shoulder-width apart or slightly wider. Bend your knees slightly and lower your hips down and back into a quarter squat position, maintaining this posture throughout the exercise.

2. Crab Walk Motion: Initiate the crab walk by shuffling your feet sideways in one direction. Maintain the wide stance and the quarter squat position as you move. Continue shuffling your feet for some steps, then switch directions and head back to where you came from.

3. Go for Reps: Continue for several laps of the space you are in, making sure your glutes and quads are engaged throughout.

4. Add Weight: Once you have mastered this exercise, add weight to it. This can be a barbell across the shoulders or a kettlebell or dumbbell clutched against your chest.

Benefits of Standing Crab Walks

Glute Activation: Standing Crab Walks effectively activate and engage your glutes, helping to develop muscle and strength in this area.

Versatility: You can perform Standing Crab Walks virtually anywhere, making them a versatile exercise to include in your everyday life.

Standing Crab Walks: Common Mistakes to Avoid

Lifting Feet: Avoid lifting your feet too far off the floor during the exercise. This is not a side-stepping movement but more of a shuffling action that relies on the engagement of your glutes, quads, and hamstrings to move.

Maintain Proper Form: Sloppy form can lead to poor muscle engagement and potentially result in repetitive strain injury. Focus on maintaining good form throughout the exercise.

Targeted Muscle Engagement: Keep in mind that the primary muscle groups being worked are the glutes and quads. Concentrate on engaging these muscles throughout to maximise the effectiveness of the exercise.

Reps and Sets

The number of reps and sets you perform depends on your current strength with this exercise.

Beginners: Start with simply mastering the move. Keep in mind that if you’re just starting out, 3 reps is a valid set. So in this case, that would be 3 shuffles in one direction.

To determine how many reps/sets of Standing Crab Walks you should start with, you first need to figure out how many reps you can comfortably perform. Then add 2, and perform that number of reps for 3 sets.

For example; let’s say you can perform 4 reps comfortably. Add 2 to make 6 reps. Perform those 6 reps 3 times over, allowing yourself sufficient rest inbetween.

Experienced lifters: You know your body and its abilities better than anyone, use your own judgment.

We recommend that you avoid performing more than 12 reps per set. If you’re comfortably performing 12 reps for up to 6 sets, it’s time to make the exercise more challenging.

How to Make Standing Crab Walks More Challenging

Like most exercises, you can easily make this exercise more challenging by adding weight, this can be by way of a barbell across the shoulders, or a set of dumbbells, one in each hand, or a dumbbell or kettlebell clutched into your chest. Another way to make Standing Crab Walks more challenging is to slow the exercise right down, increasing the time under tension.

How to Incorporate Standing Crab Walks into Your Workouts

Standing Crab Walks belong in your leg or glute-focused workouts, they are best used as a finisher exercise. So you should perform these towards the end of your workout, always prioritise bigger compound exercises first. Exercise order matters, you can learn more about that here.

Exercises that Work Similar Muscles to Standing Crab Walks

Exercises like Squats, Lunges and Bulgarian Split Squats are great compound moves to help further strengthen your Crab Walking ability. Compound exercises are crucial for muscle growth since they allow you to move more overall weight than isolation exercises, helping you build the muscle faster.

You can also pair this exercise with other isolation or assisted exercises such as Cable Kickbacks, Glute Bridges or Leg Raises for more glute isolation. A combination of compound and isolation exercises is recommended for best results.

You can find more Bum Exercises at the bottom of this page. Or you can check out our entire exercise database, broken down by muscle group here.

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