How to Do the Platypus Walk to Strengthen Your Glutes and Stretch Your Hips

How to Do Platypus Walks

  1. Start in a wide stance with your knees and feet turned outward.
  2. Bend your knees, coming into a deep sumo squat, and place your hands behind your head.
  3. Maintaining the squat position, take four steps forward.
  4. Take four steps backward.
  5. Make sure your thighs are parallel to the ground (or as low as you can comfortably go while maintaining proper form), your knees are stacked on top of your ankles and your weight is in your heels.
  6. Continue for 40 seconds, moving as quickly as you can with good form.

4 Reasons to Do Platypus Walks Every Day

Here are just a few reasons you should incorporate platypus walks into your daily routine:

1. They Activate Your Glutes

While you may feel weird in the wide-legged waddle position, this strange stance is key for targeting the largest muscle group in your body: your glutes.

"The glutes are activated when the hips externally rotate, knees are laterally rotated and the pelvis is rotated backward [anterior pelvic rotation] all of which are incorporated when performing the platypus walk," Lewis says.

2. They Strengthen Your Quads

During platypus walks, you remain in a squatted stance the whole time. Translation: Your thighs never get a break. "The prolonged squatting position puts the quadriceps under tension for an extended period, resulting in hypertrophy," Lewis says. In other words, the time under tension helps you build strong leg muscles.

3. They Stretch Your Hips

Platypus walks are the perfect antidote for all the sitting you do every day, which shortens and tightens your hip flexors.

Once again, the secret to the platypus walk's power is its wide, waddle- like stance. With your knees and feet turned outward, the move requires an exaggerated external rotation of the hips. This external hip rotation helps adequately lengthen and stretch the muscle fibers attached to the iliac crest i.e., the hip bone Lewis says.

Not only will your loose, limber hips thank you, but your lower back will, too. Tightness in your hips often leads to tension and pain in your low back.

4. Theyre Low Impact

Low-impact exercises like platypus walks are gentler on the joints. "The wider stance of the platypus walks makes it a hip-dominant movement, thus relieving stress off the knees," Lewis says.

Read more on: livestrong