By Marissa Johnson
Carmel fitness trainer Nathaniel Nolan is a big believer in the benefits of consistent movement, which has taken him on an expected journey – on all fours.
For more than 400 consecutive days, Nolan has been training on both his hands and feet, modulating intensity as needed. He shares a short video from his daily workout online, where his TikTok account has garnered more than 1 million followers.
How did this all-fours practice come to be? In his early 20s, Nolan took on physical disciplines in calisthenics, jujitsu and yoga, but found that he was often overtraining. When he noticed pain and stiffness coming from his high-intensity workouts, especially in his hands and wrists, he tried several different rehabilitation programs to combat it, but nothing worked.
Nolan took his knowledge as a trainer and movement coach to create his own training program that included more time spent on his hands.
“I realized that the ratio of time spent on my hands was not enough to condition them for what I was trying to perform,” said Nolan, a trainer at Eat the Frog Fitness. “But it was difficult because my wrists and hands were hurting so much.”
Soon, Nolan landed on the bear crawl as a way to quickly and intuitively modulate intensity.
“If you’re in a bear crawl position, you can shift your weight backward into your feet or your lower body to take weight off of your hands, and you can also shift weight forward,” Nolan said.
What eventually became Nolan’s all-fours practice allowed him to train more consistently and without pain limitations.
“It was just an educated guess,” Nolan said. “But within the first month, the results were pretty amazing.”
He challenged himself to add one minute of all-fours movement each day for 30 days to ramp up the volume of time spent on his hands.
“Before the month was even over, I noticed that a lot of my pain was starting to resolve,” he said, which led him to develop the training philosophies that now make up his all-fours practice.
Impressed with the results, Nolan began posting TikTok videos about how his practices in calisthenics, jujitsu and yoga had progressed thanks to his all-fours workouts. He has continued posting videos as an online journal of sorts to share the philosophies of his training.
Nolan’s three main principles are: if it hurts, immediately stop and assess; modify as much and as soon as you need to; and train every day.
“If I’m doing those things and I’m bearing weight on my hands, then that is my all-fours practice,” Nolan said. “There are no specific movements that define it.”
Nolan also said that he doesn’t plan on ever stopping training on all fours.
“It’s become a really important cornerstone in my training, and it’s something that I think anybody would benefit from,” he said. “My goal is to show people how to integrate training into their daily lives so that it works with their lifestyle instead of in spite of it. You’ll be in your body for the rest of your life, so learning to pilot it better is one of the best investments you can make.”
How to train on all fours
Anyone interested in learning more about training on all fours practice may connect with Nathaniel Nolan on TikTok (@xpmovement) or Instagram (@annualnathaniel). He described his social media accounts as more of a journal than a how-to guide.
“My TikTok is not necessarily coaching content. It’s literally just a journal of my daily practice,” he said. “So although I provide insights from my daily practice, if you don’t already have a strong knowledge base, it’s supplemental at best.”
For those ready to incorporate all-fours movement into training, check out Nolan’s tips at patreon.com/XPmovement.
“My Patreon (account) is where all of my coaching content is, and that’s where I really lay out all of the principles and apply it to more common practices like calisthenics, weightlifting or weight training or whatever it is that you’re trying to do,” he said. “It’s a low-cost, accessible, easy way for people to start, and then if they want a more hands-on approach, then obviously they can hire me as a coach.”
