Many of us have plenty of experience playing and swinging on monkey bar when we were young. Other than it being fun, the strength needed to use the monkey bars is also a great form of exercise. They are extremely effective for building on core and upper body strength. Here are some great monkey bar exercises for your children to help them build muscles.

Dead Hang

This is a good starting point for children who have not been on monkey bars regularly. It helps kids get accustomed to using their arms to carry their body weight. All you have to do is hold the bar and hang your body for approximately ten to twenty seconds. When hanging, try to focus on using your arm strength instead of joints to support their weight.  After you have mastered a dead hang with two hands, challenge doing a one handed dead hang. Start with placing two hands on the bar and then letting go of one for about 5 seconds.

Side Swing

Although this movement is relatively basic, it is an interesting move that engages your body to move in a different motion. This exercise will help to work on strengthening your core and lats from a different angle.

Hanging Leg Raises

This is perfect for strengthening core muscles. For this exercise, begin with a dead hang position, and then lift your knees towards your elbows keeping your legs bent. Once you start to get comfortable in this position, there are many other variations you could explore with keeping your legs straight at different angles. For children who are physically active, it is recommended to start with about 5 reps. Remember to adjust the number of reps and sets when you are doing a variation of the exercises as they have a higher difficulty level.

Lateral Moving Pull Ups

This is a great way to strengthen your lateral muscles. To perform this exercise, place a wide handgrip on the monkey bar first before pulling yourself up. When you are at the top, swing your torso and shoulders horizontally left and right while moving across the parallel bars.

Skip-A-Bar

This exercise is relatively more challenging than the basic monkey bars as you will have to do a single arm hang while reaching to skip over a bar. This will improve your grip and lat strength. If this is too difficult, an intermediate step would be to begin with a basic movement, add in a skip, and alternate between these 2 until you can perform continuous skips.

Consistency

For your kids to build strength through monkey bar exercises, consistency is key. Doing these exercises on a regular basis will allow your kids to improve their strength at a faster pace. If you lack the time to bring your kids to a park regularly, an indoor playground will work perfectly to keep them active. Fitness Kid has all the necessary equipment you need, including a horizontal bar to do the above exercises. Contact us today to find out more about our products and services.