A monkey bar, also known as a jungle gym or climbing bar, looks like a horizontal ladder made from metal bars. The rungs are spaced evenly apart, making it easy for kids to grip them as they climb. But are monkey bars good for kids? Absolutely!
Monkey bars serve an important role in your child’s development. These playground equipment favorites encourage your kids to be creative and use their imagination to build epic structures and games. Playing on monkey bars also improves hand-eye coordination, which is important for improving sports skills.
Here are the benefits of playing on monkey bars:
Help Develop Your Kid’s Muscles and Strength
One of the main benefits of monkey bars is that they help kids develop their muscles and strength. By using their body weight to swing from bar to bar, kids use muscles in their arms, chest, back, and core. To play monkey bar, your child must be able to sustain their entire body by holding onto the bars.
In addition, the act of your kids keeping their legs tucked up while swinging from one monkey bar to another helps to strengthen their abdominal muscles and protects their spinal cord. Remember that kids practice basic movements until the age of seven.
After their seventh birthday, they begin to develop athletic movements learned from various sports. Therefore, for kids up to seven years, monkey bars provide an incredible platform to master basic movements. These structures will still be helpful when they’re learning athletic movements.
Monkey Bars Provide Full Body Workout
Most people think that monkey bars are all about the arms. However, they also require a lot of leg strength to keep swinging. As your kids grip the bars with their hands, they use their legs to generate momentum and keep themselves swinging.
This is an excellent way to give them a full-body workout without realizing it. Kids will have so much fun swinging from the monkey bars that they won’t even realize they’re getting a great workout. Although it can be complex for your little one to learn the skill of swinging from one bar to the next, increased practice can be a great deal.
Once your kids are comfortable with swinging, you have to encourage them to use monkey bars often because it will increase their fitness level and play a critical role in their development. The high level of exertion is also an excellent way to release energy making the play session tiring. This will help your kids to focus better in their classroom environment and sleep better at night.
Swinging On Monkey Bars Influences a Good Posture and Balance
The monkey bars are one of the best playground equipment to develop a good posture and sense of balance in kids. When children swing from one bar to another, they have to arch their back slightly and engage their abdominal muscles to maintain their body in a midline position.
This helps to improve their posture and keep their spine upright. In addition, the activity requires them to use their arms and legs alternatively to maintain their balance, which strengthens the muscles in those body parts and improves coordination. Some of the benefits of good posture include:
- Decreases the risk of arthritis
- Relieves muscle strain
- Increases energy levels
- Decreases risk of joint degeneration
- Improves core strength
- Decreases chances of headaches, neck aches, and back aches
Frequent and Healthy Exercise Helps Against Obesity in Kids
Obesity is a major problem in the United States, and it’s only getting worse. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the rate of obesity in children and adolescents has more than tripled since the 1970s.
Playing on the monkey bars is an activity that is regularly available to children, and it counts as exercise. They encourage children to regularly exercise, which ultimately helps fight childhood obesity. Some negative effects of obesity include a higher risk for hypertension, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, breathing problems, cancer, mental illness, chronic pain, gallbladder disease, and osteoarthritis.
Here are other benefits of regular physical activity for kids:
- Improves endurance
- Improves sleep
- Improves strength
- Reduces the risk of being overweight
- Improves flexibility
- Reduces the risk of diabetes
- Improves mental health
Playing With Monkey Bars Can Relieve Stress
Not only does playing with monkey bars give children a chance to get some exercise, but it can also help relieve stress. A study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology found that playing on monkey bars can help reduce cortisol levels, which is the hormone associated with stress.
Most people, including children, have stress in life. Many people get anxious in life quite easily due to problems relating to the workplace, studies, and family. The good news is that a monkey bar can a great stress reliever, especially for kids.
Monkey bars usually combine playtime and easy exercise in a supernatural way. Although kids will focus on the fun part, the exercise part happens without them knowing. This combination plays a critical role in relieving both body tension and mental stress.
While kids play on a monkey bar, they’ll generally focus on their posture and grip. The focus and vigorous activity will help get respite from stress and anxiety. The healthy functioning of their brain triggers the secretion of dopamine and serotonin in their bodies which plays a critical role in regulating depression and anxiety.
Improves Socialization Skills
Regular playtime will also help your children to interact with their peers and adults on a regular basis. It is one of the most important skills that they must develop while growing up. It helps them to share their feelings, thoughts, and ideas with others. Games also teach kids how to take turns, follow the rules, and be a good sport whether they win or lose.
In order to be a good sport, children learn how to control their emotions and not get too upset when things don’t go their way. All these skills will be very useful for them when they start going to school and interacting with other kids on a daily basis.
Helps in Developing Fine and Gross Motor Skills
Playing games is also very important for the development of fine and gross motor skills in children. Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the hands, wrists, and fingers, while gross motor skills involve the large muscles of the arms, legs, and trunk.
While children play and use their muscles, they’re also improving their fine and gross motor skills. As their hands grip and hold firmly onto the rungs, they’re horning their fine muscles in their fingers, wrists, and hands. This improves their grip.
Swinging their entire body while playing on the equipment helps children improve their gross motor skills. The muscles in their arms, legs, and trunk have to work together to keep them balanced while they’re swinging. This helps develop coordination between different muscle groups.
The intense workout help improve the upper body, which is crucial for fitness and many sports activities they may take part in now and in the future. Increased upper body strength improves the child’s posture and overall alignment of their back.
Boosts Confidence and Self-Esteem in Kids
Swinging on the monkey bars gives children a sense of accomplishment. They feel proud of themselves when they’re able to make it to the end without falling. This boost in confidence carries over into other areas of their life, such as school and social interactions.
When kids feel good about themselves, they’re more likely to take risks and try new things. They’re also more likely to stick with activities longer and persevere when they encounter setbacks.
Mental Benefits of Monkey Bars
The monkey bars offer more than just physical benefits. They also provide children with a chance to develop important mental skills.
One of the most important mental benefits of the monkey bars is problem-solving skills. In order to make it from one bar to the next, kids have to figure out how to move their bodies in the most efficient way.
This helps them develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills that they can use in other areas of their life. The monkey bars also offer a chance for kids to practice planning and goal-setting. In order to make it to the end of the bars, they need to set a goal and plan out how they’re going to get there. This can help them develop important planning and organizational skills.
Allows Stretching and Strengthening of Muscles
In order to grip the bars and swing from one to the next, kids use a variety of muscles in their arms and shoulders. The monkey bars can help kids to develop strength and coordination in these muscles. Additionally, the stretching that’s required to reach from one bar to the next can help to increase flexibility.
FAQs on the Benefits of Monkey Bars to Kids
At what age can kids go across monkey bars?
While you can hold their legs and help them cross the bars, it’s ideal to wait until they can cross on their own. Monkey bars are great for children six years above because children below this age lack the upper body strength to hang from the bars.
How can I help my child get better at monkey bars?
Start by helping them build up their strength by doing exercises such as chin-ups, pull-ups, and other upper body exercises. You can also help them improve their coordination by practicing on a lower set of monkey bars or on a playground ladder.
Final Thoughts
Overall, monkey bars play an important role in a child’s development. They help with emotional well-being, physical activity, and the development of their motor skills. If your child is struggling on the monkey bars, don’t be discouraged. Help them build up their strength and coordination, and they’ll be swinging across the monkey bars like a pro in no time.
