Where do baboons go for a fun night out?
The monkey bars…
Ha. Gotta love a good dad joke…
In all seriousness, though, monkey bars are fun for me. Not “night out” kind of fun, but for obstacle course racing, I love them. They are the OG of obstacles. Plus, they’re here to stay!
If you’ve never seen them, here’s what they look like in the OCR world. They’re about eight feet high usually with two-inch pipes spaced about one to two feet apart. Those dimensions will obviously change from course to course and even at the places you train for them.
In this article, I’m going to tell you why monkey bars matter, why they’re so important for OCR training, and how you can improve on them. Not only that, but I’ll take it a step further and show you how monkey bars can make you a more resilient athlete.
Health and Fitness Benefits of Monkey Bars
Before I ever knew what monkey bars were, I was swinging from clothesline poles. Rusty ones. Building up calluses and uncovering hidden hornets’ nests. It took a good sting right on the forehead to learn that if I’m going to swing from something, it should be actual monkey bars, not rusty poles. First lesson in obstacle resilience.
Of course, when I did monkey bars later in life, I didn’t really know how they were benefiting me. I just thought they were fun.
It turns out that monkey bars benefit us in a lot of ways:
- They build up your grip and core strength.
- They develop strength in the upper arms, shoulders, back, and biceps.
- The hanging decompresses the spine and helps with posture.
- Not to mention, when you start flying through a set of monkey bars like it’s nothing, your confidence goes through the roof.
How do monkey bars help with obstacle course racing?
Monkey bars are a staple of most obstacle course races and there are usually multiple variations of them. The primary distinctions between them are bar/grip placement and how you place your arms to traverse them.
5 Common Spartan Race Obstacles
- Monkey Bars
- Tarzan Swing
- Ape Hanger
- Twister
- Multi-Rig (see yours truly in the opening pic of this post)
How to do the Monkey Bars
Here are four methods I’ll demonstrate for traversing monkey bars. The method you choose will largely depend on the obstacle you’re practicing, your proficiency with it, your strength in certain muscle groups, and weather conditions.
Monkey Bars – Forward
Moving forward in a flexed arm, hand over hand method is a quick efficient way to move through a set of monkey bars. In this video, you’ll see I move my legs in an almost bicycle-like motion for additional momentum. Keeping the arms flexed (lockoff position) does require a lot of upper body strength but the tradeoff is speed, which makes a difference when you’re racing competitively. Even skipping bars can give you seconds to spare. However, there’s nothing wrong with moving through them with straight arms either. In fact, if you’re trying to conserve energy for a longer race, this may be a possible strategy for you.
Monkey Bars – Backward
You really don’t see this that often, but getting comfortable with them helps with obstacles like Twister, where you can practically fly through the rig going backwards.
Of course, the first time you do this, you’ll probably want to start off in a straight arm position and get comfortable just reaching for the next bar while looking back. As you get more comfortable practicing them, you’ll be able to maintain a lockoff position and just rip through them.
Monkey Bars – Sideways
During a race, overhead obstacles are exposed to a variety of elements. If there is light rain or snow, this will make the bars slippery. Not only that, but as racers move through the obstacles, the bars are also exposed to the shit on our hands: sweat, mud, blood, sand, and tears (of joy, of course).
If your grip is already fatigued or the bars look a little sketchy, going through them sideways is a safer alternative. With this technique, you place your hands one or two bars apart with an opposing grip (palms facing each other). Then, you generate some momentum from your hips to swing laterally, reaching your lead hand out and following with the rear hand as your hips come forward. You can use a flexed arm hang, which will help you move through it faster, or keep your arms slack and rely solely on that momentum.
Monkey Bars – Ape Swing
This is quite literally swinging like an ape. With this technique, you are moving forward one outstretched arm at a time, relying on the momentum of your body to move you forward as you let go of each bar.
Can’t do them? Start with dead hangs!
Monkey bars start with a dead hang. It means exactly what the name prescribes, but here’s how to do them effectively if you’re unsure:
- Find a pullup bar, monkey bar, or tree branch that is higher from the ground than you, yet just within reach. Ideally, your feet shouldn’t be able to touch the ground or floor once you’re on.
- Grab onto the bar with an overhand grip, just slightly wider than shoulder width.
- While keeping your arms straight, pull your shoulder blades down and back to keep them engaged in the process.
- Now, just hang there without any squirming.
You can perform dead hangs for 10 seconds or so if you’re new to them and gradually work up to a few sets of 1 minute or longer. To make them more challenging, you can drape a couple towels over the bar and hang on those, or even try hanging from some Fat Gripz on the bar.
Callus Caution
The rotational force of your hands on monkey bars creates a lot of friction on your palms. The tighter the grip, the more friction there is. The human body, being the wonder it is, naturally tries to protect itself by creating thick calluses to withstand the force. At first, the friction of the bars will hurt your palms a bit, but after some time, calluses will become hardened enough that a few rounds of monkey bars won’t even bother you.
The problem comes when your hands rip – either from too much monkeying too soon, or from letting your calluses build up too much. I can speak from personal experience on the latter. If you don’t take care of your calluses, you’ll be out there one day swinging from bar to bar and then you’ll hop off and suddenly feel a cool wetness on your hands – the sensation of skin ripping and exposing the layers of skin beneath. Then you look down at your hands and cringe at the sight…
Callus Maintenance:
If you are planning on doing workouts with rounds of monkey bars thrown in, invest in a file and some balm or hand repair cream, as well as a daily moisturizer. Men – this doesn’t make you less of a man!
Here’s what I use frequently when I know I’m going to be hitting the monkey bars hard:
SandBar – Original (comes with a salve to apply to your calluses afterward)
Monkey Bars and Resilience
The more you practice monkey bars, the tougher your hands will get and the stronger your grip will get. Of course, the weather can often play a big role in how well you traverse them. For example, wet bars are deceptively slippery. For those, you may want to change your grip as I showed above. Extremely cold bars and hot bars can be very uncomfortable and have a sticking effect, creating more friction with a tight grip. For those, you may want to use a looser grip and a technique with a little more touch-and-go. Ape swings will just tear up your hands in that case.
To be prepared for any of these scenarios on race day, it’s best to slowly introduce them in your training. The more you can simulate them in your own training, the more resilient you’ll become and the more prepared you’ll be for the unexpected during your race.
One way you can simulate this is by finding some outdoor monkey bars nearby and doing a couple rounds of them while it’s pouring. Or if it’s raining too hard, you can wait until the rain stops and perform a couple rounds while the bars are still wet.
In a dry area? Dip your hands in a bucket of water and then give the bars a go. Or take a dunk in the pool right before your workout…
Tell me how much fun it was after!
Building Your Own Monkey Bars
If you don’t have a park or gym nearby with monkey bars, it’ll be harder to train for them. Sure, you can still do grip work and pullups to build up that upper body strength, but with obstacle course racing, like many sports, specificity is key. That means simulating obstacles as close to race conditions as possible.
So, if you don’t have monkey bars nearby, then it is possible to build your own (or have someone build them for you).
Before the advent of COVID-19, I built my own monkey bars in the backyard. I knew the kids, being the climbers they are, would enjoy them and I’ve also had an affinity for them ever since I was a kid. So I researched and plotted a spot to put them right next to the kids’ playset.
Here’s the article I followed to build my own cost-effective, yet sturdy set of monkey bars:
It was a tad bit over $100 for me because I didn’t have some of the required tools. Please note that I am not really handy in terms of wood work, so this was way out of my comfort zone. They came out looking pretty good, though!
Maximizing the Monkey Bars
Monkey bars by themselves are pretty fun, but you can do so much more with them besides the obvious. Here are some ideas to consider the next time you have access to some. Note that some of these will be less viable depending on the width of the set, how many rungs there are, and if you’ve got your own rig available.
- Pull-ups with various grips
- Chin-ups with various grips
- Hanging Leg or Knee Raises
- Traversing across various grips – steel nunchucks, rope nunchucks, stirrups, twirly beards, rings, T-bars, straps, and Anchors Aweigh
- Dips (via straps with rings or TRX bands)
- Rows (via straps with rings or TRX bands)
- Situps (by hanging upside down with your legs locked over the bars)
The last one is not for the faint of heart.
In Conclusion
Besides being nostalgically fun, the monkey bars are a great tool for developing grip, core, and upper body strength. They are also everywhere in obstacle course racing. That makes them especially important to master in your training.
Just remember to take care of your hands in the process, or risk shredding them up like I’ve done.
Assuming you’ve done that, there are numerous ways I’ve mentioned to level up on the monkey bars. Various grips. Core and upper body exercises. Then, there’s hardening against the elements. Doing your monkey bars in various environmental conditions. That’s going to get you race-ready and boost your resilience in the process.
Now go hit those monkey bars!
