Brachiating

Brachiating, also known as overhead climbing, is a favorite activity on playgrounds. This experience is one of the very few activities that is first introduced to children in a playground environment. Read more at GameTime.com.

Including overhead climbing activites on a playground helps those enjoying the equipment in many ways.

According to Dr. Joe Frost, widely accepted as the leading contemporary play advocate, brachiating play stimulates both the mind and the body. During overhead climbing play, nerves and muscles are developed and brain circuits and cells are formed as children develop coordination, agility, strength, confidence and motor skills such as depth and distance judgment. It’s also an element of play that is too often overlooked, as evidenced by studies that show a large population of elementary school students who lack an appropriate degree of upper body strength. According to Frost, most children who develop brachiating skills achieve sufficient grip and upper body strength to support their body weight. There are four stages in the overhead climbing developmental progression:

• Fundamental beginning: children gain upper body and grip strength by simply hanging and supporting their own body weight
• Practice: children begin to attempt to traverse the overhead ladder and develop coordination
• Refining: children, usually 4 to 6 years of age, move rhythmically and demonstrate more control with a leading hand
• Mastery: children, usually ages 6 to 9, move quite efficiently demonstrating various ways of travel through hand over hand motion

Check out more articles in this Playground Design Element Series: Balance | Spin | Climb | Slide | Brachiate | Swing