Part of your training should absolutely include some fun challenges.
One example of this is the following monkey bar and rope climb combo.
My friend has a great monkey bar setup. Over the past couple months, I’ve been training there once per week. Every time we do some sort of monkey bar work. This has included the following variations:
- Monkey bar and rope climb combos, done in different ways, this video showing the latest iteration.
- Weighted monkey bars
- Monkey bars and rope climbs for speed/time
- Double or jumping monkey bars
And all of these are always done in a progressive manner. More length, faster speed, more weight, one or all of the above in each session.
Rope climbing is one of the best functional exercises out there. It works the grip, semi-unilateral training, while building pullup strength. Of course, it does take a good setup to be able to do it, but if you have that available, it’s a series of moves worth working on.
As I covered before inside of the Strength Health Mind Power Inner Circle, brachiation, that is swinging from the arms, is a natural human movement and one that can go a long way toward building strong, healthy and pain-free shoulders.