166: Brachiation

An ode to ancient primate skillz 🐵

7 Dec 2025 — 2 min read

Arboreal brachiation gave early primates the ability to quickly glide through forests above the ground. For millions of years, it's shaped our shoulders, wrists, and fingers.

But swinging from trees and monkey bars isn’t just for wild gibbons or children.

When you alternate arm swinging, you’re basically running an ancient software program built into your skeleton - one that improves grip strength, shoulder stability, core control, and that underrated fitness metric known as joy.

Brachiation is sneaky-good training, and it taps into a physical heritage older than upright bipedalism itself. It’s functional, scalable, cognitively complex, and fun.

So, swing more. Your inner gibbon will appreciate it.

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Season 3 Movement