It was the day before George Mason University’s men’s basketball opener, so junior guard Marquise Moore wasn’t about to undertake his usual shoulder-searing workout.
So let’s go to the video of Moore doing a pull-up, making a two-handed grab of the next bar 18 inches away and doing another pull-up. In the video, Moore repeats the move four times, though he said he has traveled six bars before quitting from understandable exhaustion.
“It wipes you out,” he said. “But you know you’re working, getting stronger, better. It’s a good feeling.”
As impressive as Moore’s workout is the apparatus on which it is executed: a custom-built 30-foot long, 6-foot wide, 15-foot high metal structure with monkey bars, pull-up stations, climbing ropes, rings and heavy bags.
The 10 monkey bars, especially arranged in a descending terrace to accommodate athletes of all heights, give the apparatus the feel of a jungle gym. In fact, the concept came from George Mason strength and conditioning coach Robert “Handy” Handerahan, who was inspired watching his daughter, Ella, then 9, play on a jungle gym.
“It was natural movement,” Handerahan said. “Some of the things she was doing—pulling herself up, swinging her legs up, hanging from her knees—I thought, ‘I’ve got athletes who might not be able to do that.’ So I snapped a few pictures.”
He also spoke at length with assistant athletic director Debi Corbatto, who kick-started the process of incorporating the apparatus into the previously planned overhaul of the Field House weight room. The company that built the apparatus used Handerahan’s detailed sketches as a framework.
The structure, open only to student-athletes, was installed in January. Handerahan said he does not know of anything comparable.
The concept is simple: use natural movements and body weight to increase strength, flexibility and conditioning to enhance performance and reduce injuries. The workouts complement traditional weight training.
“It’s like a whole new level,” said Alex Myers, a junior sport management major and a center-midfielder on the women’s soccer team. “There’s multiple things you can do. It’s a big change-up from the classic squatting and dead lifts and stuff.”
“It’s back to basics,” said junior systems engineering major Ryan Rosenmeier, a middle-blocker and hitter on the men’s volleyball team.
Those basics include going hand-over-hand across the monkey bars, pull-ups, hanging leg raises and climbing a rope without using one’s legs.
Handerahan said he needs another year to determine if the apparatus is making a difference on the field. Off the field, gains are easy to measure. Myers said she has gone from doing one pull-up to seven. Moore, of the basketball team, said it took two months to build up the strength to do his swinging bar-to-bar pull-up circuit.
“It’s done a lot for my upper body,” Moore said. “That helps me in my game, getting to the basket, exploding, using my body on defense.”
“We have no control over the X’s and O’s,” Handerahan said. “What we’re trying to do is let their athleticism shine.”