Kids climb trees and fences so maybe it's a shoe-in that they would want to tackle a rock wall.
But why?
“I think it’s the sheer size of (the rock wall),” said Brian Barth, a rock wall supervisor for Life Time Fitness in Overland Park, Kan. “They come in and realize ‘This thing is big and I can conquer it.”
At the rock wall in Overland Park, Barth suspects over 50 percent of the climbers using the wall are children, and for many, it doesn’t take much to get them addicted.
“Once a kid has a flavor, gets to the top even once or realizes he or she can get to the top, all of a sudden it's a whole new ballgame,” Barth said.
“And then they become extremely interested. They beg their parents to come back in over, over and over again.”
Although the rock wall can be a fun and challenging for all, Barth said children tend to have a few advantages over adults with climbing.
“Compared to a lot of adults, (kids) don’t have the preconception in their minds that they can’t do it,” Barth said.
“You have an adult that comes in and says 'I’m not strong enough.' Whereas a kid, who has some experience climbing some trees or whatever, gets in there and says ‘I can do this’ or ‘I want to do this.’”
Also, comparing the size and strength ratio between kids and adults, Barth said, “kids are super strong plus they have a high endurance level.”
“Put those things together and they just immediately flourish,” Barth said.
For some children with gymnastic or martial arts in their backgrounds, Barth said, climbing instructors can see some pretty advanced climbing moves because those kids know what their bodies can do.
With other children, Barth said, they tend to make small improvements by breaking down climbing obstacles “into smaller pieces rather than the big chunks.”
But just because they are kids, doesn’t mean every one is fearless on the wall, Barth said.
“It all depends on the kid,” Barth said. “For every kid that comes in that is fearless, you have another that gets 3 feet off the ground and wants to come back down and never wants to try rock climbing again.”
For those who can get past 3 feet, Barth said, climbing can prevent them from developing a fear of heights.
“I would definitely say an early acclimation to height situations would definitely make a kid or most individuals a little more comfortable just because they are around it,” Barth said.
However, if a child does enjoy climbing the wall, that doesn’t mean they’ll always stick with it. Sometimes, Barth said, the ones who stick with it the longest are the children who watched their older siblings climb before they were old enough to scale the wall themselves.
"These days, kids have so much going on,” Barth said. “But if they do catch the bug, and it’s a sport they enjoy doing, I can definitely see them sticking with it longer.”
At Overland Park, Barth said he sees some children regularly who started climbing when the club’s wall first opened.
Yet no matter how many children flock to the wall, Barth said adults should still feel welcome to join in on the fun.
“The rock wall isn’t just for kids,” Barth said. “Parents can have a really good time climbing with their kids.”
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