Daughter 7 and son 9 can dead hang comfortably for 3 and a half minutes

@bigred630702000 Isn’t grip strength also something that’s very well developed at a young age, significantly more so than other muscle groups? Apparently a baby’s grip is strong enough to hurt your hand/finger. Makes sense from an evolutionary perspective — we are descended from an arboreal (or tree-dwelling) species, and developed traits to help us survive and hang onto branches in the event we were to almost fall.
 
@bigred630702000 Another commented this already, but adding support to the strength:weight ratio. Go look at some google images of most successful rock climbers of all time. The biggest advantage they have isn’t tons of strength, or the smallest weight, it’s their strength:weight ratio. They’re really strong for their size. They get strong without getting bulky. Kids have great mobility at that age and very good strength:weight.
 
@rando Kids can be very impressive. I do bouldering and usually I climb on a V4-V5 level. I will never forget the day that I saw a father with 2 kids, who looked 8-10 years old doing climbs on V9 and V10 level. These are climbs that I could not even dream of doing despite having many years of strength training as an adult. Kids are light and if they are active their body can respond very well to training.

Off topic, but if your kids enjoy these kinds of things, I suggest giving bouldering a try for them.
 
@rando It’s not just that kids weigh less (their muscles should be smaller too, after all) it’s actually a vestigial genetic trait we are born with and lose when we get older (3 month old babies can dead hang for minutes too)

Researchers believe young kids used to hold on to the fur of their mothers while being carried around (like is still seen in a lot of apes) so it was evolutionary advantageous to be able to hold on to something as a kid but not as important as an adult.
 
@apersonwithnoname Exactly this - babies and small children have very strong grip strength and ability to hang - it is an evolutionary survival mechanism that allows them to hang onto their parent or anything that is carrying them around.
 
@rando I think it's pretty normal, something about kid physiology allows them to do so easier. My little brother 8 yo was able to skin the cat the moment I taught it to him (he cant do a pullup at all), yet it took me two weeks to train specifically for it to get it.
 
@rando My son is 4, weights a little less than 15 kg. The other day he picked up my dumbell from the floor, that was 12 kg, without ANY struggle. It's like I'd deadlift 64 kg - generally not much, but a lot for someone that hasn't trained even once in life.
 
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