Have you ever thought back wistfully to the days you could jump on the monkey bars and swing without a thought? Maybe you tried to take a turn at the park after your kids and found that it was remarkably harder than you remember. While these experiences can be discouraging, the good news is this is a reasonable skill for nearly everyone to train and with a little consistency and effort it can take relatively little time to recover some swinging ability. But why do it at all?
Grip strength and mortality
You may have heard some strong claims regarding the incredible relationship between having a high grip strength and all-cause mortality. The famous PURE (prospective urban rural epidemiology) study (Leong et. al. 2015) was a 17 year longitudinal population study of nearly 140,000 participants, observing the relationship between handgrip strength and risk of death due to stroke, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, injury due to fall or fracture, etc. These results indicated that grip strength was a stronger predictor of all cause and cardiovascular mortality than blood pressure, with every 5kg decrease in grip strength correlating to a 16% and 17% increase in cardiovascular and all cause mortality, respectively. While this does not mean you can fight off cardiovascular disease by doing forearm curls, it is clear that those who take up practices (like resistance training or activities including hard labor) that improve grip strength have a significantly lower risk of death than those who do not.
Why hanging?
While you can improve your grip strength through many modalities, dead hangs provide a few other benefits worth mentioning. First, they are one of few exercises that allow us to take compressive loads off of the spine, possibly allowing decompression and an opportunity for those tight lower back muscles to take a break. A cohort study by Apfel et. al. (2010) studying patients with disc herniations and lower back pain demonstrated that 6 weeks of regular spinal decompression decreased pain on a scale of 0-10 from an average of 6.2 to 1.6, presumably due to the increase in disc height.
Dead hangs are also a useful tool for many in aiding our ability to flex our shoulder above our head, which can provide many benefits, including potentially relieving shoulder pain or shoulder impingements, as explored by Dr. John M. Kirsh in his book Shoulder Pain The Solution Prevention Fourth Edition (2010). Hanging can also aid in stretching restricted muscles, like the latissimus dorsi (commonly referred to as the lat), or the trapezius, which aids in controlling the scapula during pulling, pushing, or shrugging. Additionally, dead hangs are the foundational building blocks of more advanced movements like pull ups or core exercises like the hanging knee or leg raises.
Is it safe?
It is important to note that those with a history of damage to the spine like disc herniations or severe cases of scoliosis and sciatica may be at risk of worsening symptoms, and should consult with their doctor before introducing regular hanging. Anyone subject to common dislocations or hypermobility are also advised to progress slowly when beginning dead hangs and may consider incorporating additional support like a pull up machine, resistance band or box before attempting an unassisted hang. When in doubt, consult a physician or physical therapist to ensure hanging would be a safe addition to your regular routine.
How should I hang?
The best part is, performing a dead hang is easier than many other exercises. Be it a bar in your door frame, a park, your local gym, or a tree branch, there is an opportunity to begin nearly anywhere. The key is beginning with a time realistic to you (challenging, but achievable) and steadily adding 5-10 seconds every week or two. Over time, you can progress towards including single arm hangs, holding a weight, or replacing a fixed bar with a barbell that rolls. As with any movement, the key to improvement is progression, so finding variations on the exercise that continue to challenge you will be your greatest predictor of progress.
Happy Hanging!
References
Apfel, C. C., Cakmakkaya, O. S., Martin, W., Richmond, C., Macario, A., George, E., Schaefer, M., & Pergolizzi, J. V. (2010). Restoration of disk height through non-surgical spinal decompression is associated with decreased discogenic low back pain: a retrospective cohort study. BMC musculoskeletal disorders, 11, 155. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2474-11-155
Kirsh, J. M. (2010). Shoulder Pain The Solution & Prevention Fourth Edition.
Leong, D. P., Teo, K. K., Rangarajan, S., Lopez-Jaramillo, P., Avezum, A., Jr, Orlandini, A., Seron, P., Ahmed, S. H., Rosengren, A., Kelishadi, R., Rahman, O., Swaminathan, S., Iqbal, R., Gupta, R., Lear, S. A., Oguz, A., Yusoff, K., Zatonska, K., Chifamba, J., Igumbor, E., … Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) Study investigators (2015). Prognostic value of grip strength: findings from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) study. Lancet (London, England), 386(9990), 266–273. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62000-6