Full-body compound moves get all of the credit for constructing muscle mass. Jacked quads? Thanks, front squat. Killer glutes? Appreciate you, deadlift. Bolder shoulders? Couldn’t have done it without you, overhead press. And while these moves actually deserve their spot at the highest of the burden training food chain, easy body weight exercises might be just as helpful.
Take the dead hang, for instance. Requiring you to understand a bar and easily hang there, it has not one of the glamour of a back squat or the strength-gaining potential of a bench press. But what it lacks in complexity, it makes up for in advantages because it counters a number of the negative effects of compound moves, including tight muscles, spinal decompression, poor posture, and shoulder immobility.
We’re not suggesting dead hangs take the place of your beast mode moves. As an alternative, add the dead hang into your existing routine, and you could find you are stronger and more limber than ever.
Table of Contents:
- What Are Dead Hangs?
- Differences Between Passive & Energetic Dead Hangs
- Advantages Of Energetic And Passive Dead Hangs
- Muscles Worked & Stretched During Dead Hangs
- Performing Dead Hangs: How To Do A Dead Hang
- Programming The Dead Hang
- Variations Of The Dead Hanging Exercise
Hang with us, and you will know the whole lot there may be to learn about this exercise.
WHAT IS THE DEAD HANG EXERCISE?
Easy but effective, dead hangs are an exercise requiring you to do exactly what the name implies: hang. The overhead bar on the gym is not just reserved for pull-up variations. In addition they work great for the dead hang. Or, you’ll be able to get creative and use whatever bar is offered. We’re never against utilizing a park’s monkey bars to get in an exercise or two.
Once you have your bar, align your body similarly to the way in which you’ll when performing a pull-up. With an overhand grip, hands barely wider than shoulder-width, legs straight and off the bottom, your body will hang from a bar. And as you do, you may reap many advantages (more on this soon!).
A very important suggestion we’ve for the dead hang: Don’t jump as much as grab the bar. Use a bench, plyo box, or the rest to line up your hands accurately before removing your legs from the box and gently letting your body hang. Jumping as much as grab it places strain in your shoulder joints and doesn’t can help you arrange with proper form.
Passive Dead Hangs vs Energetic Hang
The neutral grip dead hang comes with decisions: You’ll be able to let your body hang there, treating it more as a stretch, or you need to use it to construct strength by isometrically contracting your muscles at some stage in the hold.
The passive dead hangs exercise position is the stretching version, wherein your legs hang straight down with less deal with contraction and far more on stretching. Your shoulder joints are still activated, but the remainder of your muscles must be lengthening on this version.
The lively dead hang turns the stretch right into a strength-building move. Once in position, deal with holding a full-body contraction as you hang along with your legs barely in front of you as a substitute of hanging straight down. Activate your back, like you’ll in any latissimus dorsi strengthening exercises, and shoulder muscles by rolling your shoulders outward and retracting your shoulder blades. Create tension in your entire upper arm as you deal with engaging each muscle. As you lift your legs in front of you, activate your core, hip flexors, glute, quad, hamstring, and calf muscles. Your focus is on maintaining your head-to-toe muscle contractions throughout your entire movement.
This hanging exercise doesn’t sound as easy now, does it?
Are Passive Dead Hangs Bad For You?
No, quite the alternative: Passive dead hangs are great for you. At first glance, how the dead hang primarily works could appear hard on the shoulders, however the exercise is not stressing them. It’s stretching them. As you hang there, your shoulder joint mobility is improving, which is crucial to any movement requiring you to lift or move your arms. Even holding the bar for a back squat requires motion from our shoulder joints.
In the event you suffer from shoulder pain, your first step must be to clear this move along with your doctor – safety first, all the time. But when you do, this move will aid you excess of the short cross-body stretch you likely perform after an intense upper-body dumbbell workout. Dead hangs do an ideal job of stretching an important shoulder tendon, the supraspinatus, which helps with overall shoulder health and mobility.
As with the whole lot, moderation is vital. Performing this move multiple times a day places an excessive amount of strain in your shoulders since you’re overusing them. As an alternative, goal two to 3 times weekly, follow proper form, and your entire body will profit from passive dead hangs.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF DEAD HANGS?
There are different advantages to each dead hang variations because of their different focuses. For instance, the passive dead hang stretches and elongates, so you will find a lot of its advantages relate to this. However, the lively dead hang strengthens, so its key advantages are linked to increasing muscle mass and serving as a stepping point in a pull-up progression plan.
As a result of the character of the hand position and the overall “hanging there” requirements, one profit you may receive from each moves pertains to your hands and forearms.
It improves your grip strength and forearm muscle. No matter whether you make this move lively or passive, it still requires your hands to understand a bar and support your body as you hang. Which means your forearm flexors, vital for hand grip strength, will work in either position. In the event you’re interested by gaining strength here, these forearm exercises and this dumbbell forearm workout are great for constructing mass and strength.
And while it will not be probably the most glamorous muscle, it’s integral to the whole lot you do. On a regular basis activities like carrying groceries require grip strength. And just imagine the way you’d perform any of your favorite lifting moves with weak hands and minimal grip. Heavy (or light) dumbbells, barbells, pull-ups, and rows all turn out to be unimaginable to do when you’ll be able to’t grasp something properly.
Interestingly, recent research shows that grip strength is an ideal predictor of future disease, mobility, bone mineral density, fracture risk, depression, and overall strength and body function1.
Advantages of Passive Dead Hangs
Here why’s including passive dead hangs into your routine is an excellent idea.
1. Improves shoulder joint range of motion:
We spoke about this above, but it surely’s value touching on again because it is one in every of the highest advantages of passive dead hangs. Shoulder pain or a scarcity of mobility impacts on a regular basis functions, like getting a jolt of pain each time you reach for something on a shelf to needing to rotate your shoulders outward as you grasp a barbell to perform a squat variation, just like the back squat. By hanging there, you are enabling the shoulders to stretch inside their entire range of motion, which shouldn’t be something most shoulder stretches can achieve. Between that and targeting the supraspinatus tendon, your shoulders are well on their technique to feeling their best.
2. Spinal decompression:
Trust us after we say that decompressing your spine feels so incredibly good. Chances are you’ll not even realize you might have tension in your back until after performing this move and feeling the difference. Many aspects cause your spine to compress, including sitting at a desk or in a automobile for significant periods. Jumping and other plyometric moves and performing squats and deadlifts are other common culprits. Let’s take jumping up and down for example. As you land, your spine absorbs the force from that movement. This places pressure in your discs between your vertebrae, compressing them as they work to soak up your landing shock. Your intervertebral discs are essentially a cushion protecting each vertebra as they absorb shock and stress.
Consider when you might have a heavy barbell loaded in your upper back for a back squat: The load is pushing down in your intervertebral discs, as they absorb the burden and protect your vertebrae from pushing against one another. Your discs are doing their job, and the compression they undergo is standard.
But it surely’s vital to indicate them some love by helping relieve that compression. Otherwise, you possibly can end up coping with back pain, the very last thing anyone wants. The passive dead hang helps relieve disc pressure by oh-so-gently creating space between your vertebrae because it pulls them apart due to gravity tugging your body downward. The additional space relieves pressure, enables your discs to expand, and prepares them for future shock-absorbing duties.
3. Upper body stretch:
Our upper bodies feel higher just occupied with the deep stretch from a passive dead hang. This move lengthens muscles that might be hard to focus on with traditional stretching, partially due to the downward pull of gravity. Nevertheless, it also hits loads of muscles that are inclined to turn out to be short and overactive once they do not get enough stretching attention, which might result in muscle imbalances and injury. Your shoulder and arm muscles will get a deep stretch, as will your entire back, including your lats, traps, and rhomboids. It actually deserves a spot in your lat stretches routine.
4. Higher posture:
Those tight back muscles we just discussed can wreak havoc in your posture, so the higher stretched they’re, the more improved your posture might be. As well as, sitting for long periods because of the dreaded, but quite common, desk job won’t do our posture any favors either. And to make posture matters worse, a compressed spine further results in a hunched-over look.
Combat all of those effects with the passive dead hang. Because it decompresses your spine, stretches out all your upper body muscles, and counteracts the results of sitting for long periods, you will find your back becomes straighter than ever.
5. Sets you up for progressions:
For those seeking to master the pull-up, an ideal stepping stone is to begin with a passive dead hang. Despite hanging there, your upper body muscles are still working to support your entire body weight. Grip strength can be vital for successful pull-ups, and as mentioned, this hang helps improve your hold.
You can too use this exercise as a stepping stone for chin-ups and other exercises that require a powerful grip or good shoulder mobility, including the deadlift, bent-over rows, lat pull-downs, and upright shrugs. Any exercise that relies in your hands and forearm flexors to understand weights will improve as you master the passive dead hang.
Advantages of Energetic Dead Hangs
Thinking about lively dead hangs and what they do for you? Listed below are a number of the lively dead hangs best advantages.
1. Full-body contraction:
The lively dead hangs require isometrically contracting your muscles. Grasping the bar prompts your forearm flexors, and as you hold yourself up, your triceps and biceps also engage. Plus, your shoulder and back muscles are all working as you rotate your shoulders and retract your shoulder blades, creating tension throughout the upper, middle, and lower back.
Raise your legs in front of you barely by utilizing your core, glutes, quads, and hamstrings, holding each muscle contraction at some stage in the move. Our muscles are far more accustomed to contracting concentrically and eccentrically, so an extended hold will work them in a latest way.
2. Improves core strength:
Core strength is crucial for performing moves like pull-ups and chin-ups, so engaging your deep abdominal muscles at any time when possible is crucial. A powerful core also protects your back during heavy-duty exercises just like the deadlift, and when combined with following a cutting food regimen plan may lead to the six-pack of your dreams.
3. Reduces muscle imbalances:
As you hang there, contracting all your muscles, you are ensuring one side of your body is not neglected. As your strength improves, you’ll be able to take this further by trying a one-handed lively dead hang. There isn’t any easier technique to discover side imbalances than by taking one side completely out of it!
4. Builds serious strength for exercise progressions:
Once you’ve got mastered this move, you are in your technique to completing pulls-up and chins-ups. Actually, after performing the lively hang, consider reaping the advantages of a weighted vest by putting one on before knocking out your pull-up reps. And since of its emphasis on muscular contraction, you are also laying the muse to tackle some hardcore weight lifting moves, including the front lever, wherein you grasp a bar, lowering your body horizontally and maintaining it on this position.
Mountain climbing is an activity wherein you may be blissful you first mastered the lively dead hang since grip and upper body strength are vital for pulling yourself up on uneven rocks and surfaces. It also lays the muse for tougher lively hangs, including one-handed and performing it on gymnastics rings. Because of a rise in lat strength, improvements to your deadlifts and Kroc rows are likely.
Does a dead hang construct muscle?
The lively dead hang is superb for constructing muscle. Your forearms will get a serious workout. And so long as your biceps, triceps, shoulders, and back are contracting, you’ll be able to construct mass in each of them, making it an ideal addition to any upper body workout. As well as, the core, glutes, quads, and hamstrings activate to lift your legs, and you will make gains within the lower body.
As with all exercises, progressions will proceed constructing muscle. When you stop feeling challenged, increase your time, sets, or reps, or consider adding a weighted vest or ankle weights for some extra muscle hypertrophy-inducing effects. Graduating to a pull-up or chin-up is all the time an option as well.
DEAD HANG MUSCLES WORKED & STRETCHED
As a result of the similarities in form, the identical muscles work in each variations. The fundamental difference is how the variations work: A lot of these muscles are stretched within the passive variation and strengthened within the lively dead hang.
Upper Body Activation:
Listed below are the upper body muscles worked during dead hangs.
- Forearm: The flexor digitorum superficialis, flexor digitorum profondus, and the flexor policus longus are liable for grip strength and activated within the passive and lively dead hang. The opposite muscles listed here get an excellent stretch from the passive dead hang, however the forearm muscles are lucky enough to get in a serious workout throughout the exercise.
- Shoulders: Even within the passive dead hang, the deltoids are semi-activated as they work to rotate downward throughout the exercise. Plus, the shoulders are getting a deep stretch that may help with shoulder pain and improve your shoulder joint range of motion. Finally, prepare for much more activation within the lively variation as you think about depressing your shoulder blades and concurrently activating your back muscles.
- Lats: Weight lifting, driving, and sitting an excessive amount of could cause our lats to shorten. As this happens, it throws off your posture, causing a hunched upper back and shoulders that round forward, which does not look or feel comfortable. The passive dead hang does an exceptional job of letting them fully length and stretch, creating longer, happier lat muscles that might be more agreeable to using heavier weights in your overhead press and Pendlay rows. Use those lengthened lats within the lively dead hang variation as they isometrically contract throughout the exercise.
- Core: Engage your core as you retain your body perfectly still, ensuring your body doesn’t twist or sway side-to-side (dead hang no-nos) while working your deep core muscles in each variations. With the lively dead hang, contract them much more as they stabilize your trunk and hold your legs in front of you.
- Rhomboids: These upper back muscles are essential for good posture, and once they’re tight cause a dull pain to radiate between your shoulder blades. Roll your shoulders outward as you hang, as it can help lengthen and reduce tension in your rhomboids. You will get more of a stretch with the passive dead hang, so think about this variation if you happen to suffer from upper back pain.
- Trapezius: The traps are fully engaged within the lively dead hang since one in every of its primary functions is shoulder stabilization and moving the shoulder blades. The upper traps help elevate and rotate the shoulder blades upward, while the center traps retract the shoulder blades, and the lower trap fibers rotate the shoulder blades downward2. These trapezius functions mean the massive back muscle is fully activated as you pull your shoulders down throughout the lively dead hang.
Lower Body Muscle Activation:
Your lower body muscles are specific to the lively dead hang. The glutes contract as they hold your legs barely in front of you. Use that mind-muscle connection we often discuss to interact your remaining lower body muscles. As you hold your legs in front of you, squeeze the quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves, isometrically contracting them your entire exercise. Think about your full-body contractions, and you’ll be able to anticipate the next lower-body muscle groups getting worked:
- Glutes
- Hip flexors
- Quadriceps
- Hamstrings
- Calves
HOW TO DO THE DEAD HANG
Able to accurately perform a dead hang? Here’s how you can do it.
Learn how to do a Passive Dead Hang:
- Stand behind a pull-up bar, grabbing it along with your palms facing away from you in an overhand grip, along with your hands barely wider than shoulder-width apart. Use a bench or plyo box to step up and reach the bar somewhat than jumping up for it.
- Grasping the bar, keep your arms straight with a slight elbow bend. Keep your torso and pelvis neutral, along with your legs hanging straight down, fully prolonged, and never touching the ground; tuck your chin. Your arms must be fully prolonged.
- Despite being a passive hang, your shoulders are still semi-activated, remaining down and back throughout the exercise.
- Think about being still and maintaining a gentle respiration pattern as you hang there. When done, place your feet back on the bench or plyo box to get down.
Learn how to do an Energetic Dead Hang:
- Starting in the identical position because the passive hang, grab onto the bar with an overhand grip, with arms fully prolonged. Begin within the passive hang position, letting your legs hang straight toward the bottom.
- Contracting your quads and glutes, raise your legs barely in front of you. Tuck your pelvis by tilting it barely, specializing in creating tension throughout your upper and lower body as you retract your shoulder blades and rotate them downward while rotating your shoulders outward.
HOW LONG SHOULD YOU BE ABLE TO DO A DEAD HANG?
Regardless of your trainee level, here’s how long to focus on holding your dead hang for.
Beginner:
As with all exercises, to start with, it is usually best to begin small and quickly work your way up as your neural system makes quick adaptations and gets your motor units firing, all of that are essential for coordination and powerful contractions. Goal 20 to 30 seconds for the passive hang. You’ll be able to try to succeed in the identical for the lively hang but should want to start closer to 10 to fifteen seconds. In the event you’re fighting hanging for any time period, first construct strength using an assisted pull up machine.
Intermediate:
Passive hangers with some weight lifting experience should give you the chance to hold for over a minute, ideally closer to 80 to 90 seconds. For the lively version, goal 1 minute of dead hang time, working your way up each week.
Advanced:
Passive hangers easily completing 90-second hangs are able to perform some serious hang time. You’ll be able to hang anywhere from 2 to five minutes for each the passive and lively hangs. Be warned: Even the fittest of the fit could have a tough time holding an isometric hold for this long within the lively dead hang. Hanging so long as you’ll be able to, constructing in your time each week.
Is hanging on a regular basis good?
We don’t recommend hanging day by day. While there are numerous advantages, including stretching you out and constructing strength, practicing moderation is crucial.
This exercise looks deceivingly easy, especially with the passive version, as you are just hanging there, right? But despite its stretching advantages, it’s still stressing your upper body. Overdoing it could lead on to shoulder joint strain, elbow pain, and a weakened grip. Goal 2 to three times per week, and get all the advantages and not one of the overuse strain.
HOW TO PROGRAM DEAD HANGS
Beginners incorporating the passive hang into their routine should aim for 2 sets of 20 to 30 seconds each. The lively hang should start with two sets of 10 to twenty seconds, continuing to extend your time each week, even when only by a couple of seconds. Rest one minute between sets.
Intermediate lifters can goal two to 3 sets, lasting 80 and 90 seconds each, resting 1 to 2 minutes between sets. Aim for 2 to 3 sets, one minute each, for the lively hang, increasing your time as you progress.
For advanced lifters able to passively dead hang with the most effective, program one set starting from 2 to five minutes. Energetic hangers should follow the same format, targeting one set between 2 and 4 minutes. After you reach this point, it is time to move to a progression.
We recommend adding the lively dead hang to the start of your workouts to assist warm up your muscles and saving the passive dead hang variation in your cool down when your muscles are craving long, deep stretches. Try using the lively dead hang as a warm up for this back and shoulders workout.
Dead Hanging Exercise: Variations
Searching for more variations of the standard dead hang to try? Take a look at the video below, which along with showing you how you can do dead hangs, also covers the supinated dead hang, gymnastics swings dead hang, tau grip dead hang, and one arm dead hang.
Include Different Dead Hang Versions for More Workout Variety
Once this becomes a staple in your workout routine, you could crave some variety in your moves while still reaping the identical great advantages of the dead hang. Switch your overhand grip to an underhand, neutral, narrow overhand, or suicide grip, meaning no thumbs.
Add instability to the movement by performing it on gymnastics rings, or use a thicker bar that’s extra difficult to grip. You can too work one side harder while identifying pesky muscle imbalances by performing the only arm dead hang. The choices are limitless.
Joyful hanging!
