Proper Dead hang alignment ?

[Deins Drengers]

How should a proper dead hang look like ?

 

shoulders/body tensed? 

Legs performing a slight hollow ?

[Deins Drengers]

Literally dead body but still strung up by your hands don't think too hard on this.

Well i heard that relaxing your shoulders during a dead hang is dangerous, it must have some purpose in tensing your shoulders aswell.

[Joshua Slocum]

Well i heard that relaxing your shoulders during a dead hang is dangerous, it must have some purpose in tensing your shoulders aswell.

I've never heard such a thing. Where did you hear that? 

[Joshua Naterman]

Your upper arm should stay in the socket.

 

Your goal is not to consciously relax everything, because if you do so well enough your shoulder will dislocate.

 

 

Your goal is to consciously avoid lifting your body up. You are trying to open and elevate the shoulders (scapulae), similar to a handstand. You should try to achieve the best position you can without causing yourself pain or impinging anything. This will vary widely from person to person.

 

Arms are straight, and a genera guideline to hand width is slightly wider than shoulder width. This means the inner edge of the wrist (thumb side should be about even with the acromion process if pronated, pinky if supinated, and the heel of the palm if using a neutral grip). Some people may need to go slightly wider, and some people may prefer narrower grips, but this is a good starting point.

[Connor Davies]

I've actually heard you should consciously try to push your shoulders away from your body, up towards the bar.  Sounds dangerous to me, especially in a one arm hang...

[Coach Sommer]

... because if you do so well enough your shoulder will dislocate ...

 

Nonsense.

 

Gymnasts routinely swing giants on still rings where at the bottom of the movement they are exposed to 7-10x their bodyweight (depending upon their technical proficiency) and I can assure of two things:  

 

1) Under that kind of load it is impossible to retract the shoulders.  The arms are going to extend and they are going to extend completely.  

 

2)  I have never heard of an instance where this resulted in a dislocation.

 

The simple fact of the matter is that many modern men have difficulty hanging in extension due to too much desk patrol and insufficient mobility work.  The solution is not to avoid the movement, but rather to reconstruct your natural ROM.

 

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Nic Branson]

I've actually heard you should consciously try to push your shoulders away from your body, up towards the bar.  Sounds dangerous to me, especially in a one arm hang...

No need to push away, many of you are over thinking this.

Step 1: Grab Bar

Step 2: Hang from bar

Step 3: Slowly relax and let your shoulders extend naturally. If you are very tight there will be a point where this can get uncomfortable. That is your cue that you are at your current ROM. Work to the tension do not force your way through it. Faster than you think your body will loosen up and you will be able to fully relax and hang.

[Deins Drengers]

Thanks guys ! 

 

You really helped me on this one  

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

(...) The solution is not to avoid the movement, but rather to reconstruct your natural ROM. (...)

 

I've followed that advice and I am now able to dead hang for multiple times 60 seconds with both a pronated & supinated grip.

When I started, I could only hang with a pronated grip at 1.5x shoulder width for 20s or 30s - I could NOT hang with a supinated grip; in fact, I needed so much assistance that it was more like standing under the bar while holding it and gently bending the knees a little bit; putting too much weight made my forearms feel like the muscles were being torn off the bones.

In a pronated grip, I can now keep my hands touching together while hanging, and I am progressively reducing the gap for supinated grip (now just under 1.5x shoulder width)

 

It took time, but it is entirely worth it!