Hanging is a natural human position. As our hominid ancestors left the ground and headed for the trees, a strong shoulder girdle, highly flexible shoulders, long nimble fingers and short, strong thumbs evolved to allow unparalleled swinging, grasping and climbing abilities. This form of locomotion in which movement is achieved by swinging from the arms in an overhead position, is called brachiation and is a vital, yet often missing piece to human health and well-being.
Even after ancient humans (Homo sapiens) returned to life on the ground, we retained many of the physical characteristics in our shoulder girdle, shoulder joint, arms, hands and wrists that allowed brachiation as a means of movement. Although today we are no match in terms of brachiation compared to our closest living relatives (whom we share 99% of our DNA), the amazing physical feats of gymnasts, parkour athletes and climbers show that our shoulders are meant to brachiate effectively.
If human shoulders are designed to be incredibly mobile and strong, why do so many of us have stiff, painful, and immobile shoulders?
The answer is, in large part, due to an absence of hanging in everyday life. As kids, we have an important 'developmental call to hang' but lose this as modern daily life does not offer much opportunity to hang. This, of course, does not mean our shoulders no longer require it for optimum health. We are simply not giving our bodies the Vitamin M(ovement) it needs to stay healthy. Frequent, relatively short periods of hanging send a powerful signal resulting in new strength, freedom of movement, and is even a primary way to recover from shoulder injuries.
Please note, while hanging does help recovery from many injuries, shoulder injuries can be complex and hanging alone is not a solution to everything.
Check out all the benefits of hanging below.
Its time for a challenge!!
Let’s enjoy the benefits of a daily, frequent, but small dose practice for the health of our shoulders, body and minds! A little every day will go a looonng way and improve your shoulder health, and performance.
Before the challenge begins, Identify any anchor points that are readily accessible in your home or office. Perhaps set up some rings, a bar, or a doorway pull-up bar to make it easy to hang throughout the day. Also look around outside, in nearby parks for swing sets, trees, walls, anything that you can safely hang from.
As the main problem is a lack of hanging opportunity in our daily lives, we must initially create and seek out that opportunity consciously.
If there are no anchor points available, there will be no hanging, however if there are anchor points, the potential for a hang exists!
The Hanging Challenge
The Hanging Challenge is simple - spend 5 min of accumulative time (not in one go but spread throughout the day) performing various types of hangs - passive/active/dynamic for a period of 30 consecutive days.
Rather than making this a dedicated training where you pack in 5 minutes of hanging in a row, try to make it opportunistic and dispersed throughout the day. This way hanging becomes a part of your day, and not just a training activity for sets and reps. We are meant to receive frequent but short movement signals and this cues our body to adapt accordingly. Hang from a variety of surfaces like walls, beams, railings, tree branches and use a mix of passive, active and dynamic hanging activities, depending on where the health of your shoulders is currently at (see various scenarios below).
This hanging challenge was created originally in 2014 by Ido Portal and it saw thousands of people around the world take part with fantastic results and benefits.
When Do We Start?
We will hang everyday for the month of June 2024 (updated from a previous post) !
The goal of this challenge is to feel better, get stronger and create new habits and patterns for long term health. The goal is not to create some amazing before and after photos with strangely improved lighting and bigger smiles at the end. However, it is cool to check in and measure what we can. So on the last Friday of September we will kick off the challenge by measuring our hang times and number of chin-ups (if applicable) and then again on the last day of October.
Join the challenge by clicking the button below to receive updates, discussion, hanging challenges and more via the Totum Movement App (Momence)
The Benefits
1. Shoulder/elbow/wrist health and the recovery of the lost 'overhead reach' range - promoting optimal range and making use of the upper body as it was designed to be used. By simply allowing gravity to 'do its thing' in the passive work or "fighting it" in the active work - one can send a very intense adaptation producing signal into one's structure. Shoulder integrity, elbow and wrist/hand/finger health can benefit tremendously from daily hanging as well.
2. Lead up to pulling actions, climbing and more advanced patterns. Hanging sits at the base of all of these patterns - just like standing does for walking. A deficiency in hanging will become evident at a certain stage. If you would like a pull up or for your pull ups to be smooooth - this is the base position. Get hanging!
3. Active hang work is an especially important tool in certain advanced phases and scenarios - as a plateau breaker for advanced pullers looking to move to the next level of difficulty.
4. Grip Strength and Grip Endurance. If you cant grip it - you cant manipulate it yourself. We have grown weaker all over due to the lack in physical demands in our daily lives. Grip is no different. A strong grip has great carryover to other hand based motions - like handstands, locomotion, team sports, etc..
5. Creating 'Terminology' for future complexity. Hanging work creates awareness and a language of positions that can be later used to put together sophisticated pieces of movement in a variety of scenarios from gymnastics to parkour to tree climbing to rock climbing and more. It is a tool for improvisation and play.
Approach and Scenarios
(adapted from Ido Portal)
Shoulder Pain - No Dislocations
Implement partial weight passive hangs (feet supporting some weight) and/or full hangs in the pronated and neutral grips for the total 7 min a day in the first week or two at least.
The reason to eliminate swings and active hangs is to provide maximum adaptation to reshape the shoulder and effect the soft tissues. Avoid pain but aim to strain the tissues - no strain, no adaptation. Proceed with caution - better underdo than overdo.
Note: Shoulder injuries might require more tools than just hanging such as scapular stabilization work. For a complete approach we can set up a private plan.
Shoulder Pain - Dislocations / Partial Dislocations
Start with partial weight and/or full active hangs.
The reason to eliminate passive hangs and dynamic swinging is to allow the shoulder to regroup, tighten up and educate the musculature, capsule and ligaments to hold and stabilize better.
This should be done for the full month and beyond - passive hanging can be examined after that - gradually and carefully to see if one can proceed into more relaxed and dynamic hangs. Always perform without ANY pain.
Healthy Strong Shoulders but Inflexible
Concentrate on passive hangs for the full duration of 7 min a day X 30 consecutive days.
* Note: Increasing shoulder mobility safely in adults is a complex issue that might require more than just hanging.
Healthy Flexible Shoulders but Weak
(cannot pull/chin up or can only perform few reps)
or wanting to plateau bust/improve
I would recommend 1 total minute a day of passive hang - usually implemented as a mini-warm up and then the rest of the daily hanging time spent on active hangs and a few dynamic hangs thrown as cool down.
This approach will enable to maintain mobility, increase strength and shoulder blade stability and prepare for more advanced stuff.
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