Hi little buddies,
Ive been diing some reading on the interwebz and I am wondering about the benefits of hanging from rings/bar for time.
Apparently it improves grip strength which I can understand. I have akso read that hanging in a relaxed state also improves shoulder mobility? Is this true? Anybody here have any expirience with this?
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also apparently increases neural efficiency. Something to do with stretching out your spine makes it easier for the signals to work or some such sciency thing
Is this influenced by Ido Portal by any chance? He’s put up a bunch of videos on hanging recently and I’m interested in it myself. There was also mention of it in that Dan John article on pull-ups.
I do it a few times per day just cause if feels good.
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
just cause if feels good. [/quote]
No, no, no. You can’t just do something because IT FEELS GOOD. You need science, man. Jeez, did no one get the memo?
Joking aside, hanging from rings has some benefits - shoulder mobility won’t be one of them unless you do German hangs / skin-the-cats.
[quote]furo wrote:
Is this influenced by Ido Portal by any chance? He’s put up a bunch of videos on hanging recently and I’m interested in it myself. There was also mention of it in that Dan John article on pull-ups. [/quote]
I think so.
I just want to know if its safe to “dead” hang from a bar/rings, so I am not doing any damage to my shoulders?
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The general rule of thumb is that you want your shoulders pulled down into their sockets so the muscles instead of the ligaments take the stress. This, however, depends on a number of things… Your ligament strength, the volume of your bat sessions, etc. For instance, I subluxated my left shoulder this spring and can’t hang with relaxed shoulders without experiencing discomfort (which is made worse if I attempt leg raises with the shoulder relaxed). If you’re an elite gymnast and injury free, I imagine there should be zero complications.
^ good points, nighthawkz.
I have lax ligaments (similar to being double jointed) so hanging loosely is not good for me at all if I want to keep all my parts together.
I always try to get everything tight and get my elbows bent immediately when I grab the bar, and it seems to work well.
[quote]nighthawkz wrote:
The general rule of thumb is that want your shoulders pulled down into their sockets so the muscles instead of the ligaments take the stress.
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So your saying generally its not a good idea.
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[quote]theBird wrote:
[quote]nighthawkz wrote:
The general rule of thumb is that want your shoulders pulled down into their sockets so the muscles instead of the ligaments take the stress.
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So your saying generally its not a good idea.
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Not the hanging per se, but hanging with your shoulders relaxed for extensive periods of accumulated time.
I don’t think ONLY hanging is a good idea for reasons already mentioned. But if you’re working the muscles in other ways then your ability to hang safely will increase. If you’re hanging past the point where it’s comfortable I’d be concerned that you were hanging off the ligaments. That said, if you’re really so tight that your muscles won’t stretch out to the point where the ligaments are taking the load then it could well be a good thing.
I do a lot of training on gymnastic rings and I don’t really think it’s particularly good for grip - it’s easier to hold on to rings than a bar. For grip I HIGHLY recommend ropes. We have battle ropes at our gym and I rig them up on pullup bars so you have two parallel ropes hanging (one for each hand). Use them to hang, do pullups, hang upside down, skin the cat, levers…just use your imagination. It works wonders for the grip - those big, chunky ropes really get all the fingers working hard!
Now on rings OR ropes hanging upside down I think will always be good for you. It works the lower traps and to me feels very therapeutic. So the position you’d be in is as if you were standing with your hands by your sides - but upside down and holding onto the rings/rope. Works the core too!
Thanks for the replies my friends.
I think i will start by hanging of the bar for a few minutes at the end of each workout and see how things feel. I dont have the balance/skill/strength to be hanging upside down on things yet.
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