Hanging
I saw a note in Flipcollar’s log where he mentioned hanging. Which took me to a Chris Duffin blog post. Which took me to an Ido Portal blog post. Which took me to a book by an orthopedic doctor about fixing shoulder issues by a mix of hanging and dumbell raises.
The book is called: “Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention, Revised & Expanded” by John M. Kirsch M.D. He’s an orthopedist, which means he’s actually pretty well qualified to speak on the subject.
I bought the kindle version of the book last night and read it cover to cover. Then I read every Amazon review on the book.
Out of those 103 reviews, only 2 mentioned that it didn’t work, and only one seemed to actually have done things right. So, 103 reviews, and only 1 legitimately said “it didn’t work”. The rest of the low reviews on the book were based on the writing, editing, and layout, not on the routine.
Nearly everyone else said it worked, with complete or nearly complete relief between 8 days and 8 weeks. For everything from frozen shoulders, to bursitis, to partial and full rotator cuff tears, to subacromial impingment syndrom, to a few other things. That’s pretty impressive to me. I’ve never heard that kind of success rate with chiro, PT or surgery.
The idea is that by hanging, followed by the raises, the shoulder remodels the bone and ligaments to open up the space, by adjusting the coracoacromial ligament and the coracoid and acromial processes. It can (will?) be uncomfortable hanging in the beginning, but as the tissues remodel and reshape, it will stop hurting. He also demonstrated (via CT imaging) that the rotator cuff tendons are well out of the way during this process; i.e., hanging won’t make things worse, in that sense.
The actual routine isn’t much. Spend 10 minutes a day, doing completely relaxed 10-30 second hangs, with whatever rest you want. Then work with a very light weight and do 30-45 front raises, side raises, and rear raises. Increase the weight over time.
Given the positive reviews, and the anatomical explanation, I’ll be giving this a try.
On a differently interesting note, his take is that humans, along with the great apes (and a few of the lesser apes), have the anatomy to be able to hang and move with extended arms. This is called “brachiation”. Most animals can’t do this. And that we’d be well served to incorporate more brachiation into our daily lives, given that we have that evolutionary line.
That said, one of the coolest videos demonstrating brachiation by gibbons:
I’m very very impressed with the ability they have to move through space, both by arms and on their feet, and with a combination of the two. I’ll be honest, I kind of want to be able to do that.
