Hanging Practice: How to Have an Iron Grip and Mind

“There’s just something sketchy about your grip giving out on you”

Every hand tells a story.

Every hand also has 26 bones, as well as each foot. Total these up and you can count 104 bones of the (roughly) 206 in our body, which makes up over half of our skeleton. Part of the purpose of all of these small bones and joints is to help us experience the fine details of the world through our hands and feet by communicating with our brain and nervous system.

In knowing this, who wouldn’t make it a top priority to keep our hands and feet healthy and strong, in accordance with nature’s design?

One practice that I’ve adopted over the past 7-8 years to keep my hands strong is the simplest and most primal one imaginable: hanging.

I will, in short, cover four different aspects of hanging, that all could be their own book or lifetime of study. They are:

Our primitive/inborn reflex to grip, and our ancestral relation to primates
Physical benefits of hanging (shoulder health, grip strength, decompression of spine)
Integration of breath and the emotional/psychological/spiritual challenge
Methods to hang and how to start

Our primitive/inborn reflex to grip, and our ancestral relation to primates

At birth, we have what are called “Primitive Reflexes”, which are innate reflexes to certain stimuli. One of these is called the “Palmar Grasp Reflex”, which starts in utero at around 4 months and disappears around 6 months after birth. In short, when you put your finger in a baby’s hand, it squeezes like hell. Hand senses an object (like a finger or something to grab) and relays info to the prefrontal cortex, and the motor cortex relays information down through the cervical spine and to the nerves of the hand to squeeze. A perfectly coordinated symphony in a tiny little baby. See below for an example:

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You might be wondering “why do we have this reflex?” On the surface, it might not make as much sense as, say, the Rooting Reflex, which coordinates a baby’s ability to breastfeed when hungry. Hanging on, though, is a different story. I’m not a marine biologist, nor have I ever studied primates in their natural setting, but one could reasonably hypothesize that since we’re so genetically and anatomically similar to primates, that this is a leftover remnant from our arboreal ancestors. I like this theory, so I’ll stand by it. Newborns (like the one above) can even hang for close to 30 seconds immediately after birth, which, if you think about it, would have probably been a good thing for a newborn tree-dwelling mammal.

One thing that makes us very different from our not-so-distant cousins, however, is our evolution to walk upright and right on out of the forests to live indoors with roofs over our heads. How amazing it has been for parts of our brains and consciousness that we could escape the rat race of being alert 24/7 for predators, but with every luxury and comfort comes a price. Amplify this luxury and comfort by hundreds or thousands of years, coupled with technological advancements that make physical competency almost irrelevant in order to continue living, and you get something that plagues the modern human: shoulder pain and weak hands. What the hell?

Physical benefits of hanging (shoulder health, grip strength, decompression of spine)

I’ve often been accused of over-simplifying things, but wouldn’t it make sense that if we were designed to do this movement, that our anatomy would follow suit? Almost like there’s some sort of plan or design, with form following function? I’d go out on a limb (pun intended) to argue that when this Palmar Grasp Reflex disappears naturally through our nervous system development, that losing the ability to grip and hang is a crime against our perfect architecture and design. Not only that, but hanging and swinging is really fun, Jackie Chan hung on for close to a minute in the first Rush Hour, and it even helped Noah get a date in The Notebook.

I won’t spend too much time writing on the anatomy of shoulder (which is WILD), but when we study “why” things are rather than simply “what” they are, then there’s context to them. Basically, we have a ball and socket joint held together by some ligaments and muscles with something that looks like a wing on our rib cage on our back. Like all things, there is an evolutionary reason that we have it, which is to allow many ranges of motion (including overhead motion) and for us to support our entire body weight via our hands/arms/shoulders with ease.

In normal anatomy, we see a certain part of the shoulder blade (scapula) that looks like a hook on the top (called the acromion process) is pointed up towards our head. This is in accordance with “Wolff’s Law”, which is a physiological principle that says that bone is alive and grows/shrinks in response to stress… basically “use it or lose it”. So, since our arms go over our head, we have this hook shaped bone pointing upward. When we don’t get our arm overhead, Wolff’s Law shows that this hook will deform toward our feet since we aren’t using it. This creates less space in the front part of the shoulder (called the coracoacromial arch or “CA”) and compresses structures underneath, including the subacromial bursa and/or rotator cuff tendons. This can cause pain, frozen shoulder, etc. but most importantly, weakness.

Good news: when we hang, we can actually lengthen this CA and create normal space for these structures, because bone (and the body) always adapt to its stressors (for better or worse).

Before I get too long-winded, refer to John Kirsch MD’s book “Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention” for a much deeper dive into these anatomy and physiology concepts. My following 4-minute video demonstrates some of this anatomy with models:

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Roughly speaking, hanging is an integral part of our foundation of movement in the hierarchy that makes up more complex movements and allows us to perform them safely. Simply put, if we can’t hang, then other movements become more difficult and even dangerous, and if we can hang, then performance in our skill/sport can be improved without training it specifically. Remember that you use everything that you learned in Kindergarten every day in 1st grade, and in 2nd grade, and so on. We can’t neglect the basics, and our grip strength must be connected through the shoulder and through our breath, period. Which brings me to my next point…

Integration of breath and the emotional/psychological/spiritual challenge

So, this is the real meat and potatoes of the article.

Up until now, I’ve prefaced the physical aspect of hanging. In my opinion, hanging is the ultimate integration of the physical with the emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual. You’re simply missing the big picture if you’re doing it for shoulder/grip strength or athletic performance (although it should be a staple and requirement for anyone with those demands).

I will cover this in more detail in the next section, but for the sake of the story, let’s say I hang with the timer set for three minutes. Initially, I’ll grab onto the bar, hold, and let my body relax and my spine decompress.

At some point, my hands and forearms will start communicating messages to my brain that they’re being stressed and that they’re tired. This is where the integration amplifies beyond the physical realm.

Body will start to tell the mind that it’s time to let go, because there’s something sketchy about your grip giving out on you. At this point, multiple things may start to happen:

Panic sets in
Face scrunches and winces
Breath gets erratic, through the mouth
Start to re-adjust your grips to find comfort
Hands start to sweat
Mind tries to convince you that it’s okay to stop

In the face of these feelings, the most change and adaptation happens from this point forward, from when we first think about “dropping”. In reality, we have at least a minute left in the tank when we perceive that we’ve reached failure.

What happens next is why I hang daily. I’ll go to different places in my head, none of which are premeditated but almost always unearth whatever is underlying in my life. I don’t believe in new-age mindfulness meditation, but rather gravitate towards the original roots of yoga or martial arts, which integrates all senses. In these moments, I’ll dig into what I call “that something”, or my resolve… a muscle that must be flexed.

A reflection on hanging from a good friend of mine/client is “you describe the hang as a ‘dark side’ meditation….and I think that ‘dark side’ could be subbed with the word ‘active’…. The hang forces meditation in an active state that can then be applied to the rest of your workday/life when physical/mental/emotional adversity appears”. And I agree with this.

Most days I’ll envision love, usually an image of my fiancé and our future kids (kind of like the last scene in Gladiator when they’re running towards him in the wheat field) and what I’d do to provide for them and protect them… my “why”. I want my family and my kids to know that I did everything that I could for them, and the voluntary struggle and practice of something as simple as “hanging on” when I’m facing this challenge is incredibly empowering.

Some days when I’m in a precarious mood, I’ll hang to gain perspective into the goings-on in my head, “to get out of my head and into my body”. A few times, I’ve felt rage. I cried while hanging for the first time last month. Either way, I let it flow and let it go. I’ve never been to a therapist, but I’m assuming that between long walks and long hangs, I’ve touched on every difficult topic and consequently done the necessary shadow work to level up.

Methodics to hang and how to start

Now that I’ve written close to 2,000 words, my advice is the opposite: don’t overthink it.

Here’s a more formal list:

Find somewhere (safe) to hang (i.e. bar, rings, tree)
Start with a minimum 30 seconds, 3x/week (even if you’re “assisted” by some of your body weight on the ground)
Work up to 5-7 minutes/day (can be broken up into multiple sessions)
Listen to your body and don’t push past joint pain
Breathe through the nose as calmly as possible

There are many methodics that I use. Some examples:

90 seconds to 5 minutes straight (Pause timer on any “failure” with 3 breathes between as “rest”)
5 second on, 5 seconds off, 10 seconds on, 5 seconds off, 15 seconds on, 5 seconds off… etc. up to 40 or 45 seconds on
1 minute on, 1 minute off, 4-8 sets (play around with these times)
1 minute on, 1 minute other movement, 1 minute off, 4-8 sets (play around with these times)
20 seconds left arm only, 20 seconds right arm only, 6-12 sets

Some other helpful tidbits:

Grip with palms forward or palms facing each other. And use your thumbs (we have them for a reason)
Set up “anchors”, or spots at home, your workplace, and/or outdoors from which to hang so that it becomes a habit (like keeping a toothbrush next to the sink)
5-7 minutes a day sounds like a lot, but soon (or even now) you’ll be hanging for 3+ minutes at a time, and you can do that multiple times throughout the day
Don’t compare your hanging time to someone else’s. I think the world record (according to YouTube) for a two-armed dead hang is 20+ minutes, which I looked up after I did a 5:27 hang (and I thought that I must have set some sort of record… ate some humble pie with that one). I’ve broken the 15-minute mark before and it’s gnarly.

I have personally worked up to 5-7 minutes a day (broken up into chunks sometimes, or sometimes in one go), which is a number based on what I’ve researched, but mostly based on feel and what my gut says. My shoulders and my grip are both very strong as a result, and I can throw a baseball, golf, practice martial arts, and practice as a full-time Chiropractor without any fear of injury and at a high level of output.

In Sum,

In Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, he taught us to “put your soul into every handclasp” and that “your handshake be firm”. I’ve always taken handshakes pretty seriously (at least on a subconscious level), but now, when the opportunity arises (and I still shake a lot of hands despite what “the experts” say), you better believe that my soul is in beaming and that my handshake is firm. Looking forward to shaking yours in the future.

Dr. Alex Lee, DC recently launched Groundwork, “a program that makes you tougher to kill”, focused on natural outdoor movement and holistic health principles. Dr. Alex is a family Chiropractor in San Ramon, California and is a former collegiate and professional athlete. Follow him on Instagram @Dr.AlexLee or connect with him on his website groundwork.coach.

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