DEAD HANGS

The Dead Hang

A sure fire way to get your arms growing, tighten your abs, strengthen your back, and seriously improve your grip strength.

Get yourself to a pull up bar take a supinated grip (or chin up grip) pull your self up get your chin over the bar lock your self in position And stay there, It's as simple as that!

Set your self a time goal if this is new to you start of conservatively with anything from 10 to 20 second holds. 

Be sure to concentrate on your breathing as with any isometric type contraction, if you hold your breath your blood pressure will rise! 

Don't snatch at the bar on the initial pull, take a firm grip think about the muscles you will be using and pull yourself up in to position recruit the maximum amount of motor units.

Once in position concentrate on breathing and repeat over and over 

'MY WINGS ARE LIKE A SHIELD OF STEEL!"

anyone who grew up watching Batfink will recognize this cartoon reference, but it will take your mind off the lactic acid burning in pretty much the whole of your upper body.

You can do these with your arms straight and solely work on grip strength but why miss out on recruiting all that upper body musculature? more bang for your buck and the more muscle recruitment the better.

Most people are quite surprised at the amount of core activation they get from a few sets of dead hangs, also glute activation. 

Of course you can do this with all manner of grips supinated, pronated, mixed, and if your a badass try hanging from a couple of towels if you want a set of forearms that will send Popeye green with envy! and once you are proficient 1 min or more, you can add load ie weight vest or simply hang a dumbbell / kettle bell between your feet.

If you are feeling adventurous try the inverted dead hang.

This is a basic precursor to preparing for the front lever.

And if your grip fails here it's a fractured skull as 1st prize! always fun to up the stakes.

Add in some hangs with your normal sets of chin/pull ups after every 3 reps hang for 3 seconds this will probably reduce your total amount of reps but will add a new challenge to your pull up workout and ramp up that time under tension.

Dont I know it!

Change Your Approach Increase Your Gains

Anyone who has spent significant time training will know that if you do not cycle your parameters 
your training will stall, lots of people on the other hand change their parameters too often not allowing time for a program to be effective.
I will admit I have a short attention span when it comes to training but have found that the simpler I keep the workout the more focused I am!
replacing exercises with movement patterns, a typical workout for me will involve a push a pull a hip hinge and a squat one workout the push and pull will be horizontal the next vertical for example


Workout 1:


1, Pull up


2, KB Clean & Press


3, Goblet Squat 


4, KB Swing


Workout 2:


1, Weighted Push Up


2, KB Row


3, Single Leg Deadlift 


4, Walking Lunge


Whenever I get the chance I will include a weighted carry either as part of my warm up main component or as a finisher,
Using this simple template allows me lots of scope to progress whilst not getting bored with any one workout and I can change the parameters as I see fit if my focus is strength I will adopt a 5x5 set rep scheme if more hypertrophy focused I will take a 4x8 approach so on and so on if I want to add a conditioning element I will keep the reps fairly high and keep my rest periods to a minimum every once and a while I will throw in the Gironda 8x8 scheme with minimal rest to overload the muscles!
but these are tried and tested parameters there are no rules really if you are one of those people who has been doing 3x10 since the day you set foot in the gym turn your training on its head! jack up the weight and do 10x3 and I promise you it will be a revelation, just remember when using a rep scheme like this it means using a weight that you can literally only lift 3 times!  alternatively if you are used to 3x10 try 1x30 with a weight slightly lighter than you normally use make it a battle trust me the pump you will receive will be phenomenal and sometimes exactly what is needed to get you out of a rut and back on the road to making quality gains!


play around with your parameters but give any one approach enough time to become beneficial I generally try to change parameters every 3/4 weeks but will stick to a basic template of movement patterns.


For mobility try adding in some animal movements I generally use them in my warm up 


1, BEAR CRAWL 50FT


2, CRAB WALK  50FT


3, SIDE APE 50FT


4, FROG HOPS 50FT


they can also be a great addition when included in a strength or conditioning program as a main component doing frog hops directly after a set of fairly heavy squats will make you feel like your legs are on fire! and as a bonus there is heaps of core activation when utilizing these types of movements and above all they are fun!


so give it a try play around with your set up and start making new gains.