This is a question I have been asked several times in recent months on You Tube and also via email as there has been a lot of discussion around the potential benefits of this exercise for your spine and shoulder. To me, this question reminds me about the benefits of backwards walking for knee pain that I discussed last year in that there are undoubtedly some obvious benefits to using an exercise like this, but the overall impact it can have is usually overstated. In some cases this can even be detrimental to the overall health and stability of the body defeating the purpose of using it in the first place. In this article, I will go into detail about how to do this correctly, and analyse the pros and cons of using the dead hang to rehabilitate a back or shoulder problem to help you determine if it is something that will benefit your body.
What Is The Dead Hang Exercise?
Before we go any further it is important to clarify exactly what this exercise is and how to do it so you can fully understand what its purpose is.
As the name suggests this is a pretty simple exercise in terms of skill as all you need to do is grip onto a pull-up bar or monkey bar and hold onto it for a period of time by letting your legs hang underneath.
While it is simple in terms of skill and coordination it is difficult in terms of strength, in particular with the grip and most importantly with the shoulders.
How To Do The Dead Hang
For dead hangs, begin by performing 2–4 sets of 10–60 seconds. Choose your sets and the duration of holds based on your ability to maintain good technique throughout each set.
- Grab a pull-up bar with a full overhand grip. Your grip should be shoulder-width or slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. If you’re unable to grab the pull-up bar, stand on a box or a bench.
- Step off of the box and allow your legs to hang. Keep your arms and legs long and your elbows slightly bent. Your spine and pelvis should be in a neutral position. Slightly tuck your pelvis and bring your ribcage down.
- Make sure you engage your core and your lats keeping your scapula upwardly rotated away from your spine. Your chin should remain tucked throughout the movement, as if you were holding an egg under your chin. All repetitions should begin from this position.
- Maintain a strong grip and tension throughout your body to avoid swinging. Hold for the desired length of time.
Now that you know how to do it let’s discuss the impact this has with spinal decompression and shoulder strength.
Can The Dead Hang Decompress The Spine?
It seems logical that this exercise would be good for decompressing the spine as when you hang from the bar the force of gravity naturally pulls your body toward the ground. This certainly feels this way especially if you do this after you have been tucked up in flexion for a long period of time such as experienced with sitting or doing an exercise like cycling. There is no doubt that it does provide some gentle decompression for your spine, because the force of gravity is essentially acting on your body in reverse.
I tested this out myself as I had suffered with some extension related back pain and sacroiliac joint pain in recent years that was compressing my spine. I tend to avoid barbells on my back for this reason so I was curious to see if this would have any noticeable impact on my spine. I started off with 30 second holds and built up to 90 second holds every day for a few weeks and I did not notice any major difference in my back. If anything, I felt worse as I could sense I was much more unstable in my core than before.
This brings me to the big problem I see with this as an exercise to rehabilitate back pain in that any decompression it may provide is only temporary. It is not really solving the root cause of the problem, which is usually more to do with poor movement, instability and weakness. This is very similar to the temporary feeling that stretching provides to the lower back as seen with spinal flexion exercises in the video below. Constantly stretching the spine only serves to make it weaker and more unstable which I explain in great detail in the preventing back pain video to the right.
However, the temporary relief they provide is just desensitizing the nerves and is actually making the back unstable and prone to weakness and inevitably more pain! This is something I discussed in great detail in the article about back pain myths as it is one of the most common mistakes many people make.
This exercise does not address coordination of movement, weakness of muscles or joint instability at all. It only seeks to lengthen muscles in a similar vain to stretching. The minute you stand back up and move on land that requires stability and an element of strength the body will be no different than before you did the dead hang.
If you moved poorly before and did nothing to improve how you move it won’t matter how many dead hangs you do, you are still going to be creating problems for your back. This is something I have discussed many times in previous articles about back pain and various other injuries.
Read the article – Bulging disc treatment is all about changing how you move
A good example is seen in the picture below. If you move like the guy in the middle before and do nothing to change this then it won’t matter how good you get at the dead hang you are still going to compress your discs when you bend over.
Our instincts would say we need to improve the mobility of the stiff joint so it can move through the full range and this is often the thinking behind many of the current treatments by health professionals. It seems logical right, a joint is stiff so I will loosen it and it will go back to normal. Unfortunately this is very rarely successful if this is all you do. Especially if the person has been dealing with a chronic injury for some time and the stiffness is the only thing holding them together.
There is no way the body is going to release the stiffness until it is shown a better version of stability. But how do you improve stability while the joint is too stiff to move?
Mobility problems are movement dysfunctions.
They are a by-product of inappropriate movement, the result of poorly managed injury, physical stress, postural stress and even emotional stress. All these issues on their own or together can reduce mobility of the body. Loss of mobility sometimes is the only way the body can hold itself together for it has lost so much stability, stiffness is all it has left. It has no other choice.
In addition to all this is that it is difficult to know just how much spinal decompression is occurring during dead hangs because there are so many other muscles involved. There's no way to know for sure that all the lengthening you experience has anything to do with the spine itself and not just a stretching effect to the muscles like the lats and pecs that may be causing problems to joints.
If this is the case I could achieve this same outcome much more easily and more effectively with targeted stretching and mobility work. This is particularly true for the hips and thoracic spine where stiffness in these regions are commonly associated with back pain.
Check out these articles to see more on this.
Another factor to consider is how the differences in individual body positions while hanging can the degree to which the spine is directly targeted. Some people may struggle with the grip or are unable to stop swinging which can have an effect on how their spine is positioned.
If you are working on improving your movement skills, joint stability and strength of weakened muscles with various exercises in combination with dead hangs then this could be a useful addition to your program. However, if you just do this and think it is going to be a game changer you will be sadly disappointed, and worse than that you could expose yourself to shoulder and even elbow problems.
Dead Hang Risks For The Shoulder
The toughest things to do with the dead hang is maintain grip strength and prevent the shoulders from lurching forward. Those with good upper-body strength and no shoulder problems will overcome this quite easily with enough time and repetitions. However people with shoulder hypermobility or shoulder instability may need to be very careful with this exercise.
Read this article to see more about this – Hypermobile joints and why stretching is a potential disaster
It is important to remember that the shoulder is a very unique joint and is able to do things that no other joint in the body can do. It is designed to provide incredible amount of mobility so you can execute incredibly powerful and dynamic movements like serving in tennis or simply throwing a ball. But this awesome mobility comes at a cost, as the stability of the shoulder can be very easily compromised.
All this means dead hangs, if not done correctly, could present a risk for people with hypermobility in their shoulders or someone with inadequate stability or strength to control the demands of the exercise.
Many people who start training with myself do not have great stability or strength of the muscles supporting the scapula and shoulder girdle and it is very common to find postural dysfunctions like a winged scapula or forward head posture.
These type of postures make it impossible for the shoulder to move efficiently and with great control forcing the body to find alternative ways to protect the joint from damage. This is where trigger points, stiff muscles, and compensatory movements are created that can very quickly progress to chronic injury.
In all of these cases it requires the person to go through a gradual progression of stability and strength exercises to develop more control of the shoulder joint before they are able to move onto more intense strength exercises like dead hangs, chin-ups. Neglecting this process and going straight to a demanding exercise is very risky. The potential benefits will not out-weigh the risk.
There are 3 key concepts specific to ALL shoulder injuries that must be addressed. These really relate to relearning movement patterns that coordinate and sequence ideal and optimal movement mechanics.
These 3 key concepts specific to the shoulder for dead hangs and these are:
- Optimal thoracic extension and mobility
- Posterior tilt of the scapula
- Upward rotation of the scapula
Watch the video below for a detailed explanation of each of these.
I like to use exercises that target thoracic mobility and strength exercises for serratus anterior and lower trapezius.
These two muscles play a pivotal role in keeping the scapula attached to the thorax and in optimal alignment. And also providing the upward rotation and posterior tilt needed for optimal stability. Without these muscles firing together correctly, your body will find another way and this is when postural adaptions occur such as the winging of the scapula, stiffness, trigger points and ultimately pain will surface at the end.
Of all the shoulder problems we see you will find the weakness with serratus anterior is a massive contributor to the winged scapula. If you find a way to engage this muscle in movement patterns and eventually strengthen it you will be able to effectively get rid of this problem for good! The best way to do this is NOT with pulling movements like the dead hang but with pushing movements like the push-up or single cable push. This is the exact opposite of what the dead hang tries to do. This does not mean the dead hang is bad or of no use, but what it does tell you is the solution likes more in pushing exercises than pulling.
You can read more about this in the article Why Serratus Anterior Is So Important To The Shoulder
Lastly, the other factor to consider with this exercise is the potential damage to the forearm and elbow from a lack of grip strength combined with poor scapula stability and control. Anyone with elbow pain will know how painful chin-ups and pull-ups can be to the forearm and elbow joint.
Many therapists refer to the forearm as a slave to the shoulder and poor scapula stability is a massive part of the problem. Scapula dysfunction is a massive problem for the elbow for when the scapula does not sit or move as it is designed to, the arm bone has little chance of being in the right position to move. If the arm bone rotates inward the forearm will have problems.
These problems have to do with how well the forearm rotates into a hand-down position known as pronation and the hand-up position known as supination. We use these actions all the time in daily life and most people think that these movements are only performed by the forearm itself. Little do they know, that it is the scapula that is driving these compensatory movements.
You can read more about elbow pain in this article – Getting rid of elbow pain is all to do with scapula stability
If someone can demonstrate good movement control of the shoulder joint, and has adequate strength to begin with, this exercise can be a good addition to their program.
However, once again I would still rate many other exercises well ahead of this and only look at using this towards the end of the program.
Do You Need More Help?
If you currently suffer with back or shoulder injuries you will find our online programs shown below a great resource that take you through all of the assessments and corrective exercises to get you back to full strength and out of pain. You will find a lot of the exercises in the first phases of the rehab programs feature several of the relief exercises discussed in this article.
Summary
I hope this article gives you a better understanding of the dead hang exercise to know if it is something of use to your body if you have back pain or shoulder pain. While there are some potential benefits to using it, you must consider if these benefits out-weigh the potential problems they create. Also you must remember it will do very little to change the way you move which is always the underlying problem with chronic injuries and pain.
If used in combination with a program that is trying to change your movement patterns, improve stability and strength then it can be a great addition.
For more ideas and information on specific topics I may not have covered in detail be sure to check out our INDEX PAGE on the website that has over 300 of our best articles. These are all sorted into categories for quick reference so you can find what you are after more easily. You can also subscribe to our FREE fortnightly newsletter by clicking here.
If you do need specific help with your exercise program please feel free to reach out to me for help and we can set you up with your individualised program.
About The Author
Nick Jack is owner of No Regrets Personal Training and has over 18 years’ experience as a qualified Personal Trainer, Level 2 Rehabilitation trainer, CHEK practitioner, and Level 2 Sports conditioning Coach. Based in Melbourne Australia he specialises in providing solutions to injury and health problems for people of all ages using the latest methods of assessing movement and corrective exercise.
References:
- Built From Broken - Scott Hogan CPT, COES
- Shoulder & Scapula Injuries in Athletes - By Chris Mallac
- Movement - By Gray Cook
- Corrective Exercise Solutions - by Evan Osar
- Back Pain Mechanic - by Dr Stuart McGill
- Diagnosis & Treatment Of Movement Impairment Syndromes - By Shirley Sahrman
- Low Back Disorders - by Dr Stuart McGill
- Ultimate Back Fitness & Performance - by Dr Stuart McGill
- Anatomy Trains - by Thomas Meyers
- Motor Learning and Performance - By Richard A Schmidt and Timothy D Lee
- Assessment & Treatment Of Muscle Imbalance - By Vladimir Janda
- How To Eat, Move & Be Healthy by Paul Chek
- Scientific Core Conditioning Correspondence Course - By Paul Chek
- Advanced Program Design - By Paul Chek