Getting Into A Hang

Hey Everybody,

My wife is having trouble getting into an inverted hang position and I'm at a loss as to how to help. I have her doing 10 second static holds, which is a good starting point for her (that duration is fine once she is in position), but getting into position is often a problem. She usually gets up by kicking her legs up, hooking one foot around the strap and then pulling herself to vertical. The problem is that she ends up swinging like a crazed monkey at times.

I am thinking about having her GTG the hang and just throughout the day try and get into position. But I'm not sure what advice to give her that could help her learn this movement. Obviously her weight distribution is completely different then mine, so my initial advice to fall back, lift the legs, and keep the arms straight just doesn't work - as a top heavy male this is easy, but not so much for her.

I have tried a variety of approaches but thus far none have clicked for her. Any females out there have a perspective on this that would help, or anybody have any tips in general?

- Chris

My buddy nate had the same problem, it took him a month or so to be able to do this stuff on his own, and nearly two months to be able to do the tucked back lever. He was just a slow kinesthetic learner, meaning he takes longer than most to learn by doing.

What we did for him was have him grab the rings, and sort of try to hang upside down, and my friend and I would help him get into position(inverted hang), and continue to spot him until he wanted to come down. We spotted on the way down a bit, but he tended to flop down. Over time, and constant patience from us as we reminded him to try and control his body on the way down, he got the hang of that. Eventually, he started kicking himself up and scrabbling wildly for the straps as you describe your wife doing, which was quite hilarious! We laughed, and continued to help spot him once he got vertical by stopping his swing and making sure we caught his legs around the top so he couldn't just flip all the way around.

A few weeks of that and he was usually able to get himself into position pretty well on his own, minimal swinging. Now, he's all into it and excited because he can actually do stuff!

So, be patient with your wife and keep spotting her and having her lower herself down. Eventually she will get control of it. Then she will progress to getting control of getting INTO position as well. She just doesn't have a decent sense of spacial perception with her body yet, it will come.

Thanks for the thoughts, I'll definitely let my wife know as it will make her feel better to know she isn't alone in having had this particular problem. The more I think about it the more I think the GTG approach would really help as it seems mostly a skill set that is missing not so much a lack of strength. Was just hoping for something better to tell her than "do whatever you can to get up there for now as the rest will come later" ... the various analogies and tips I have tried thus far have failed so the former is all I got left.

- Chris

You can use a block to start the feet higher than the ground and then kick from that.

You can also have them start by bending their arms, kicking up and straightening the arms as they kick up to kind of lever/rock into it.

Chobbs, did you go over the kickover at all during Coach Sommer's seminar? I can only imagine you had to have done a bar pullover at some point but I don't know if he went through the pullover progressions from easier than just doing it from a dead hang ( as in pullup and lift your hips over the bar ). See if you search for some spotted bar kickover/pullovers on youtube and you should be able to figure out how to spot it as the pullover/kickover first half is getting inverted.

Just today I had my beginner's boy's class. I typically lower down the rings and teach them to get in a squat, bend their arms to get their head up and try to place one foot in the ring while holding. Then they will get their other foot in the other one if they don't slip out and then bring their hips up as high as possible till it's above their shoulders and head. From there, climb their legs up the straps into an inverted hang with legs on straps or they can focus on holding themselves inverted in a tuck position. Eventually, teach the pike/basket and straight inverted position.

No, we didn't cover any pullover stuff at all. We did do back lever work on the straight bar, but everyone was able to get into position (although I admit it felt quite clumsy for me trying to get my feet on the other side of the bar with my flexibility woes - rings are so much easier). I had planned to have my wife try kickovers at the local playground just to help her comfort with getting to upside down and dealing with going so far past that it becomes a full circle, so it looks like that will be a good supplement.

- Chris