How to improve dead-hang time?

I always start and finish my sessions with a dead-hang, to stretch out the shoulders, lower back, etc… I have been working on improving my endurance in dead-hanging, but it seems to go so slow. Almost nothing. I can dead-hang about 1:10 minute for two arms, and about 5 seconds on one hand… The grip/fingers just  give up and I fall off. 

I do all the Foundation exercises, in RC I am PE2 5x9 only so I am not building that much endurance there, yet… and I am aware that I work my grip in the mobility exercises on stall bars in handstand and foundation. And I hope it will get better with time. 

I wonder if I can do something additionally. I am also learning pole fitness and my weak grip is a limiting factor for me in my advanced spins and moves. I do also different grip/squeezes and finger extensors exercises a couple of times a week. And still, the dead-hang has been stuck on these numbers for several months. 

Any ideas or tips, please?  

Just hang in there, Suzanna...

How about doing 60 s two-arm hangs with as much added weight as you can muster? Then if you can manage e.g. 5 kg for 60s next time try 7.5 kg.

Never done this myself but may be worth trying.

If the bar is slippery and/or your hands sweaty use magnesium chalk.

Suzanna, if you can, try hanging off pipes (metal, PVC, doesn't matter) of different diameters. Or a thick towel rolled up and hung over your chinup bar. For one-handed grip, you could always try any of this as an inverted row, but using one hand (so your feet are on the floor). Varying the grip width will target the two different forearm muscles that flex the base and tips of the fingers.

It is literally just like "the more you hang, the better you hang".

I would advice against using chalk, gloves and any sort of material that makes gripping the bar easier. This is about building forearm muscles, and that does not happen by causing less stimuli to them. You want to really feel the grip slipping, because fighting against this is what makes you increase capacity to hang there next time.

Deadhangs can be done literally daily. Have you seen Ido's hanging challenge?

2 hours ago, Alexander Egebak said:

It is literally just like "the more you hang, the better you hang".

I would advice against using chalk, gloves and any sort of material that makes gripping the bar easier. This is about building forearm muscles, and that does not happen by causing less stimuli to them. You want to really feel the grip slipping, because fighting against this is what makes you increase capacity to hang there next time.

Deadhangs can be done literally daily. Have you seen Ido's hanging challenge?

Adding to the quoted post:

Increasing your overall grip strength will help the most. Which is what happens as one progresses further into the course. 
Increasing your overall grip(Finger grip and palm grip) strength is helpful because you also learn how to control the tension in your fingers/knuckles, and palms so that you do not waste energy. 

No problem with chalk for grip. It doesn't make you stronger; it only eliminates an artificial volume limiter

Pretty much time and shoulder mobility. Rope climbs and bar swings speed the process, but they do that for pretty much anything 

Hang progression it is covered along the F3-F4. I would not suggest to focus on one arm hang work until you've completed at least the vertical pullup progression in foundation.

7 hours ago, Alessandro Mainente said:

Hang progression it is covered along the F3-F4. I would not suggest to focus on one arm hang work until you've completed at least the vertical pullup progression in foundation.

That's interesting. There was another thread about dead hangs that made me think they were more advanced than people give them credit for because it's just your entire bodyweight bearing down on a shoulder position that most people doing F1 probably don't have.

@Suzanna McGee you should go to OMB and swing on the rings. Great for grip, biceps and hanging! I started about 5 years ago and stopped about 1.5 years ago because I moved away from the beach. I still go every now and then but it's just for fun instead of training. And wouldn't you know that my shoulder mobility went to crap?

First, I found that a standard grip strengthener (I can recommend the P90X brand one, user friendly and well made) works wonders for my pull ups. I use mine as part of my good-morning exercise set. It works best if I extend my arm completely straight out to the side, parallel with the floor. This engages more forearm muscles and even incorporates some shoulder and chest.

Second, as pp mentioned using towels etc to change the grip size, texture and position will help.

Third, there's a video on YouTube where someone took a four inch diameter pipe, knotted a length of rope around it, and hung a weight. Then just held the pipe at chest height and rotated to wind up the rope, then reverse. The wider diameter is more difficult to grip. This focuses on both your hand grip and wrists.

Lastly, there's a kindle book titled "Grip," written by a guy who really likes body weight exercises. Haven't read it yet, but the reviews are good.

3 hours ago, Patrick Rentz said:

That's interesting. There was another thread about dead hangs that made me think they were more advanced than people give them credit for because it's just your entire bodyweight bearing down on a shoulder position that most people doing F1 probably don't have.

@Suzanna McGee you should go to OMB and swing on the rings. Great for grip, biceps and hanging! I started about 5 years ago and stopped about 1.5 years ago because I moved away from the beach. I still go every now and then but it's just for fun instead of training. And wouldn't you know that my shoulder mobility went to crap?

The important part is having the mobility in the lats and pec minor to hang relaxed.

Other than that; the deadhangs themselves are not advanced in my opinion.

But some variations like one arm hangs are quite advanced, and I believe Alessandro refers to the course forums for the discussion outside of the basics of deadhang.

Why not take up bouldering or climbing for a while?

It's a lot of fun and will give you ridiculous maximum grip strength, which should translate to easy one arm hangs in the 45 sec range. I'm biased of course, but it's boatloads of fun, and effective at the same time - Which is hardly the case for deadhangs, which is quite possibly the most boring exercise of all time.

Just 60 minutes once a week for the first 6 months will be enough to significantly boost your grip.

You could follow the foundation 30 second or 60 second training templates to build up grip strength. I followed the 60 second template to build up to one minute one arm dead hangs. I did this twice a week, 3 sets per side. 

Thank you, guys and girls, all for your advice. I will create a hanging routine for myself (maybe something like that Ido's challenge… haven't heard of it before, @Alexander Egebak… thanks!). I do have the FatGripz (rubber thingie that you can put around any bar or dumbbell to make it thicker) so I will se that… also, @Melody Bosch, I have a loose piece of my pole, which I can use to put the rope on and use it to roll and unroll my wrists. It's the same material as my pole, so it would be great for my hands to get used to it. 

I already own the F3 and F4, so I will go and luck at the hanging progressions there and do them too, thanks @Alessandro Mainente! 

@Patrick Rentz, I am passing by the beach rings every morning when walking my dog on the beach. Maybe I will have to figure out some routine to stop by and swing for a moment. I am so not loose in the morning (my body/muscles), so I don't want to mess up my shoulders. But I will figure out when and go to swing. It is literally walking distance from my house. 

@Mikkel Ravn, this is probably the one thing of all the advice here, that won't happen, lol… even though I think it would be fun and super great for me, my schedule is so physically packed right now, that there is no space to add another athletic activity in it. I even had to limit my tennis for the pole and GST. But again, I can say "never"  

Great advice, from each and one of you, and I will get these dead-hangs down!!!

On 10/18/2016 at 0:43 PM, Suzanna McGee said:

Thank you, guys and girls, all for your advice. I will create a hanging routine for myself (maybe something like that Ido's challenge… haven't heard of it before, @Alexander Egebak… thanks!). I do have the FatGripz (rubber thingie that you can put around any bar or dumbbell to make it thicker) so I will se that… also, @Melody Bosch, I have a loose piece of my pole, which I can use to put the rope on and use it to roll and unroll my wrists. It's the same material as my pole, so it would be great for my hands to get used to it. 

I already own the F3 and F4, so I will go and luck at the hanging progressions there and do them too, thanks @Alessandro Mainente! 

@Patrick Rentz, I am passing by the beach rings every morning when walking my dog on the beach. Maybe I will have to figure out some routine to stop by and swing for a moment. I am so not loose in the morning (my body/muscles), so I don't want to mess up my shoulders. But I will figure out when and go to swing. It is literally walking distance from my house. 

@Mikkel Ravn, this is probably the one thing of all the advice here, that won't happen, lol… even though I think it would be fun and super great for me, my schedule is so physically packed right now, that there is no space to add another athletic activity in it. I even had to limit my tennis for the pole and GST. But again, I can say "never"  

Great advice, from each and one of you, and I will get these dead-hangs down!!!

That's crazy you're so close and haven't tried it out! If you go on the weekend there are tons of people there that will give you pointers (especially other females, if that's what you prefer).

Also the traveling rings aren't intense like a rings strength course would be. You need a little bit of strength in your biceps/lats and some flexibility in your shoulders (which I think you have both, easily), but past that, it's much more about coordination and using your body's momentum, which is why most anyone can get good at it in a few months. In fact it is a running joke how funny it is to see guys with huge muscles try and fail yet a small female gets up and flies very gracefully.

+1 for doing pull-ups on hand towels looped over a high bar. This was a very effective grip strength exercise for judo. Even with 40+kg weight plates around the waist. 

On October 20, 2016 at 9:46 AM, Patrick Rentz said:

That's crazy you're so close and haven't tried it out! If you go on the weekend there are tons of people there that will give you pointers (especially other females, if that's what you prefer).

Also the traveling rings aren't intense like a rings strength course would be. You need a little bit of strength in your biceps/lats and some flexibility in your shoulders (which I think you have both, easily), but past that, it's much more about coordination and using your body's momentum, which is why most anyone can get good at it in a few months. In fact it is a running joke how funny it is to see guys with huge muscles try and fail yet a small female gets up and flies very gracefully.

Mostly because it didn't used to be my priority. Weak in my hands/grips, couldn't hang for too long. I was playing tons of tennis as my sport. Then I found the pole fitness and GST and now I have to make my grip and hands and pull-ups and all that priority  I have such long limbs, weak grips, and bottom heavy body, it really is a struggle. LOL. But I have to stop telling myself all this, because that won't make things easier, right?  

On October 16, 2016 at 11:41 PM, Alexander Egebak said:

Deadhangs can be done literally daily. Have you seen Ido's hanging challenge?

I am on day 3 today… I made a spreadsheet with 30 days, 14  30-second slots for each day, and I have been accumulating my 7 minutes with passive, active and dynamic 30 seconds of hanging. The first day was so much harder than I could even imagine. Now I know what to expect, so I am on a top of it. Curious about the results in 30 days. 

On 17/10/2016 at 4:41 PM, Alexander Egebak said:

It is literally just like "the more you hang, the better you hang".

I would advice against using chalk, gloves and any sort of material that makes gripping the bar easier. This is about building forearm muscles, and that does not happen by causing less stimuli to them. You want to really feel the grip slipping, because fighting against this is what makes you increase capacity to hang there next time.

Deadhangs can be done literally daily. Have you seen Ido's hanging challenge?

Listen to this man! I have seen so many people use chalk and other things to improve their grip but that takes away from the strength gains.

On 17/10/2016 at 7:11 PM, Jon Douglas said:

No problem with chalk for grip. It doesn't make you stronger

Chalk helps you grip the bar more easily. I don't use chalk, straps, maple syrup, honey and all of that stuff. In fact when it has rained and the bars are wet at the park I love the extra challenge.  

6 minutes ago, James Coppola said:

Chalk helps you grip the bar more easily. I don't use chalk, straps, maple syrup, honey and all of that stuff. In fact when it has rained and the bars are wet at the park I love the extra challenge.  

Maple syrup and honey?!  sounds like my kind of training.

I use a fair bit of mag or liquid chalk in all my elements; I've found the last few SL progressions to be seriously beneficial in grip, especially the full negatives for higher reps.

15 minutes ago, James Coppola said:

Chalk helps you grip the bar more easily. I don't use chalk, straps, maple syrup, honey and all of that stuff. In fact when it has rained and the bars are wet at the park I love the extra challenge.  

Yeah it should depend what you're using the chalk for. Any other exercise it's probably good because it allows you to load more weight/time and better work other muscles if grip isn't the priority (like a deadlift). But if grip is the priority, probably best not to use it. Although, if your hands get sweaty and you fall off, I might use chalk, because that doesn't necessarily mean your forearms are failing, it's just slippery

Kinda like that recent study that came out saying longer rest periods are generally better if it allows you to do more total volume. That's great for low/medium rep barbell stuff, but it's defeating the purpose (as I understand it) of lots of the elements in e.g. Foundation, as well as dead hangs, whose main goal is to achieve work capacity within the set, not within the 1-2 hours you are training.

On October 21, 2016 at 2:58 PM, James Coppola said:

...I have seen so many people use chalk and other things to improve their grip but that takes away from the strength gains ...

Hi James,

Completely inaccurate.

The best in the world use chalk.  You should too.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

17 hours ago, Coach Sommer said:

Completely inaccurate.

The best in the world use chalk.  You should too.

Interesting Coach. Are you saying that specific dead hang training using chalk is just as valid (if not more so) for building grip strength than not using chalk?  I always assumed too that using chalk would hinder gains...

20 hours ago, Coach Sommer said:

 

Hi James,

Completely inaccurate.

The best in the world use chalk.  You should too.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I disagree, the primary reason people use chalk is to improve their grip strength just like how weightlifters use straps. 

2 hours ago, Julian Aldag said:

Interesting Coach. Are you saying that specific dead hang training using chalk is just as valid (if not more so) for building grip strength than not using chalk?  I always assumed too that using chalk would hinder gains...

Think about it, why do people use chalk, why do people use straps? To improve their grip strength. I use to use chalk in the beginning and when I stopped using it I noticed it was a lot harder to grip the bar. 

1 hour ago, James Coppola said:

I disagree, the primary reason people use chalk is to improve their grip strength just like how weightlifters use straps. 

Hi James,

When you are as strong as those who use chalk, without using chalk, you will have proven your point.  Until then, your supposition is simply a beginner's unsupported opinion.  Feel free to experiment though.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer