Which is better in a dead hang

G forces on the bottom of the high bar in a tap swing on uneven bars has been measured as 4-7G's. That's on a women's bar.

G forces on the tap of a rings swing for a dismount is higher if I remember as it is also can be for bar dismounts on the metal men's single rail.

For a female gymnast, we are talking anywhere from 320lbs of force to 840lbs of force. For males that would be anywhere from 480lbs of force to over half a ton of force.

Even Kipping pullups via CrossFit probably are about 1.5G's to 2.5G's of force being generated on the bottom. Butterfly kip being where more force is generated while the standard CF kip is probably just over a G.

I really am growing to dislike this debate. Arghh!

Even when you are going into a dead-hang at the bottom of each pullup, as you begin each new rep, you are still meant to depress and retract the shoulders, yes? Finish the rep, reach the bottom, and carefully lower yourself through the rest of the ROM to the dead hang.

Going into a dead hang at the bottom of the pullup is essentially just working a shrug at the bottom of each rep: 'normal' pullup, shrug, 'normal' pullup, shrug, .. And as with weighted shrugs in any other direction, it seems you'd have to slowly work up to being able to move that much weight through that range of motion. (Actually, not even just shrugs.. any work in a range of motion that you aren't used to using.

Asclepius said:

But... these people did exactly what everyone is now saying in this thread, including Coach Sommer: to do pull-ups from a completely dead hang. So now is there... a wrong way to do a dead hang pull-up? This is turning into a circular defense.

I don't know these people, though, so I don't know whether they have indeed slowly built up ability doing full ROM pullups the whole time with proper execution and still gotten injured regardless.

It does seem to me, though, that one could expect injury if one has been doing restricted range pullups, and then suddenly decided to start doing full ROM pullups (i.e. with a deadhang at the bottom) with the same scaling.

I read the book of paul wade convict conditioning the other day and here is what he has to say to it:

"The shoulders are ball-and-socket joints. This kind of joint is incredibly versatile in terms of

motion, but that versatility comes at a price-increased vulnerability. If you relax your shoulders

while you are hanging from an overhead bar, the ball joint becomes stretched in the socket, and is

only held in place by inflexible ligaments. This practice not only causes the ligaments irritation

under great force, it can also result in partial or complete shoulder dislocation in some cases."

i tend to belive what coach sommer wrote in the beginning because i was doing it the way coach sommer told us and found it to feel more like a natural movement

thanners said:

Even when you are going into a dead-hang at the bottom of each pullup, as you begin each new rep, you are still meant to depress and retract the shoulders, yes? Finish the rep, reach the bottom, and carefully lower yourself through the rest of the ROM to the dead hang.

Going into a dead hang at the bottom of the pullup is essentially just working a shrug at the bottom of each rep: 'normal' pullup, shrug, 'normal' pullup, shrug, ..

This is how I do my pullups as well. I start from relaxed full dead hang, position my scapulae (which initiates a little shrug), pull up to chest, go down, release scapulae, relax, repeat. Never had any problems.

biomieg said:

I start from relaxed full dead hang, position my scapulae (which initiates a little shrug), pull up to chest, go down, release scapulae, relax, repeat. Never had any problems.

Well, is this the correct way?

No one has yet to say in this thread how to properly do a dead hang pull-up, let alone how to prepare for them without getting injury.

Asclepius said:

biomieg said:

I start from relaxed full dead hang, position my scapulae (which initiates a little shrug), pull up to chest, go down, release scapulae, relax, repeat. Never had any problems.

Well, is this the correct way?

No one has yet to say in this thread how to properly do a dead hang pull-up, let alone how to prepare for them without getting injury.

The way to prepare is going to all the progressions before trying something with a lot more load then you can handle. Also is very important to do prep drills and to strength soft tissue before you go and load your shoulders, wrists and elbows.

vafarmboy said:

Gergely said:

What is the case with pull-ups/chin-ups? Do you also should start the movement from a dead hang with shoulders "unpacked". I'm asking because I was thaught to "pack" the shoulders and by that pre-flex the lats during pulls even if it's a simple hang. Though this was thaught thru RKC methods and not any particular gymnast training method. So maybe the two differ for several reasons.

Doing it that way just allows you to keep some tension in between reps. In fact, one of the RKC pull-up drills is to alternate between a complete dead hang and hanging with packed shoulders. Either way, one must pack their shoulders at the start of a pull-up in order to do it properly (as best I can tell). It's just a question of if you unpack at the bottom every time or not. I would argue neither is wrong, just different, and what you do depends on your goal.

An analogy: Doing pullups while maintaining packed shoulders at the bottom would be like a set of swings. Doing pull-ups going to a complete dead hang at the bottom would be more like a set of the so-called power swings.

Thanks Vafarmboy, your analogy of swing methods helped a lot to understand the difference as well as the pro/cons of both pull.

Bodybuilder meatheads can really drive me nuts.

It is just pure logic. Take a man from earlier ages when anatomy was nowhere to be found. Let's say 4000 B.C.

Our subject is hanging from a tree for whatever reason. Of course he will relax he's shoulders because it IS the natural thing to do.

He does not know anything about joints & ligaments and stuff and doesn't know anything about restricting ROM, retracting etc etc. and guess what evolution is smarter then you think, it will not create an anatomical pattern that is bad for us if we act instinctively. If it DOES, then the whole thing would disappear via natural selection.

Moral of the Story: Do not restrict your ROM. Train Smart.

Feedback: After 2 months training (doing deadhangs 2x or maybe 3x a week) we have had no new shoulder injuries, and defintely no injuries as a result of doing dead hangs or pull ups. Considering our annual injury rates in past years that is really good.

One of the things that I think has contributed is that all my athletes and I started with really pathetic grip strength, so we all run in to problems with wrist and hand fatigue first. Also getting in and out of dead hangs seem to be a good way of training the shoulder girdle to deal with the upper arm moving up and away from the body.

Right now we have limited time and space so our dead hang training on M/F consists of 5 repetitions of a circuit that includes a station doing hanging leg raises (5 -10 repetitions per loop of the circuit). My logic is that the dead hang can share time with the leg raises- Also, as the athletes tend to pause during the exercise they extend the deadhang a bit longer than the 20s that they would need to do 10 leg raises. (and they think they're getting away with something ) On W we do 3 or 4 repetitions of a circuit that includes a station doing 3-8 negative pull-ups starting with chest to the bar and lowering down to a complete dead hang.

Our safety procedure includes a good warm-up and with both exercises the bar is low enough that you can step away easily.

Thanks for following up on this. Great to hear you've helped keep your team injury free!