Scapular depression in HLL

Hello all,

I'm wondering if it is important to keep the scapulae depressed during a hanging leg lift or if I can safely perform this exercise in a complete dead hang. The exercise in question is the full straight leg HLL using a standard shoulder-length pronated grip. I also use ankle weights for them in every workout. I have always done this exercise with depressed shoulders and normally don't have any issues. But occasionally after a very difficult round of many pulling exercises, my lower traps can be too fatigued to make it through all of my HLL sets.

My guess would be that it's not safe to dead hang, especially with weights, because of the stress placed on the shoulder joint at the L and V positions, but I'd need clarification.

This has been on my mind ever since I began working out, so I'm not sure why I waited until now to ask!

The exercise performed with a complete dead hang is much more harder for the core, and requires enormous compression and active flexibility, as that way there is not much lat assistance. However you need to close your shoulders a little bit at the end to finish the movement.

It is also important to note that the movement has a bonus shoulder preparation aspect.

I recommend you to read this excellent tutorial from Coach

http://gymnasticbodies.com/tutorials/de ... -leg-lift/

Here is a relevant quote from Coach.

During a leg lift it is only possibly to keep the shoulders completely open if the feet stop a little in front of the bar. In order to bring the feet to the bar, it will be necessary to allow the shoulder angle to close somewhat. However strive to keep the closure to the minimum required to complete the movement.

Just hang and lift your legs. Some of you people make things way more complicated. Do I have to smile while doing pushups. Seriously.

It's a dead hang. Hang. People build up to the ability of doing BW+2xBW pullups. There can be extreme amounts of load during a High Bar or Rings swing before a dismount. Of course, you have to build up to it.

Swing on monkey bars, that's BW+ of load. Hang by one arm, that's way more than BW.

Thank you, both!

Excuse me, Blairbob, I just always thought depressing the shoulders in a hang was about keeping the shoulders in a safe position. To be honest, I have actually never really done a complete dead hang on a bar.

Well, after trying a few dead hang reps now (without weights), It resulted in a bit of shoulder pain near top, inner portion of my rear deltoids at the V position. Somewhere around the acromion area. It felt like a stretching pain. It lasted about 15 seconds after I got down from the bar. On a scale of 1 to 10, it was a 1 - so it was more of a mild discomfort than an actual pain.

I should note that on the wall extension exercise, I can only complete half of the ROM (it's a big work in progress!).