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The dead hang should be a fundamental stretch in your exercise repertoire.

Over time, lifting heavy weights especially when you perform movements like the squat and deadlift can cause your intervertebral discs to pinch and move.

When you hang from a pull up bar the small intevertrebal ligaments and muscles stretch and the compression of the pinched discs decrease.

Which results in the nucleus pulposus ( the soft, gelatinous central portion of the intervertebral disc that moves within the disc with changes in posture) moving back into a more favourable allignment.

Note: When performing the dead hang you may hear some clicks and pops but this is normal. Your spine is just moving back into a more favourable allignment. You should instantly feel relief in your back.

How Do You Perform A Dead Hang?

1. Take a wide over hand grip on the pull up bar with your thumbs facing each other.

2. Take a big breath and hang.

3. Slowly exhale so that your body relaxes while you’re hanging.

4. Tilt your chin forward towards your chest.

5. Hold the stretch for 45 seconds and perform the dead hang for 3-4 sets after your weightlifting workout.

If you can’t hold the stretch for 45 seconds thats fine. Just work up to 45 seconds.

You’ll find that you’ll get better each time you perform the stretch.

Here’s a video of how to perform the dead hang.

When Should You Perform The Dead Hang?

Perform it after your weightlifting workouts.

Especially after workouts where you perform the barbell squat and deadlift.

The reason being is because these exercises are the most likely to pinch your intervertebral discs.

Whats The Best Grip For The Dead Hang?

There are 4 different grips you can use for the dead hang.

• The neutral grip (palms facing each other).
• The pronated grip (thumbs facing each other).
• The supine grip (palms facing towards you).
• One armed grip (neutral, pronated, or supine).

The grip you choose doesn’t really matter. Because each grip will result in a good stretch and help loosen your upper body and back.

Personally I feel the best stretch when I use a pronated (overhand) grip. But the other grips can work fine as well.

One Armed Grip (Advanced)

The one armed grip is not for beginners. You need to build up to this.

Start with a double overhand (pronated) grip and progress to the one armed dead hang. Although you don’t need to do one armed dead hangs to get all the benefits of the dead hang.

How To Improve Your Dead Hang

The easiest way to improve your dead hang is by doing 1-2 sets at the end of every strength training workout.

Make sure you time how long you can hang for. And aim to improve your time every session.

You can use a smartphone to time yourself.

Your grip strength might limit how long you can dead hang for but it will get stronger over time. I recommend you use liquid chalk.

Liquid chalk will help you grip on to the bar for longer.

The Bottom Line On The Dead Hang

The dead hang is a great way to increase your upper body mobilty as well as decompressing the spine.

The dead hang should be a fundamantal stretch in your exercise repertoire. I recommend that you perform the stretch at the end of every workout.

How have dead hangs helped you?