🐒 Hanging out

Welcome back, move to improvers! Movers to improve?… We’ll workshop it.

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In keeping with my arbitrarily-established cadence of “exercise/movement → nutrition → philosophy” for weekly posts, this week we’ll talk about a simple movement that can make a world of difference in how you feel:

Hanging.

(by your arms).

Remember when you were a kid and you could hang from these bad boys all day without breaking a sweat? Swinging from bar to bar was effortless. Sometimes you fell, but you’d cry for 6 seconds, maybe get a kiss or a band-aid, and you’d be right back up on your next Tarzan-esque adventure.

It was always so easy!... Until it wasn’t.

Until you stopped.

When was the last time you remember hanging from something? If pull-up bars don’t count, for the elite few of you reading this, when was the last time you just… hung out for fun?

We do lots of things as children that involve moving our bodies the way they were intended to move. Hanging from things by one arm. Squatting to full depth. Climbing trees. Sitting and playing with our legs concocted in all sorts of weird shapes underneath us that we couldn’t possibly imagine tolerating—much less getting back up from—now.

But then we “grow up.” Our imaginations seem to fade and reality sets in. Recess evaporates. We’re told to behave and sit in chairs, not on the floor. We’re told not to climb on desks and tables, but to only exist in three positions: stand, sit, or lie down. And then we move through the next 70 years of our lives in that very limited range of motion. Unless we break societal norms or incorporate full range of motion movement, we could exist in those basic positions for decades without ever coming out of them.

I have much to say on this, but today we’re focusing only on hanging.

Forget the last time you hung from something… When was the last time you even raised your arms straight up above your head? More than reaching *kind of* up into a cabinet. I mean just straight up. Both arms.

Do it now! Raise both arms directly above your head, stretching as high as possible. Take a big, slow belly breath, then slowly lower your arms as you exhale.

Did something crack? Or cramp? Hopefully you feel better, not worse, when you bring your arms back down. Do it again if it felt good. Release that tension.

Do you spend 6, 8, 10+ hours a day in this position?:

That’s basically the opposite of stretching tall with your arms overhead. And if you’re like me and go for too long in this position, your back, neck, and shoulders probably start to feel achy, stiff, and just generally ~not good~.

Your thoracic spine (that’s the 12 vertebrae from the base of your neck to the start of your low back, to which all 12 of your ribs are attached) is likely in that curved position much more than what is good for it. We call that “flexed.” The opposite of flexed is “extended.” That’s when you straighten out your mid-back and even bend it backwards a bit if you’re extra mobile.

As for our shoulder joints, they’re very susceptible to getting both tight and weak if they stay in this hunched, by-our-sides position all day. Heard of a rotator cuff tear or shoulder impingement? Those are often the results of weak, poorly-moving shoulder joints.

Know one of the best ways to extend your thoracic spine, open up your chest, and fully stretch out those shoulders?

Hanging.

If you haven’t hung from something in a long time, it’s probably much harder than you remember. You may not even be able to hold your weight up anymore, or may slip off in less than a second.

Reassurance #1: That’s okay.

This newsletter isn’t called “Expect Perfect.” It’s “Move to Improve.” That implies action in the direction of progress. And that’s why we’re here.

If you want to improve your posture and open up those tight back and shoulder muscles and joints, hanging from something is one of the absolute best ways to achieve this.

There is actually some scientific literature out there on this, although it’s scarce. But testimonies and anecdotal evidence point to lots of “bang for your buck” from hanging.

The best, simplest dose? As much as you can!

I think ideally, we’d hang from something for about 60–90 seconds a few times every day. But most of us probably don’t have the strength and mobility for that. But this is certainly something you can get better at over time! Aim for the fences, baby ⚾️

Hot tips for places to hang:

• Monkey bars at a local park/playground (but don’t take a spot from the kiddos)

• Pull-up bars/rigs or TRX bands/rings in your gym

  • If your gym doesn’t have those but has cable machines, just put the pin in the highest weight and hang from a bar or grip like that.

  • Or, put a barbell at whatever height you desire, resting on the stops of a squat rack.

• Door pull-up bar (you can get basic ones online or probably on Facebook Marketplace for like 20 bucks or less)

• Sturdy, thick tree limbs nearby (maybe wear gloves? And double check its strength?)

• Trickier, but doable: a sturdy, tall table or bartop in your home/office. The key: sit down on the floor underneath it with your legs outstretched, then reach up and pull on one side. Just triple check that thing’s not gonna flip or collapse on you.

So how should you go about it? If you can hang for 10 seconds today, aim to achieve 11 by next week, and maybe 15 seconds by next month.

If you’re not able to hang from something with your full weight yet, find a bar that’s lower than the height of your hands when you hold them straight up. That way your feet can still be on the ground, and you can assist your hang. You can control how much weight you support with your feet, while holding up the rest of yourself through your arms.

Don’t have anything to hang from yet? Just work on that range of motion. Find a doorway to put your fingertips on and stretch. Or do the stretch below, one of my favorites for alleviating those desk posture aches.

In doing this stretch, try to fully straighten out your back. With your hands or elbow supported on something sturdy, lean down into it, trying to bring your upper arms straight up to your ears and beyond. Feel your thoracic spine extend and shoulders really stretch up. Look at you, moving and improving!

Incorporate hanging and/or these stretches into your daily life, and feel yourself standing taller, aching less, and regaining that childlike mobility. Maybe I’ll even catch ya swinging on the monkey bars. Race ya!

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Do the table/desktop stretches above 1–3 times a day.

Level 2: Hit up your local bar (not the place for brewskis) and get to hanging! Time yourself to see how long you can hang, and work several or all days every week at gradually increasing your hang time.

Level 3: If you can already hang for a decent amount of time, I suggest incorporating it into the warm-up and/or cool down of every workout. It’s great for every upper body day, and also helps you decompress everything after a heavy leg day. Incorporate this, along with more pull-ups and intentional breath work while hanging, into your movement practice!

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

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✍️ Drew's Picks:

• “The 3 Biggest Myths About Emotional Eating.” Another amazing podcast from Dr. Hyman on The Doctor’s Farmacy. If you’ve ever dealt with emotional eating (🙋🏼‍♂️), this is definitely worth a listen.

Have fun hanging out this week! Send the link below to the people you love to hang with. Share on your social media. I’ll love you forever.

Keep moving,

Drew