Why Hanging from a Bar Is Becoming a Health Trend
Want to see time stand still? Try hanging from a bar. It sounds easy, but have you ever tried it? This is a practice that, at first glance, sounds ordinary, but actually has a significant impact on our quality of life. Experts agree that incorporating this habit into your routine can contribute to a healthier and longer life.
Although I think some of the new features on wearables that estimate our body age using activity, health data, and behavior are really interesting, just having these numbers doesn’t actually make me healthier. Of course, having a visualization of this can motivate me to improve (or maintain) my habits. But at the end of the day, it’s me who builds a healthy life, not the device on my wrist.
And something I’ve noticed clearly while using some of those features over the last few months is the importance of being active. It’s made me realize, in fact, that even small habits inserted into everyday life can have very positive impacts. And I’m not talking about radical changes.
I was recently struck by a study that found that reduced grip strength is directly associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality, including cardiovascular disease. In other words, optimizing your grip strength is a simple, quick, and inexpensive way of assessing the risk of death from cardiovascular diseases, for example.
Can Grip Strength Indicate Aging?
In two different studies, the results were similar: grip strength, i.e., how hard you can grip something, is linked to your general health. In one of these studies, which analyzed more than 140,000 people over four years, it was discovered that those with a weaker grip were more likely to die from any cause, especially heart problems, compared to people with a stronger grip.
What’s even more curious is that a weak grip proved to be an even greater sign of future health problems than high blood pressure. Just to give you an idea, hypertension is one of the main factors in global mortality, causing around 10 million deaths a year worldwide. In other words, the strength of your grip can be an important warning, perhaps even more so than blood pressure.
Now, looking at a more recent study (2022), which aimed to investigate whether grip strength is linked to biological aging as measured by DNA methylation (a marker of aging in our genes), it was found that men and women with lower handgrip strength—and those who experienced a decline in this strength over time—showed signs of accelerated aging.
A Minute of Hanging for a Longer Life
According to different experts, even hanging from a bar for a few seconds a day automatically makes you work and develop hand strength. Exercises such as the dead hang will do the trick. The recommendation is to start with 60 seconds a day.
In an interview with The Guardian, orthopedic surgeon Dr. John M. Kirsch explains that if we analyze the exercise by muscle group, we realize that the method goes beyond increasing hand strength. “They [those who perform dead hang exercises] also strengthen upper body muscles like the lats and traps, situated in the mid and upper back, which help to address some of the postural problems that can develop from sitting at a desk all day. They also strengthen your core muscles, as you’ll use them to stabilize yourself as you hang.”
In other words, as the strength of the grip is directly related to the muscular development of other areas of the body, adding exercises like the dead hang to everyday life can impact different aspects of the body. This includes strength and balance.
How Do You Plug It Into Your Routine?
If right now you’re testing how long you can hang and realize that you’re nowhere near 1 minute, no problem! There is a learning curve here. Start with 20 seconds and gradually increase. Building new habits can be difficult, so it’s best to avoid frustration. Listen to your body and respect its limits.
The most important thing is to insert this habit naturally into your daily life. When this happens, it’s easier to increase the frequency of exercise. So, if you go to the gym, add the dead hang to your workout.
At home, for example, I have a bar fixed to the bedroom door. Between trips to the bathroom and back to the desk, I hang from it. I time my dead hang on my Apple Watch, an average of 60 seconds, which vibrates when the time is up. Incidentally, this is a great example of how to use technology to your advantage. Any smartphone can be used to mark time.
You can do this several times a day once you get into the habit. For those who are at an advanced level, I recommend exploring Hangboards (starting at $40 on Amazon*), which are suitable for developing your grip even further.
No gym or bar at home? No problem! In cities like Berlin, where I live, it’s easy to find parks with calisthenics spaces. All it takes is a quick search on your favorite map app to find a public exercise space.
At the end of the day, the important thing is that you’re strengthening the muscles in your body, in this particular case, your upper body. After all, the chances of living longer and better increase with healthy practices. Start with one minute of your day. That’s the time to reboot your computer.