Let’s hang!
Your posture is a slow-moving beast
I don’t know if you’ve caught yourself hunching over your computer screen or your phone recently. Or perhaps you caught yourself in a mirror standing a bit hunched over and told yourself you should be standing more upright.
We all know what good posture is but it’s very hard to keep for 5 minutes straight (let alone all day long) when trying to focus on work, or anything other than posture!
The result of poor posture is not easy to see; you can only see it over time. Which is why in your twenties you are barely aware of what’s going on in your body while you are working or standing around with rounded shoulders.
Give it 10 more years though and if you haven’t been strength training to get your back and shoulders strong and flexible, I guarantee that in your 30s your back and shoulders will be increasingly reluctant to get to the upright position you want them to.
The wall angel test
Stand with your back against a wall, walk about one foot away from the wall and slightly bend your knees. Push your whole back flat against the wall, including your low back. Now put your arms in a W shape against the wall and slowly extend them up and over your head, prisoner style. While you do this, make sure that your elbows, wrists and back of your palms do not come off the wall. Once you’ve completely extended your arms above your head, slowly return them to the W position. Repeat this drill 10 times.
How did you find it? If it was very hard, you’re not alone. It is increasingly difficult for a lot of people, myself included, who have spent a lot of time at a desk or otherwise living life with a rounded back, a tight chest or hunched shoulders.
Stay upright
The body is largely shaped by the stimuli we give it. So if you are spending a lot of time at a desk, in a position that is not ideal and often overlooked (because you’re at your desk to work, not think about your posture), then you want to spend some time training your body to get stronger, to survive your working posture and more flexible, to recover from it.
A short personal story
After years of standing and sitting hunched over a computer, I developed a kyphotic posture without really realising it. One day, I walked into a gymnastics gym having decided that I wanted to try a handstand. But to my great disappointment, I could not get into a vertical position, neither standing, nor upside down, however much I wanted to.
Since that handstand incident, I have simply done a lot of hanging, not for its own sake, but in the warmups for pulling movements. So having spent increasingly more time hanging in the past few years, I can now get my arms in an almost vertical position (still not 100% there but a lot closer than before!)
What happens while you hang
Hanging, with the help of gravity, pulls your frame into a perfectly vertical position, the one you were born to have by design. And it does this with minimal skill and coordination on your part. All you need is the determination to stay up on the bar for a certain amount of time, and to manage the soreness and dryness of your hands. (They will get sore and dry!)
My invitation to you
To repeat an earlier point, the body is shaped by our lifestyle. I’d like to invite you to add a little bit of hanging to your lifestyle for 30 days and see what you gain from it. I have a feeling you won’t be disappointed!