Why You Should Hang Like a Monkey to Fix Your Body
Do you remember how it felt to be a child? I do. The floor was made of lava, cracks in the ground were to be dodged, and climbing trees was the ultimate challenge. When you saw a tree, you saw a playground.
Fast forward to the present, and we never climb. If an adult did so with the same glee as a child, the police might be called. He must be on drugs, people would say, or off his medication. But maybe we are wrong not to climb. Maybe we can learn about ourselves by asking a question. Why do all children, separated by continent and culture, feel compelled to climb?
The answer is simple. Far back in our murky prehistory, our ancestors lived in trees. As differently as we see our modern selves, our minds and bodies still carry this evolutionary baggage. We are primates, great apes, with hands and shoulders built for climbing, hanging, and swinging.
Our minds also feel the pull of the past. It is strikingly apparent in children and their compulsion to climb, this is the reason why upon spotting a child swinging gleefully from a branch you smile, shake your head, and whisper under your breath “what a little monkey”.
It even reveals itself in adults, given an opportunity. Who has not stumbled upon a playground at night, while intoxicated, and not felt the need to see how the old skills hold up?
Now, this is all very fun to consider, but why should we care? How does this information benefit us?
Well, I have a funky belief. I believe that knowing how our bodies evolved informs us how to best maintain them. Everyone who reads this article, from old to young, healthy to unhealthy, possesses a body. From sporting arena to retirement home, we all desire to minimize pain and injury. And, if we can get stronger and better looking along the way, we won’t complain. So, this is why you should hang like a monkey:
Reshape your shoulders
Can simply hanging from a tree not just strengthen your shoulders, but also reshape them? Dr. John Kirsch, an orthopedic surgeon of over 30 years, says yes.
According to him and other experts, hanging can reshape the Glenohumeral Joint over time. It literally opens the shoulders, reducing impingement, increasing strength, and improving mobility better than any other stretch. In fact, I believe the best way to see hanging is as a weighted stretch. It both lengthens and strengthens.
Fix your spine
You may have spotted one of these contraptions before:
This lady is using an inversion therapy rack, and probably experiencing some euphoria from blood rushing to her head. These racks are one of many tools that attempt to replicate the benefits of hanging. As seen below, each vertebra of the spine is separated from the others by discs. These discs are made of connective tissue, and they serve as buffers to prevent bone on bone friction.
Synovial fluid is lubricant for our joints, the connective tissue soaks it up like a sponge, and this acts as a soft squishy buffer between bones. This fluid also delivers nutrients and removes waste products, making it essential for joint maintenance.
But here is the problem. All day long, gravity pulls down on our spine, compressing the discs together so much that we are an inch shorter at night than we were in the morning. It also squeezes out synovial fluid, which we obviously do not want. Hanging uses gravity differently, decompressing the spine, and allowing synovial fluid to come rushing back in.
This means hanging not only strengthens the spine, it maintains it. Our bodies are biological machines that require maintenance. Exercise is maintenance, and hanging is best.
Cure your posture
I don’t want to be rude, but some people look like this:
Not everyone has posture this horrendous, but most of us slide closer to it each day. Our body assumes the postures that we regularly slump into, forcing our shoulders back does nothing. It is a band-aid slapped on a structural problem. If you want to rebuild, you need to apply stress to strengthen. I think you see where I am going with this.
Once again, hanging is the cure to all of life’s problems. If a physiotherapist were to hand you a list of exercises to do, and you only did one, hanging would benefit you more than the rest combined.
How to get started
-Just hang. From a bar, a tree, an overhang, some crappy handles from amazon, it literally does not matter. What matters is that you wrap your hands around something and allow your body weight to sink downwards.
- Start easy. Allow only some of your weight to hang. For the advanced, this partial hang can be your warm-up. For everyone else, this can be the entire workout.
-Treat it as a stretch, and progressively increase the intensity. Do this over a period of time, always listening to your body
- And most importantly of all: If your shoulders are an abomination, held together only by sticky tape and optimism, please speak to a doctor before you follow the advice of some guy on the internet. There is a huge amount of research supporting the benefits of hanging, but for those suffering from chronic injuries, better to play it safe and see a doctor first.
This is the end of the article. If you want to see hanging training in action, just search on google “hanging strength progressions”. Ido Portal does some great ones. Thank you for reading.
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