Hanging At The Bar Works Wonders For Your Health

Thought I'd start off with a little joke. No i'm not talking about an establishment that serves alcohol. For people that really know me know I don't drink and get wasted. For me, going to a bar means something different; more jungle like and developing physical abilities from simple forms of exercise that are actually quite difficult for the average person. Exercises that are not only essential for amazing health but can alleviate back pain and slim the abdominals to a great degree.

Hanging at the bar to me is a literal sense of activity, you are hanging on a pull-up bar and staying for as you can. This exercise alone has insane benefits such as: Tendon Strength Builder, stretches & tones the core muscles including the obliques, strengthens the grip, opens up the shoulders, elongates the spine which can eliminate back pain and develop natural posture. There's far more but you get the idea.

I just got my new CAP BARBELL RACK yesterday and although I don't plan on doing bench presses or squats any time soon, I'm using it for a healthier and more fun approach; building strong primate muscles & tendons. As you know I'm a big believer in animal exercise especially those of the Primate Category (Apes, Monkeys) and developing the ability to hang from different positions and build pull-up strength in a unique way. Some of the most powerful animals on the planet are Primates primarily for their climbing, hanging, running & swinging skills that give them strength no human can truly possess. Sure we don't have the capacity at 100% leveled to be strong enough exactly like them for many reasons however; we can develop strength & pure muscular endurance utilizing exercises that are safe and practical for us humans to do and be in a healthy situation.

The ability to hang is not as easy as it looks, doing so for more than a few seconds can feel like an eternity at first. The average person at first can't hang for more than a few seconds if that. The grip is the key component because without it regardless of how strong the rest of you is, you won't last long and sure as hell won't be doing pull-ups very much. Many people don't understand the required strength to just hang on the bar because when they see a bar all they think is pull-up pull-ups and pull-ups. There's more to be seen than just pulling yourself up which is very difficult in itself. It is one of the toughest body-weight feats whether you're a beginner or an advanced trainee.

To become very strong at pull-ups it is critically important to be able to hang and do so without tiring. The longest I ever hung on a bar was just over a minute and that was brutal. Many crossfitters can't do that because the majority of the time they're seeing how many they can do by kipping which to me isn't anywhere near a real pull-up, unless you plan on rock climbing a mountain and building that jerking strength that's one thing but if you're trying to break records by swinging yourself so damn hard and jerking your shoulder sockets around bad things will happen to you. A real pull-up is when you have complete control of your body, tightening and flexing all the muscles from your fingers to your toes and not jerking or swinging to get your chin over the bar. When you tense the muscles enough so you can move its nearly impossible to completely jerk the movement. The most chin-ups I ever did was 21 at a 225 lb body-weight and there was no jerking or swinging whatsoever.

Having that Gorilla/Chimp type strength to hold your body-weight in those positions and do all kinds of cool stuff is a powerful form of mastering your body. To be able to swing, twist, pull and hang with complete control without being too loose can make your training be legendary. I'm a big dude at nearly 270 and I'm amazed that I have the strength to hang onto a bar even for 10-15 seconds. Even at this size I can still do multiple reps in both pull-ups and chin-ups and trust me, one wrong move or a bad jerking motion can cost me not a torn rotator cuff or series of joints, it will be breaking bones. So you can't possibly understand how hard it is to train on a bar at my size unless you wear a heavy weight vest. It takes a lot of focus and control to be able to just hang. When you can control your body either by hanging or doing pull-ups, it is a beautiful thing to see and do; I have seen guys do pull-ups that would kill most people's shoulders and destroy their elbows but I have also seen guys small and big have control that is just jaw dropping to watch. Hanging is nothing fancy but even something as simple as that can bring a lot to the table when it is mastered.