reckonerDead hang
You hang from a bar with straight arms and your feet off the floor, and you hold it. It is grip work: the forearms hold you up for as long as they can. Simple to do and hard to do for long, which is the point.
Hang long, grip tight, breathe.
- Pattern
- Carry
- Trains
- Forearms
- Kit
- Bodyweight, pull up bar
- Loading
- Your own bodyweight
- Reckoner prescribes
- 4 holds of 30 to 60 seconds, on the fat loss, general fitness and stay healthy plans. Reckoner does not prescribe this pattern for muscle or strength.
- Progression step
- 10 seconds on the hold
- Skill
- Simple to learn
- Recovery cost
- Very low
- Not prescribed if you have declared
- Shoulder
Muscles worked
How to do it
Grip the bar about shoulder width
Use a step to reach the bar if you need one. Wrap your thumbs around it and grip hard, because a full grip holds longer than one hooked over the top.
Step off and hang long
Lift your feet and let your body hang with straight arms. Let your legs hang still underneath you, so the grip is holding a still weight rather than a swinging one.
Breathe slowly
Hold the hang and breathe steadily rather than holding your breath. Look straight ahead.
Step down before your grip gives out
When your grip starts to slip, put your feet back on the step or the floor. Do not wait to drop.
What goes wrong
Swinging
Getting on and off the bar quickly feels efficient. A swinging body is harder to hold and wastes grip. Step on and off slowly and keep your legs still.
Thumbs off the bar
A thumbless grip can feel more comfortable on a thick bar. It slips sooner. Wrap your thumbs around the bar.
Hanging to failure every time
Holding until you fall feels like the honest test. Dropping off a bar is a poor way to end a set. Stop a few seconds before.
How Reckoner progresses this lift
Six weeks of this lift, run through the real engine. Nothing below was typed in: the prescription, the decision and the sentence beside it all come from the same code that writes your week.
| Week | Prescribed | What it did |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 x 30 s | Longer hold 30 → 40 sYou held every set with a hard effort and steady form (RPE 7), so the hold gains ten seconds. A hold with nothing in the hands climbs on time, because time is the only axis it has. |
| 2 | 4 x 40 s | Longer hold 40 → 50 sYou held every set with a hard effort and steady form (RPE 7), so the hold gains ten seconds. A hold with nothing in the hands climbs on time, because time is the only axis it has. |
| 3 | 4 x 50 s | Longer hold 50 → 60 sYou held every set with a hard effort and steady form (RPE 7), so the hold gains ten seconds. A hold with nothing in the hands climbs on time, because time is the only axis it has. |
| 4 | 4 x 60 s | Holding steady 60 sYou held every set with a hard effort and steady form (RPE 7), and 60 seconds is the longest this hold goes. There is nothing to put in your hands to make it harder, so this one has run out of room. It stays where it is. If you want to keep pushing here, swap it for a harder movement when the block ends. |
| 5 | 4 x 60 s | Deload 40% of sets offFive weeks of building, then one week lighter. About 40% of the sets come off. The load holds and your reps stay where you earned them, so you keep the strength and lose the fatigue. |
| 6 | 2 x 60 s | Holding steady 60 sYou held every set with a hard effort and steady form (RPE 7), and 60 seconds is the longest this hold goes. There is nothing to put in your hands to make it harder, so this one has run out of room. It stays where it is. If you want to keep pushing here, swap it for a harder movement when the block ends. The lighter week is over, so this is back to four sets. |
Real engine output, not an illustration. Every row was produced by running the engine itself when this page was generated.
The full rule, and why the reps move before the load does, is in how Reckoner decides to add weight.
Questions people ask
What does the dead hang train?
Grip. Your forearms hold your bodyweight for as long as you hang. Reckoner counts it for the forearms.
How do I get better at it?
Add time. Hang a little longer each week, and log the seconds so you can see it moving.
Will Reckoner put this in my plan?
Not by itself. It is a hold you choose for grip, so the engine never chooses it for you. Choose it in the lift picker. It is timed rather than counted in reps. Shoulder is recorded against it.
Similar movements
Reckoner has no other movement in this swap group.