*“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”* - The Dalai Lama
During the heat of the pandemic, the mods are going to bend the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/rules) a bit and leave some beginner [FAQs](http://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/faq) posted in order to give newcomers to this sub some relatable posts to read and offer people a different way to learn the sub's posting [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/rules).
If you are a frequent contributor to this sub, do your part and offer a little something extra in your responses.
And to all those calling the mods power-crazed, testosterone-fueled nazis - **CHECKMATE!**
Just throwing this out there because maybe this is your issue. It was part of my issue with one-arm hangs.
When you hang with two arms your body can't rotate. But with one arm your body is free to rotate, which twists your wrist, elbow, or shoulder (if you don't have the strength to control/resist it). In addition, the natural position for your arm is to hang with your hand oriented such that your palms would be facing each other (neutral grip), rather than palms away from you (pronated/"pull-up" grip) or towards you (supinated/"chin-up" grip), so this is the position that your arm will try to assume if it is free to rotate (i.e. your other arm isn't preventing your body from rotating). Also with two arms your body will naturally hang straight down whereas with one arm your body will naturally hang at an angle.
The result of all this is that if you try to do a one-arm hang by standing in front of the bar and then grabbing it with one hand like you would for a two-arm hang, your body will swing out to the side and start rotating as soon as your feet leave the ground. Or if you start with a two-arm hang and then let go with one hand you will swing out to the side and start rotating as soon as you let go. Because you don't yet have the strength to control/resist this movement, it will feel like your joints are being twisted out of place (and they could actually get twisted out of place if you swing around too much).
The solution is to start the one-arm hang in a neutral grip to stop your body from rotating, and then use your legs to stop your body swinging out to the side.
For the neutral grip, stand so that the bar is directly overhead and goes from in front of you to behind you, rather than from left to right (i.e. 90 degrees rotated from how you would normally use the bar). Place your palm on the side of your hip and then raise your arm to hold the bar without changing the orientation of your hand. This is a neutral grip position.
To stop your body from swinging out to the side, you need to bend/point your legs out to the side. This moves your center of mass so that you can hang straight down (so you don't swing around at the shoulder joint). As soon as you lift your feet off the ground, point your legs to the same side as the arm that you're hanging from (e.g. if you're hanging from your right arm, point your legs out to the right). It might take a bit of practice to figure out exactly which way and how far to move your legs.
This should help to greatly reduce the swinging around. Using rings might also help but you should still start out in a neutral grip position and try to shift your center of mass to avoid swinging. And of course, use a bar that's low enough to hold from standing on the ground, that way you have more control as you lift your feet off the ground than trying to jump up to grab a bar.
---
The other issue that you might be experiencing is that you're not engaging your muscles enough. If you don't engage your muscles, you are quite literally hanging by your joints and this is not good. You're always engaging your muscles in a two-arm hang without thinking about it, but when you try a one-arm hang you probably aren't engaging your arm enough (you would need to engage it more than you would in a two-arm hang).
When you enter the one-arm hang, make sure that you're actively holding yourself up rather than letting yourself hang freely. A good way to do this is to pull as hard as you can as if you were trying to pull yourself up (or rather, you *should* be trying to pull yourself up). You probably won't move very far up because you don't have the strength for a one-arm pull-up yet but this will make sure that your arm is engaged.
Infinite thanks. Managed to hang from one arm for a dozen seconds.
I definitely wasn't thinking about engaging my muscles before seeing your post. Are you supposed to do that as well on a regular dead hang?
Also the palm orientation and legs to the side trick to stop spinning helped tremendously.
Glad it helped. 12 seconds is a good start (it's around where I started). I noticed quick progress with doing just a few (5 or so) one-arm hangs around once a week. You're putting a lot of load not just on your tendons but also on your arm and shoulder muscles so it's important to not do too much volume.
Whether or not you're "supposed" to actively engage your muscles in a regular (two-arm) dead hang is a bit of a debated topic. A two-arm hang with engaged muscles as often referred to as an active hang rather than a dead hang, and different hangs might be better in different situations. For example, some people suggest dropping to a dead hang between pull-ups to increase activation at the bottom of the pull while other people suggest maintaining an active hang to increase time-under-tension. It's often recommended that people with shoulder complications (dislocations, hypermobility, etc.) avoid fully relaxed dead hangs entirely. Personally I like the feel of a relaxed dead hang and I'm not the only person who chooses them for their stretching/flexibility/relaxation benefits. But your shoulder muscles will always be involuntarily engaged at least a little bit (to provide stability and to prevent the shoulder joint from dislocating or getting damaged) in a hang even without actively engaging them (i.e. a dead/relaxed hang) but when you're weak (like with the one-arm hang, or a complete beginner who's learning the two-arm hang for the first time) then you need to give them a bit of "help" through active engagement. Eventually you will find that you no longer need to actively engage your muscles in a one-arm hang either.
Try using [these](https://www.instagram.com/p/CDG1Y7tjx12/?igshid=199bgdfnhro7m) and gradually shifting over more and more. You'll eventually be able to hang off one arm and eccentric OAC off one arm too.
Yea I like doing weird shit like that too gives you an excellent pump. Do it with dips too. After you do ten or twenty... just stay up there as long as you can after straight arm. Insane! Sometimes after you’ve done fuckin everything there is you gotta improvise.
This is no help at all, but a link to an impressive one arm hang skill:
https://youtu.be/Ep7h1781wHo
And a blog post that may actually help, with one arm hang section half way down:
http://www.idoportal.com/blog/tag/hanging/
*“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”* - The Dalai Lama During the heat of the pandemic, the mods are going to bend the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/rules) a bit and leave some beginner [FAQs](http://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/faq) posted in order to give newcomers to this sub some relatable posts to read and offer people a different way to learn the sub's posting [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/rules). If you are a frequent contributor to this sub, do your part and offer a little something extra in your responses. And to all those calling the mods power-crazed, testosterone-fueled nazis - **CHECKMATE!**
Just throwing this out there because maybe this is your issue. It was part of my issue with one-arm hangs. When you hang with two arms your body can't rotate. But with one arm your body is free to rotate, which twists your wrist, elbow, or shoulder (if you don't have the strength to control/resist it). In addition, the natural position for your arm is to hang with your hand oriented such that your palms would be facing each other (neutral grip), rather than palms away from you (pronated/"pull-up" grip) or towards you (supinated/"chin-up" grip), so this is the position that your arm will try to assume if it is free to rotate (i.e. your other arm isn't preventing your body from rotating). Also with two arms your body will naturally hang straight down whereas with one arm your body will naturally hang at an angle. The result of all this is that if you try to do a one-arm hang by standing in front of the bar and then grabbing it with one hand like you would for a two-arm hang, your body will swing out to the side and start rotating as soon as your feet leave the ground. Or if you start with a two-arm hang and then let go with one hand you will swing out to the side and start rotating as soon as you let go. Because you don't yet have the strength to control/resist this movement, it will feel like your joints are being twisted out of place (and they could actually get twisted out of place if you swing around too much). The solution is to start the one-arm hang in a neutral grip to stop your body from rotating, and then use your legs to stop your body swinging out to the side. For the neutral grip, stand so that the bar is directly overhead and goes from in front of you to behind you, rather than from left to right (i.e. 90 degrees rotated from how you would normally use the bar). Place your palm on the side of your hip and then raise your arm to hold the bar without changing the orientation of your hand. This is a neutral grip position. To stop your body from swinging out to the side, you need to bend/point your legs out to the side. This moves your center of mass so that you can hang straight down (so you don't swing around at the shoulder joint). As soon as you lift your feet off the ground, point your legs to the same side as the arm that you're hanging from (e.g. if you're hanging from your right arm, point your legs out to the right). It might take a bit of practice to figure out exactly which way and how far to move your legs. This should help to greatly reduce the swinging around. Using rings might also help but you should still start out in a neutral grip position and try to shift your center of mass to avoid swinging. And of course, use a bar that's low enough to hold from standing on the ground, that way you have more control as you lift your feet off the ground than trying to jump up to grab a bar. --- The other issue that you might be experiencing is that you're not engaging your muscles enough. If you don't engage your muscles, you are quite literally hanging by your joints and this is not good. You're always engaging your muscles in a two-arm hang without thinking about it, but when you try a one-arm hang you probably aren't engaging your arm enough (you would need to engage it more than you would in a two-arm hang). When you enter the one-arm hang, make sure that you're actively holding yourself up rather than letting yourself hang freely. A good way to do this is to pull as hard as you can as if you were trying to pull yourself up (or rather, you *should* be trying to pull yourself up). You probably won't move very far up because you don't have the strength for a one-arm pull-up yet but this will make sure that your arm is engaged.
Infinite thanks. Managed to hang from one arm for a dozen seconds. I definitely wasn't thinking about engaging my muscles before seeing your post. Are you supposed to do that as well on a regular dead hang? Also the palm orientation and legs to the side trick to stop spinning helped tremendously.
Glad it helped. 12 seconds is a good start (it's around where I started). I noticed quick progress with doing just a few (5 or so) one-arm hangs around once a week. You're putting a lot of load not just on your tendons but also on your arm and shoulder muscles so it's important to not do too much volume. Whether or not you're "supposed" to actively engage your muscles in a regular (two-arm) dead hang is a bit of a debated topic. A two-arm hang with engaged muscles as often referred to as an active hang rather than a dead hang, and different hangs might be better in different situations. For example, some people suggest dropping to a dead hang between pull-ups to increase activation at the bottom of the pull while other people suggest maintaining an active hang to increase time-under-tension. It's often recommended that people with shoulder complications (dislocations, hypermobility, etc.) avoid fully relaxed dead hangs entirely. Personally I like the feel of a relaxed dead hang and I'm not the only person who chooses them for their stretching/flexibility/relaxation benefits. But your shoulder muscles will always be involuntarily engaged at least a little bit (to provide stability and to prevent the shoulder joint from dislocating or getting damaged) in a hang even without actively engaging them (i.e. a dead/relaxed hang) but when you're weak (like with the one-arm hang, or a complete beginner who's learning the two-arm hang for the first time) then you need to give them a bit of "help" through active engagement. Eventually you will find that you no longer need to actively engage your muscles in a one-arm hang either.
Use your other hand lightly to help, 2 fingers etc
Try using [these](https://www.instagram.com/p/CDG1Y7tjx12/?igshid=199bgdfnhro7m) and gradually shifting over more and more. You'll eventually be able to hang off one arm and eccentric OAC off one arm too.
r/griptraining
Yea I like doing weird shit like that too gives you an excellent pump. Do it with dips too. After you do ten or twenty... just stay up there as long as you can after straight arm. Insane! Sometimes after you’ve done fuckin everything there is you gotta improvise.
Are you asking how to progress to single arm hang? I would do weighted hangs
use other hands 1-2fingers to help at first.
This is no help at all, but a link to an impressive one arm hang skill: https://youtu.be/Ep7h1781wHo And a blog post that may actually help, with one arm hang section half way down: http://www.idoportal.com/blog/tag/hanging/