Lesson Info
7. Hanging
Lessons
The 5 Daily Movements Overview
03:56 2Body Archetypes and How to Counteract Them
06:27 3Floor
07:30 4Couch Stretch
02:39 5Breathing
15:07 6Hip-hinging
10:52 7Hanging
07:22 8Walking
14:29Lesson Info
Hanging
So for the next section and the most important things that we can do is to implement hanging into our daily lives. So why does this matter? One example would be if you've ever experienced any type of shoulder pain or impingement, rigidity, stiffness in around the shoulders and around the neck, then hanging is gonna be the most simple solution to start to create some space in those areas. So why does this matter so much? An interesting example of that comes from an orthopedic surgeon called Dr. John Kirsch and what he found working with patients was that 99% of the patients that he would work with that were visiting him for shoulder impingement syndrome of various different sorts that he would've had actually conducted surgery for. He was able to heal their shoulder pain and restore their shoulder range of motion through a simple hanging protocol. And so we're gonna get into how to do that now. So hanging, for some people might not be the easiest thing to just start off with. It might b...
e a little bit aggressive for some folks. So what you can start off to start to open that range of motion in the shoulders would be just get yourself a chair of any sort. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna take the chair. You're going to start to walk your hips back away from the chair until you're starting to mimic this overhead position. So you can from here slowly, you're gonna, thumbs gonna be facing up towards the ceiling, slowly, start to just walk yourself out, back and forth, elbows in at the sides. So you're creating this external rotation in the arms and you are slowly just kind of opening up that space in the shoulder joint until eventually you're getting close to being in a complete overhead range of motion. I'm also walking my feet out as I'm doing this, I'm kind of opening up some space in around my hips. Something you can play with from here as well is you could do like we had mentioned in previous sections, the contract relax exercise. So I can press my hands down against that chair, press, press, press, press, press. Hold that for five, four, three, two, one, zero. And then on exhalation (exhales loudly) you go a little deeper into the stretch. One more time, press down, press, press, press. Elbows staying in tight with the body the whole entire time. Press, press, press, press press. Four, three, two, one, on exhalation go a little deeper into that position and then slowly walking yourself forward, coming out of that stretch. So that's gonna be a beautiful way to start to open up a little bit of space to start beginning that conversation of overhead range of motion. Next thing I'd recommend is get yourself a doorway pull up bar. Put that doorway pull up bar, any door that you happen to walk through with regularity in your house, and just start to add a little bit of passive or active hanging throughout your day. So we'll get into what passive and active hanging is as well, right? Right now. So starting off, you're just gonna reach up overhead and this one happens to be a bit low for me. So it's convenient 'cause I can slowly start to play with how comfortable I am with actually hanging. So I can keep my feet off of the ground a little bit and move this chair out of the way. Coming back. So this lower pull-up bar is convenient because I can start to actually slowly, ease myself into the hanging position. So again, for some people hanging might not be the easiest thing right away, so I can slowly ease myself down and then I can maybe play with bringing one foot up off of the ground. I can play with slowly starting to come up on to maybe my toes. So I'm just up on the tippy toes and then slowly maybe I can hold my feet up off of the ground for say five seconds, three, two, one and oh, I can slowly come back down. If you're in a doorway where it is quite tall or maybe you're a little bit shorter of a person you could put a chair underneath or a box or something to raise you up and just start tinkering, flirting with that sensation of that overhead range of motion. So while we're in that overhead range of motion the suggestion in the aligned method would be to be in a total of 90 seconds of hanging each day. So that could be 15 seconds six times. That could be 10 seconds, nine times. It could be, you don't have to be two crazy about exact amount of time. Just every time you walk through a doorway, give yourself 10 to 20 seconds or so. Kinda swing around a little bit, take some deep breaths into the sides of the ribs. You can maybe even twist yourself out a little bit while you're in this position. Breathe on each one, deep inhalation. (exhales deeply) (exhales deeply) And then you can oscillate in and out of passive and active hanging like we suggested before. So passive you're holding the bar tight and you're just coming straight down, just allowing your body to passively chill. You're just holding on tight and allowing everything to just decompress. Active, you can start to play with actually beginning to retract your shoulders backward. So I'm bringing, I'm drawing my shoulder blades back along my spine, back closer to my spine. So that passive hang, they're gonna kind of start to come up like that, that active hang I'm really attracting, drawing that scapula back towards the spine. So you can play with maybe five or so repetitions of that. Come all the way down, passive hang and then just pulling yourself up, back down. Pulling yourself up, back down and you'll keep the ribs slightly tucked down towards the hips as you're doing this as well. So that's the challenge. 90 seconds total each day, any version or variety or time scale that you would prefer for that. And the big thing is, is making this integrate into your daily life, making it be a part of who you are as opposed to a thing that you do. So by placing this visual cue, referred to as a pull up bar in your doorway that you walk through, that starts to stack and add up into something that's oh, you hung for 90 seconds one day and 60 seconds another day and it's becomes an everyday thing and the structure and shape and function of your shoulders really truly start to change in like a whole lifetime lens as opposed to being a thing that you do for two weeks. And then you kind of stop and move on to some other workout fad. So it's really about making this a part of who you are, making it a part of your life. And it's a beautiful opportunity to start to open up some space in the ribs, start to down regulate or calm your nervous system. Start to breathe into these areas and change your overall postural patterns. So that is it. The challenge is on. 90 seconds of hanging total each day. Get any simple, basic pull up bar and slowly, gradually ease yourself into it. And I hope you enjoy the structure and function of your new shoulders. Let's get onto the next section.