Dead hang

What it is

Take an overhand grip on a bar, roughly shoulder width, and hang with your arms straight and your feet off the floor. That is the entire movement.

Two versions worth distinguishing. A passive hang lets the shoulders rise towards the ears and the body hang from the joint structure. An active hang has you pull your shoulder blades gently down and back, so the muscles are carrying you. Both are legitimate; the active version is the one that leads towards a pull-up.

If your feet reach the floor, bend your knees, or use a lower bar and keep your heels down to take some weight.

What it demands

Grip, more than anything. For most people the hands give out long before anything else, and that is normal rather than a fault. Grip is flexor digitorum profundus and its neighbours in the forearm, not muscles in the hand.

Shoulder tolerance for being loaded at full overhead reach. If overhead range is limited, this position will find out.

Nothing else. There is no strength requirement beyond holding on.

What usually goes wrong

Treating grip failure as failure. It is the expected limiter and it improves quickly.

Gripping with the fingers only. Getting the bar deep into the palm and wrapping the thumb lasts considerably longer than a fingertip hook.

Holding the breath. A hang is a good place to notice that you are, because there is nothing else to think about.

Going straight to maximum every time. Grip and, more importantly, the connective tissue of the elbows and shoulders adapt more slowly than muscle does. Building up gradually is the whole strategy.

Where it sits

The foundation of the vertical pull pattern, and a genuinely useful thing in its own right for anyone whose grip is their limiting factor in everything else.

From here the route to a pull-up runs through the negative pull-up. If there is no bar to hang from, the inverted row trains pulling with your feet on the ground.