Many people today struggle to fully extend their arms above the head, which is a clear indicator of poor shoulder health. The 30 Day Bar Hanging Challenge fosters greater range of motion and support in your arms and shoulders by strengthening the smaller intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the shoulder and stabilizing the scapulae. A whole range of other muscles, joints, and ligaments will also benefit from this challenge. Some of these benefits include spinal decompression and better grip, wrist flexor, and forearm strength.

 
 

Rules of thumb:

1. No pain. Just a strain.

2. If you can use your thumb – do it. That's why you have a thumb.

3. Vary your anchors – rings, bar, tree branch, rope, towel, climbing grips, etc – all are good and all different.

4. Do less but more often. We are meant to receive such frequent movement signals.

5. Be consistent with the work. No rest days in the first 30 days. Don’t break the habit – form it!

 
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Preparation for the 30 Day Bar Hanging Challenge

If you haven’t done much (or any) grip, shoulder, and forearm strengthening, you will need some basic training and preparation before attempting the Bar Hanging Challenge. The wonderful thing about hanging exercises is that if you are a novice and do not have much straight arm strength then you can start off with relatively easy hanging exercises and progressively work your way up to more advanced hanging exercises as you become stronger.  Ido Portal says:

 
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Beginner (Healthy shoulders)

Rest periods should be 1:1 - 1:2 work:rest ratio, so if hanging for 60 sec, rest 60-120

 
 
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Intermediate (Healthy shoulders)

Rest periods here should be 1:1 - 1:1.5 work:rest ratio, so if hanging for 60 sec, rest 60-90 sec. (In the Arching Active Hang use at least 90 sec between sets as it is higher intensity work.)

 
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Important note: many THINK they achieve scapular retraction in this movement, few actually DO. Film yourself. If you cannot retract - even somewhat  - you should not work on this variation yet; it’s better to keep it real and make slow but steady progress.

The Arching Active Hang is a great postural tool. It works hard scapular Depression and Retraction as well as cuing the upper arm into External Rotation - this is great for your posture as it takes you out of that 'sitting-all-day at-the-computer position.’

The Arching Active Hang is also a great plateau buster for both Straight Arm AND Bent Arm Pulling Strength. It can aid the development of a Front Lever as well as advanced pulling work such as a One Arm Chin Up.