Suspension Squat Hanging Exercises: Transform Your Body Alignment in Minutes Daily

9 min read • Last updated: February 20, 2026 • By Dr. Garrett Hewstan, DC

There are a few variations of the suspension squat, but they all do the same thing — correct and reset your body from top to bottom.

We all think of our head and neck as the top of our body. But when we're talking about full bodily function, the hands become the functional top of the body while we're hanging — which makes the head, neck, and shoulders the middle of the upper body, not the top.

Simply put, the hands were designed to hang. When you're hanging, all of the tension you've accumulated in your neck and shoulders — mostly from sitting — finally gets to redistribute throughout the whole body instead of being contracted into those few areas. Now the whole body, from the hands down, shares the weight together. No single part doing all the work.

What balance actually is

And it's not just about stretching. Some parts of your hands, elbows, shoulders, neck, spine, and pelvis need to work more, not less. And of course, some parts need to work less, not more. This is what balance is. Balance is different for everyone, depending on the body.

In the suspension squat — and in all of our protocols — you connect to your body's deep wisdom and listen to what your body is telling you, rather than what you've been telling your body to do all along.

Like a suspension bridge

When you're in the suspension squat, the hands are in direct relationship to your neck, shoulders, spine, and the rest of the body. Just like a suspension bridge — every part of the bridge is designed to hold the tension and weight of the whole bridge equally. When you're hanging, the hands become partners with the head, neck, shoulders, and spine, instead of all those parts carrying the load by themselves in isolation.

You can also think of proper function in the body the way you think about Tetris, or a chain-link fence, or dominoes. Every part needs to be in direct relationship to the adjacent parts to restore wholeness and cohesion. When you're hanging — but more importantly, how you're hanging — what's overworking in your body can finally let go, and what's underworking can start to engage and participate with the whole body again. You start connecting the dots throughout your entire body.

Almost no one hangs

Consider this. When you lift your hands up in the air and open your armpit, that's the primary movement of the shoulders and hands. When you hang, you're elongating and conditioning the entire body in the frontal plane — as if you were standing between two walls. Unless you can see your armpit, your shoulder isn't doing its primary movement. Said simply: almost no one hangs.

Spinal health and shoulder mobility are directly related to hanging. It's the shoulder's most basic way to gain functional strength.

Grip strength, proprioception, longevity

Grip strength is correlated to life longevity, and the reason is proprioception. Proprioception is another way of saying that more parts of your body are communicating directly with your brain. The more proprioception happening throughout your body, the healthier your organ systems are.

There are people who can lift heavy weights but who can't hang for long. Same body, different conditioning. They've been making some parts work too hard, which means other parts have been turned off. The hands haven't been used in their primary way. The full chain isn't communicating.

What hanging actually does

Hanging sees the body as one dynamic system. When the system reconnects, the effects are not subtle:

• Helps eliminate and prevent spinal disease and degeneration
• Normalizes blood and nerve circulation in the vertebrae
• Conditions spinal muscles to stabilize the whole spine
• Relieves stress from the intervertebral discs
• Brings each vertebra closer to its proper location
• Eliminates pain
• Improves back flexibility
• Relieves spinal load
• Improves and can correct scoliosis
• Improves metabolic disorders
• Improves central nervous system function
• Coordinates full body dynamic movement
• Strengthens and conditions hands, wrists, elbows, and shoulders

Most people are amazed at what they discover about their body in the suspension squats. It's one of the main protocols to restore full body integrity and peace of mind.

Why this one needs to be taught

Hanging is not all the same. The way one person needs to hang is not at all the way another person does. The subtleties and nuances are what create the awareness needed for strength, healing, and self-correction — correcting the entire posterior and anterior chain of the body, from the hands down through the arms, conditioning the shoulders, spine, and pelvis.

We show you how to do the variations of the suspension squat in ways that correct your specific imbalances, so you can become aware of your body's blind spots. Many factors lead to those imbalances — the most common being a sedentary lifestyle. Most of us sit for way too long, and often we exercise in ways that don't promote connection and awareness. Hanging undoes both at once.

Common questions

How often should I practice?

Brief, frequent sessions beat long ones. A few short hangs scattered through the day — coming back to the bar between desk hours — does more than one long session. The exact duration and frequency get calibrated to your current grip strength and shoulder mobility in your first session, and the practice evolves as your body changes.

What if I can't hang for very long?

That's where you start. Even ten or fifteen seconds counts. The grip will give out first because the hands are the part that's been off duty longest. Over weeks, that number grows on its own — don't push past pain, build over time.

Do I need special equipment?

Gymnastic rings hung in a doorway are ideal — they allow the shoulders to rotate naturally, which a fixed bar doesn't. A pull-up bar works too, just less forgiving. Anything you can grip overhead and let your weight pull from will get the chain started.

Will hanging replace other movement?

No — hanging covers an axis most people are missing, but it doesn't replace walking, ground work, decompression, or the rest of a practice. If you can only do one thing, hanging has the widest impact for the time spent. But it's a piece of a practice, not the whole practice.

What if my hands burn out first?

That's the protocol working — the hands are the gateway, and they fatigue first while they wake up. Between hangs, work on the Hand Balancer to keep the grip strengthening evenly. After a few weeks the hands stop being the limiter and the rest of the chain starts asking to come back online.