Two minutes
The dead hang
test.
How long can you hang? Find out where you stand for your age — and what to do about it.
- What you need
- Bar · rings · branch
- Takes
- 2 minutes
How to do it
- Hang from a bar, rings or a sturdy branch. Arms straight, feet off the ground.
- Relax your shoulders. Breathe.
- Hold as long as you can. Let go before your grip fails completely.
- Tap STOP the moment you drop.
This is a fitness self-test, not a medical assessment. Stop immediately if you feel pain. If you have shoulder, neck or back problems, speak to a doctor or physiotherapist before hanging.
Get on the bar first. Tap START, then tap STOP the moment you drop.
Please enter a time between 1 and 600 seconds.
Step 2 of 2
Almost there.
Four quick questions. They decide what your seconds actually mean.
Please choose one.
Please enter an age between 16 and 90.
Please enter your bodyweight.
Your result
What this means
- Hanging is mostly a test of grip endurance. Your forearms give out first — for almost everyone, grip is the limiting factor, not the shoulders.
- Grip strength is one of the most studied markers of physical capacity. In a Lancet study of around 140,000 adults, lower grip strength was associated with higher mortality — a stronger signal than blood pressure.
- Hang time responds quickly to practice. Consistent training brings large gains within 8–12 weeks.
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This is a fitness self-test, not a medical assessment. Stop immediately if you feel pain. If you have shoulder, neck or back problems, speak to a doctor or physiotherapist before hanging.
How long should you be able to dead hang?
There is no official standard. No sports federation publishes dead hang norms, which is why most pages on this question say "it depends" and stop there. The numbers below are the ones this test scores you against, so you can read them yourself before you get on the bar.
| Age | Bottom 25% | Typical | Top 25% | Top 10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20-29 | 28 | 45 | 72 | 110 |
| 30-39 | 25 | 40 | 64 | 98 |
| 40-49 | 21 | 33 | 53 | 81 |
| 50-59 | 17 | 27 | 43 | 66 |
| 60-69 | 12 | 20 | 32 | 49 |
| 70+ | 9 | 14 | 22 | 34 |
| Age | Bottom 25% | Typical | Top 25% | Top 10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20-29 | 20 | 32 | 51 | 78 |
| 30-39 | 17 | 28 | 45 | 69 |
| 40-49 | 14 | 23 | 37 | 56 |
| 50-59 | 11 | 18 | 29 | 44 |
| 60-69 | 8 | 13 | 21 | 32 |
| 70+ | 6 | 9 | 14 | 22 |
All times in seconds, from a straight-arm hang with feet off the ground. Find your row, and the Typical column is the time half of people your age and sex can beat.
How long can the average person hang from a bar?
About 40 seconds for a man in his thirties and 28 seconds for a woman the same age. By sixty those figures are 20 and 13 seconds. The drop with age is steep, and it is the main reason a single "good" number does not exist.
Is a 30-second dead hang good?
It depends on who is hanging. For a 35-year-old man, 30 seconds beats about 3 men in 10 his age — a little under the middle. For a woman the same age it beats about 5 in 10, so right on the middle. At 45 the same 30 seconds is the top 35% for women and just under the middle for men. Thirty seconds is a reasonable first target if you are starting out, and a sign there is room to work if you are not.
Is a 60-second dead hang good?
Yes. One minute puts a 35-year-old man in the top 28% and a woman in the top 14%. At 45 it is the top 20% and the top 9%. A minute is roughly where grip stops being the only limit and the shoulders start doing real work.
Is a 90-second dead hang good?
Very. Ninety seconds is the top 12% for a 35-year-old man and the top 5% for a woman. Past this point progress arrives in smaller pieces, and most of it comes from grip endurance rather than strength.
Is a two-minute dead hang good?
Two minutes is the top 6% for a 35-year-old man and the top 2% for a woman — a few people in a hundred at any age. Almost nobody reaches it by accident; it is a trained number.
Why your grip gives out before your shoulders
For almost everyone the forearms fail first. That is not a weakness to fix around — it is the thing being measured. Grip endurance is the part that responds fastest to training, which is why short, frequent hangs beat one long attempt a week.
Where these numbers come from: they are modelled, not measured on a population. Published dead hang norms do not exist, so this test uses a median that falls with age and a log-normal spread around it, then reports where your time lands. The table above is generated from exactly the same model the test uses — no separate set of numbers, nothing adjusted afterwards.