At a glance
- We found no population norm. The measured bar-hang samples are small: 11 men averaged 64.0 s and 14 women 48.4 s in GRIP-6 (whole-sample mean age 20.4).
- Protocols differ. Hang-to-failure means run from 48.4 s to 107.6 s across samples of 11 to 35 people under different rules, so no single "average" can be quoted.
- The record is 80 min 41 s. Kenta Adachi, November 18, 2022, Guinness dead hang position, 4,841 seconds.
- Grip links to mortality, as association. Each 5 kg lower grip came with a 1.16 hazard ratio for all-cause death in PURE (139,691 adults).
- Interest has grown. US Google Trends index for "dead hang" rose from 23 (2022) to 61 (January to October 2026).
How long can people hang from a bar? Measured samples
Published bar-hang samples are few and small. The table lists every hang-to-failure dataset with a reported mean in seconds that we could open: GRIP-6 (25 people, mean age 20.4, passive bar hang), a 2004 sample of 32 men (straight-arm bar hang), and 35 climbers measured before a 24-hour event (porch-edge hang, not a bar). None is a population norm.
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| Dataset | Sample | Age | Protocol | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GRIP-6, men | n = 11; Men | Mean 20.2 (SD 1.2); whole sample 20.4 (SD 1.7) | Passive bar hang, overhand, shoulder width, legs off the ground, straight arms, until the person dropped. Mean of 3 trials, 3 min rest. Before 6 weeks of training. | Mean 64.0 s (SD 35.3); 69.4 s (SD 33.7) after 6 weeks of training | Chomiuk et al., J Funct Morphol Kinesiol 2025, Table 2 |
| GRIP-6, women | n = 14; Women | Mean 20.6 (SD 2.0); whole sample 20.4 (SD 1.7) | Same as men. Before 6 weeks of training. | Mean 48.4 s (SD 29.1); 54.3 s (SD 28.7) after 6 weeks of training | Chomiuk et al., J Funct Morphol Kinesiol 2025, Table 2 |
| GRIP-6, all participants | n = 25; 11 men, 14 women (56% women) | Mean 20.4 (SD 1.7) | Same as above. Before and after 6 weeks of combined gym and climbing training. | Mean 55.3 s before and 60.9 s after (+5.6 s, 95% CI 4.0 to 7.3) | Chomiuk et al., J Funct Morphol Kinesiol 2025, Table 2 |
| Drury 2004, standard Olympic bar | n = 32; Men | Not stated in the abstract | Straight-arm hang from a standard Olympic bar attached to the top of a power rack. Moderately trained, free of upper-body injury. Each person also hung from a triangular Tri-Bar. | Mean 95.4 s on the standard bar; 107.6 s on the Tri-Bar (p = 0.015) | Drury, Faggiono and Stuempfle, J Strength Cond Res 2004;18(4):782-786 |
| Yu 2023, climbers, porch-edge hang, before a 24-hour event | n = 35 with paired hang data (36 climbers analyzed); 21 men, 15 women | 21 to 40, mean 29.4 | Static hang to failure from the edge of an elevated wooden porch, feet off the ground. Hand spacing and body position self-selected; most hung on bent fingers. An edge hang, not a bar hang; arm position not stated. Measured at registration, before a 24-hour climbing competition. | Mean 76.8 s (SD 32.6) before; 38.1 s (SD 24.9) within an hour after the event | Yu et al., Front Sports Act Living 2023 |
Spread is large inside every sample: the standard deviation is 29 to 35 seconds in GRIP-6 and 33 seconds in the climbers, roughly 40 to 60% of the mean. The GRIP-6 paper prints the whole-sample before SD as 3.2 s, which does not fit its subgroup SDs, so this page reports no whole-sample before SD. In GRIP-6 the mean rose from 55.3 s to 60.9 s over 6 weeks of gym and climbing training (change 5.6 s, 95% CI 4.0 to 7.3). The same climbers averaged 76.8 s before and 38.1 s within an hour after 24 hours of climbing, a fatigue measurement.
Where do published hang-time targets fit?
Published hang-time targets from fitness sites and podcasts are opinions, not measurements. They disagree with each other and name no sample of people hanging. The comparison table lives on one page so the numbers are kept in one place.
See the comparison of published hang-time targets on the dead hang time by age page.
What are the bent-arm and flexed-arm hang numbers?
A flexed-arm or bent-arm hang is held with the elbows bent, not the arms straight. It is a different test from a dead hang, so its times must never be read as dead hang times. The two sources here are 88 university students and the FitnessGram school minimums.
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| Dataset | Sample | Age | Protocol | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bent-arm hang, university students | n = 88; Men | Mean 20.1 (SD 1.6) | UNIFITTEST 6-60 bent-arm hang (protocol not described in the paper). Male students without regular organized sport, years 1 to 3 of bachelor study. Bent-arm, not a dead hang. | Mean 44.85 s (SD 30.64), range 0 to 111 s | Cepková et al., Front Physiol 2025;16:1634125, Table 2 |
| FitnessGram minimum, boys | Criterion standard, not a sample; Boys | 5 to 17+ | Flexed-arm hang, scored in seconds up to a maximum of 90 s. Score must be at or above the value to reach the Healthy Fitness Zone. | At least 2 s at age 5, rising to at least 15 s from age 14 | California Department of Education, FITNESSGRAM Healthy Fitness Zones, September 2011 |
| FitnessGram minimum, girls | Criterion standard, not a sample; Girls | 5 to 17+ | Same as boys. | At least 2 s at age 5, rising to at least 8 s from age 13 | California Department of Education, FITNESSGRAM Healthy Fitness Zones, September 2011 |
FitnessGram figures are minimums that define the Healthy Fitness Zone, not averages. The full age-by-age table, with all 14 age rows for boys and girls, is on the flexed arm hang norms page and in the CSV download.
What does research say about grip strength and health?
Large cohort studies found that lower grip strength was associated with higher mortality. In the PURE study each 5 kg lower grip came with a hazard ratio of 1.16 for all-cause death. These are observational associations and do not show that raising grip strength changes outcomes.
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| Measure | Figure | Sample | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-cause mortality, per 5 kg lower grip | HR 1.16 (95% CI 1.13 to 1.20) | 139,691 adults aged 35 to 70 analyzed (142,861 enrolled), 17 countries; 3,379 deaths (2%); median follow-up 4.0 years; Jamar dynamometer | Enrolled Jan 2003 to Dec 2009 | Leong et al. (PURE), Lancet 2015;386:266-273 |
| All-cause mortality, per 5 kg lower grip: women / men | HR 1.20 (1.17 to 1.23) women; 1.16 (1.15 to 1.17) men | 502,293 participants aged 40 to 69 (54% women); 13,322 deaths (2.7%); mean follow-up 7.1 years | UK Biobank, follow-up mean 7.1 years | Celis-Morales et al., BMJ 2018;361:k1651 |
| Peak median grip, UK | 51 kg men (ages 29 to 39); 31 kg women (ages 26 to 42) | 60,803 observations from 49,964 participants (26,687 female), 12 general-population studies in Great Britain, ages 4 to 90; maximum of up to six trials per person, both hands (two studies supplied dominant hand only) | Pooled cross-sectional | Dodds et al., PLOS ONE 2014;9(12):e113637 |
| Weak grip prevalence at age 80 | 23% men; 27% women | Same pooled sample; weak grip defined as 2.5 SD or more below the sex-specific peak mean | Pooled cross-sectional | Dodds et al., PLOS ONE 2014;9(12):e113637 |
| Sarcopenia low-strength cut-off | Below 27 kg men; below 16 kg women | Consensus cut-off referenced to Dodds 2014 (T-score of -2.5 or lower) | Published 2019 | Cruz-Jentoft et al. (EWGSOP2), Age Ageing 2019;48:16-31, Table 3 |
Hazard ratio (HR) of 1.16 means a 16% higher hazard of death per 5 kg lower grip over the follow-up, after adjustment, in that cohort. PURE reported no significant association between grip strength and incident diabetes, hospital admission for pneumonia or COPD, injury from a fall, or fracture. Grip here means peak squeezing force on a dynamometer, not hang time. For age-by-age grip centiles see grip strength by age.
What are the hanging world records, and when were they set?
Guinness World Records lists the longest dead hang position at 80 minutes 41 seconds (Kenta Adachi, November 18, 2022). It also lists separate titles for hanging from a bar and for the oldest woman to hold a dead hang. The table below dates each result.
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| Date | Guinness title | Holder | Result | Where | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 14, 2018 | Dead hang position | Tazio Gavioli (Italy) | 13:52 | Cavezzo, Modena, Italy | Guinness World Records news, June 11, 2021 |
| November 7, 2020 | Dead hang position | Harald Riise (Norway) | 16:03 | Baerum, Viken, Norway | Guinness record page 118967, Wayback copy of May 28, 2022 |
| November 18, 2022 | Dead hang position (male) | Kenta Adachi (Japan) | 80:41 | Shunan, Yamaguchi, Japan | Guinness record page 118967 |
| November 11, 2024 | Oldest person, dead hang position (female) | Annie Judis (USA, b. Nov 23, 1943) | About 2:00 (age 80 years 353 days) | Beverly Hills, California, USA | Guinness record page 771587, Wayback copy of May 6, 2025 |
| December 26, 2025 | Hanging from a bar (male) | Kenta Adachi (Japan) | 4:30:18 | Yamaguchi, Japan | Guinness record page 780102 |
| March 6, 2026 | Oldest person, dead hang position (female) | Ann Crile Esselstyn (USA) | 2:52 (age 90 years 231 days) | USA | Guinness World Records news, March 31, 2026 |
| July 11, 2026 | Hanging from a bar (female) | Stefanie Millinger (Austria) | 53:51 | Salzburg, Austria | Guinness record page 785984 |
| September 7, 2026 | Oldest person, dead hang position (female) | Ann Crile Esselstyn (USA, b. Jul 18, 1935) | 3:43 (age 91 years 51 days) | Cleveland, Ohio, USA | Guinness record page 771587 |
The dead hang position record went from 13:52 (2018) to 16:03 (2020) to 80:41 (2022). Adachi's 4,841 seconds is 5.03 times Riise's 963 seconds. His bar-hanging title, 16,218 seconds, is 3.35 times his dead hang position time. Guinness says records change daily and are not always published online at once, and the record pages mostly do not state the rules of each title (the oldest-woman page states a 2-minute minimum). See the dead hang world record page for the categories.
Guinness page text for the oldest-person (female) dead hang title shows Judis at 80 years 353 days (November 11, 2024) on a May 2025 archive copy. The March 31, 2026 news article gives her age as 81 and Esselstyn's first result as 2 minutes 52 seconds. We use the record-page figures where a page exists and the news article otherwise. We found no Guinness page for a female longest-duration dead hang position, so the female longest-duration title listed is hanging from a bar.
How much do people search for dead hangs?
US Google Trends interest in "dead hang" rose from an index of 23 in 2022 to 61 in January to October 2026, about 2.7 times higher and more than 50% above the same months of 2025. The 2021 figure covers only November and December. Trends values shift by a point or two between pulls (a second pull on November 2 gave about 59 for 2026). Google Ads estimates 18,100 US and 4,400 UK searches a month. Both measures are estimates, and they measure different things.
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| Search term | US per month | UK per month |
|---|---|---|
| dead hang | 18,100 | 4,400 |
| dead hang benefits | 3,600 | 880 |
| dead hang world record | 480 | 170 |
| dead hang time by age | 1,000 | 260 |
| average dead hang time | 320 | 110 |
| good dead hang time | 210 | 70 |
| flexed arm hang | 1,300 | 50 |
| grip strength test | 6,600 | 3,600 |
| average grip strength | 2,400 | 390 |
How to cite this page
Cite this page as a compiled table and name the original study for any single figure. Each row links to its source. The citation below is ready to copy, and the CSV carries the same rows with sample, period and source fields.
Citation. DeadHangs.com. "Dead Hang Statistics: Hang Times, Records and Grip Research." Updated November 2, 2026. https://deadhangs.com/dead-hang-statistics/
Data. dead-hang-statistics.csv (78 rows). Columns: id, section, measure, group, sample_size, age, sex, protocol_or_context, value, spread, unit, period, source, source_url, note.
How was this compiled?
Every figure comes from a source we opened: the PubMed or PMC record for studies, the Guinness record page or news article, or a Wayback copy of a Guinness page. Search figures are our own pulls from DataForSEO on November 1, 2026. Derived numbers are shown with their arithmetic.
- Studies were found by Europe PMC searches (October to November 2026) for "bar hang", "dead hang", "hang test", "static hang", "flexed arm hang" and "bent arm hang". We kept samples that report a mean hang time in seconds with a described protocol.
- Hangboard and small-edge finger hangs are excluded. The climbers' porch-edge hang (Yu et al.) is kept because it is a timed hang to failure with feet off the ground, and it is labelled as an edge hang, not a bar hang.
- Two other papers with a bar-hang test (Brazilian highway police, 2020; Special Olympics athletes, 2012) give percentages or no seconds in their abstracts and have no open full text, so they are not included.
- Guinness figures were read from the record pages on November 2, 2026, and from archived copies for earlier holders.
- Search volume is a Google Ads estimate. Google Trends is an index of relative interest. Neither counts people.
What do these statistics not show?
These statistics do not give a typical hang time for any age or sex. The hang samples are small, young or trained, and use different bars and rules. Observational grip studies show associations only, and a record is one person's best attempt.
- Means from different protocols are not comparable. A hang from a power-rack bar, a porch edge and a pull-up bar load the hands differently.
- Bent-arm and flexed-arm hang times are a different test from the dead hang.
- Grip strength is dynamometer force, not hang time. No source here converts one into the other.
- Hazard ratios apply to the cohort and follow-up named. They are not personal risk estimates.
- Not yet found: a peer-reviewed table of dead hang time by age in the general population, and a military or occupational standard for a straight-arm hang.
Dead hang statistics: frequently asked questions
What is the average dead hang time?
We found no published population average. One documented sample is GRIP-6: 25 recreational athletes with a mean age of 20.4 held a passive bar hang for a mean of 64.0 seconds (11 men) and 48.4 seconds (14 women) before training. Other small samples report 76.8 to 107.6 seconds under different protocols.
What is the dead hang world record?
Guinness lists Kenta Adachi of Japan at 80 minutes 41 seconds for the longest dead hang position, set on November 18, 2022. He also holds a separate title, hanging from a bar, at 4 hours 30 minutes 18 seconds from December 26, 2025. The two titles are different categories.
Who holds the dead hang record for the oldest woman?
Ann Crile Esselstyn of the USA, at 91 years 51 days, held a dead hang for 3 minutes 43 seconds in Cleveland, Ohio on September 7, 2026. Guinness requires at least 2 minutes for this record. She first set it at 90 years 231 days with 2 minutes 52 seconds on March 6, 2026.
Is grip strength linked to how long people live?
In large observational studies, lower grip strength was associated with a higher risk of death. In the PURE study, each 5 kg lower grip was associated with a hazard ratio of 1.16 for all-cause death. These are associations. They do not show that raising grip strength lengthens life.
How many people search for dead hangs?
Google Ads estimates about 18,100 US and 4,400 UK searches a month for "dead hang". Google Trends shows US interest in the term rising from an index of 23 in 2022 to 61 in January to October 2026. Both are estimates of relative or rounded demand, not counts of people.
How do I cite this page?
Cite the page title, DeadHangs.com, the update date and the URL, and name the original study for any figure you quote. Each row in the CSV carries its source link. A ready-to-copy citation sits in the "How to cite this page" section.
Sources
- Chomiuk T et al. Impact of 6-week combined gym and climbing training on handgrip strength and arm size: GRIP-6 study. J Funct Morphol Kinesiol 2025. doi.org/10.3390/jfmk10040427
- Drury DG, Faggiono H, Stuempfle KJ. An investigation of the tri-bar gripping system on isometric muscular endurance. J Strength Cond Res 2004;18(4):782-786. doi.org/10.1519/R-13883.1
- Yu E et al. Change in grip strength, hang time, and knot tying speed after 24 hours of endurance rock climbing. Front Sports Act Living 2023. doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2023.1224581
- Cepková A et al. Cluster analysis as an effective tool for identifying physical fitness in students. Front Physiol 2025;16:1634125. doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2025.1634125
- California Department of Education. 2011-12 Physical Fitness Test: FITNESSGRAM Healthy Fitness Zones. September 2011 (copy hosted by Transylvania County Schools). PDF
- Leong DP et al. Prognostic value of grip strength: findings from the PURE study. Lancet 2015;386(9990):266-273. doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62000-6
- Celis-Morales CA et al. Associations of grip strength with cardiovascular, respiratory, and cancer outcomes and all cause mortality. BMJ 2018;361:k1651. doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k1651
- Dodds RM et al. Grip strength across the life course: normative data from twelve British studies. PLOS ONE 2014;9(12):e113637. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0113637
- Cruz-Jentoft AJ et al. Sarcopenia: revised European consensus on definition and diagnosis. Age Ageing 2019;48(1):16-31. doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afy169
- Guinness World Records: dead hang position, hanging from a bar (male), hanging from a bar (female), oldest person, dead hang position (female), and the news articles of June 11, 2021 and March 2026.
- Search data: Google Trends and Google Ads search volume, retrieved via the DataForSEO API on November 1, 2026.