For those of you who don’t know, this is what it looks like when female Marines do the flexed arm hang:
I think they have just started because the woman on the ground at the far left is steadying the other woman’s feet. Sometimes when you begin, when the person who helped you up to the bar lets go, you swing around and it helps when they stop your legs from flying all over the place.
You’re allowed to hold your legs up high or dangling straight, feet together or not. Anything is fine as long as your knees don’t come up over your waist I think.
Time starts when the person helping you up lets go and it continues until your elbows are no longer bent. The minimum is 15 seconds and the maximum time to receive the full 100 points is 70 seconds.
There is some debate about when the time should stop because many feel that the current rules are too easy and I agree. I think the time should stop when your entire head drops below the bar. Once your elbows extend past a 90 degree angle, for a lot of females it’s easy to hang there for a long time with a only a tiny bit of bending visible. Trust me, I know. Changing the regulation will make the flexed arm hang difficulty more comparable to the pull-ups dudes do.
(Promotion points-wise, that is. Whether is is a good measure of upper body strength is hotly debated)
Photo Source. (That white shed looks familiar! I think this was taken at MSG school)
I am a female Marine currently in the Individual Ready Reserve. I like to sleep, travel, read, eat, explore, and take photographs. I read lots of news and I like reading about life in other countries. I am easily amused and my dream job is to be snoozing in a warm patch of sunlight, hopefully with a piece of tasty cheese nearby for when I wake up hungry.
So you're allowed to have someone help you up to the bar?
I'll out myself as fool I've been struggling with the flexed arm hang because I've been doing pulling myself up to the bar.
NOW that I know…
Granted the extra work sure won't hurt.
Nope, the extra work won't hurt! It doesn't matter how you get up there as long as nothing is supporting you when the time starts. Some people will make a "step" with their hands, if you can reach it some will let you grab onto the bar and then will grab your feet and push you up the rest of the way, and some will even bend over and let you stand on their back until it's time to begin!
I prefer to get into position on my own, but it's usually only possible when the pull-up bars have steps or there is something I can stand on like a wooden box. I'm only 5'2" and some pull-up bars are so high I can't even jump and grab on!
Damn, that's pretty fierce.
Yeah I'm 5'2 at best. Getting up to the bar is a challenge and then stopping myself from swinging is just a disaster. And rereading my comment it appears I never took an English class. Geesh.
Never again will I never complain when having to do chattaranga multiple times in yoga!
At the Police Academy I went to back in '77 the (few) women had to do unmodified pull ups just like the guys. Most of them (just like me) couldn't do a lot, however they made up the points, mainly on the 1.5 mile run and sit ups.
Greg Smith
[...] written about this before, more than once, so I won’t get into it too much [...]