
Samantha Ruth Prabhu's Dead Hang Challenge Highlights The Importance Of Grip Strength
Samantha Ruth Prabhu shared a video on her Instagram where she demonstrated her grip strength by performing a 90-second dead hang challenge alongside her trainers.
Samantha Ruth Prabhu has always been admired for her disciplined approach to fitness and wellness. The actor regularly shares snippets from her workouts and wellness routines, encouraging her followers to invest in their physical and mental health. In a recent Instagram post, Samantha took on the 90-second dead hang challenge alongside her trainers, Pavneet Chhabra and Paridhi Joshi. More than just a test of endurance, the challenge spotlighted a key component of fitness that often goes unnoticed – grip strength.
In her caption, Samantha Ruth Prabhu wrote, 'It's not about how you look. Not about genetics. Not about muscle mass or flexed selfies. It's about how strong you are when no one's watching." The message served as a reminder that strength and resilience go far beyond aesthetics.
What Is A Dead Hang?
A dead hang is a deceptively simple exercise where you hang from a horizontal bar with your feet off the ground, using only your hands and upper body to hold on. While it may look easy, maintaining this position requires strong forearms, shoulders, core stability, and most importantly, grip strength. It's often used as a benchmark in fitness routines to assess upper-body endurance and joint stability.
Why Does Grip Strength Matter?
According to health experts like Canadian-American physician Dr. Peter Attia, grip strength is one of the strongest predictors of longevity and quality of life. In the same video Samantha posted, Dr. Attia explains that for individuals aged 40–50, the ability to hang for a specific duration correlates with overall muscular and neurological health. He suggests that women in this age range should aim for a 90-second dead hang, while men should target two minutes.
He also mentions another important metric: the ability to carry a significant percentage of one's body weight in each hand for at least a minute, which reflects full-body strength and endurance.
Functional movements like the dead hang are gaining popularity in the fitness world, not just for performance, but for the role they play in maintaining independence as we age. Samantha's challenge was not just a personal milestone, but a timely reminder to shift focus from how our bodies look to what they can actually do.
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First Published:
July 29, 2025, 12:31 IST
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