Hanging, Primary Position

Text on border reads, "YMCA College Poly. Medical Gymnastics."

This lantern slide shows one man and two boys demonstrating the medical gymnastics technique of hanging in the primary position. The hands, separated by the breadth of the shoulders, grasp a bar, placed high so that the feet don't touch the ground. Although only the flexors of the fingers are contracted, the position is very tiring. Through considerable straining, especially in the thoracic region, it has a restraining effect upon respiration and the circulation of blood. According to Truls Johan Hartelius’ “Swedish Movements” (1896), the positions compounded from the hanging position are not numerous, and of these but few are useful in medical gymnastics. This lantern slide may have been used in the medical gymnastics class, which taught students how to treat "bad postural habits... deformities, kyphosis, lordosis, [and] scoliosis" with gymnastics. Practitioners also used this treatment "for infantile paralysis, for stiffened joints, for obesity, for constipation, for cardiac weakness