Wilks points for max gripper close

[Paul Savage]

Only got one rgc gripper and was well below max mms when I got it. I haven't found too much difference though to be honest, was 95kg in old videos of easy #4 reps and ccs and now 140kg level 19-20 ccs on vulcan. The only difference I've found in increasing bodyweight is it allows me to have a bigger base strength to peak from, meaning that I'm stronger without doing specific grip work. That allows me to reach goals without pushing hard for as long a time, which can prevent injury.

[Mikael Siversson]

15 hours ago, Squeezus said:

Grip and especially grippers have an interesting relationship with weight. It cannot be disputed that people in the lighter weight classes have trouble keeping up with the heavier weight classes, but there is certainly a point at which there is almost no benefit to being heavier, and it seems like that point is at the 93kg or 105kg weight class. If you look at it, plenty of the best crushers in history (Vano, Paul Knight, Gabriel Sum, Valery, Durniat, Morgan, Heath Sexton, Kevin Bussi, Teemu, Adam Glass, Tommy Jennings) fall into those classes.

In eg axle lifting the correlation between muscular bodyweight and grip performance is still strong beyond 93k. Even someone like yourself who is extremely strong in this lift relative to bodyweight would stand no chance against really large thickbar specialists such as Alexey (who does not even have huge hands). Its just that we don't see these guys much in NAGS competitions. In grippers I suspect large people overall tend to have hands somewhat too large for grippers (Mark Felix is a good example). Can't say I have noticed much of an advantage in pinching (on the Euro at least) for people with large hands. My good old friend Arne for example has much larger hands than myself and pinching has always been his worse event. I suspect Jedd has huge thumb pads because he has trained pinch lifting really hard for many years. Overall I agree though that grippers correlate less with bodyweight than other grip exercises.

[Squeezus]

2 hours ago, Mikael Siversson said:

In eg axle lifting the correlation between muscular bodyweight and grip performance is still strong beyond 93k. Even someone like yourself who is extremely strong in this lift relative to bodyweight would stand no chance against really large thickbar specialists such as Alexey (who does not even have huge hands). Its just that we don't see these guys much in NAGS competitions. In grippers I suspect large people overall tend to have hands somewhat too large for grippers (Mark Felix is a good example). Can't say I have noticed much of an advantage in pinching (on the Euro at least) for people with large hands. My good old friend Arne for example has much larger hands than myself and pinching has always been his worse event. I suspect Jedd has huge thumb pads because he has trained pinch lifting really hard for many years. Overall I agree though that grippers correlate less with bodyweight than other grip exercises.

I won't argue that thickbar performance has a more or less positive correlation with weight class, but grippers specifically drops off after 93kg/105kg. I guess I wasn't clear in my statement.

[Chez]

3 hours ago, Mikael Siversson said:

I suspect Jedd has huge thumb pads because he has trained pinch lifting really hard for many years.

I wasn't referring to the thickness of his thumb pads. His thumbs are just plain huge even for his body and hand size. Wide and long. Some of his friends refer to it as the "porn star thumb" as a joke. I use to joke with Jedd that when I shook his hand its like grabbing a hand full of bananas

Edited December 2, 2016 by Chez

[Geralt]

46.56 it says. 225lbs bw and 170lbs MMS. Handsize and thickness is definitely a decisive element. Check out screenshots of most top dog hands. Pretty beefy hands, with the dogleg deeply buried into the palm. Also thick wrists help. Sometimes I shake peoples hands and I just feel that how hard I would train, I could never give them a solid handshake, as much as they could give to me if they wanted. Thick hands do have an advantage. handthickness, wether it be thumbbase or the handmuscles themselves, is very hard to increase.   

 

 

[felixthecat]

Got 44.15

140 BW & 120 MMS

Edited December 6, 2016 by felixthecat

[Electron]

53: 141 #3 at 138lbs, and 135 at 130

[Electron]

On Wednesday, November 30, 2016 at 7:55 PM, Cannon said:

I got 56.43. 

158 gripper close at 145 body weight. 

Cannon you stronk

[Bryan Hunsaker]

158lb GHP #7 at 295 lbs, so I get a 40.34

That's my heaviest gripper, so that's the best I can calculate.

@Squeezus Did you ever finish your correlation on hand size relative to performance in the KKGC?  Sorry if I missed it, but would be really curious to see that.

RE my Wilk's number, clearly not a fair comparison statistic as it skews too much with heavier bodyweight, for what, otherwise, is a decent close.

I think a guy like Dan Fleming is case and point that there's very little tie-in between weight and grippers.  Even on the set, as argued above, I'm using my off-hand, only - it isn't like my lats and quads are somehow beneficial on the set.

On ‎12‎/‎2‎/‎2016 at 4:04 AM, Mikael Siversson said:

In eg axle lifting the correlation between muscular bodyweight and grip performance is still strong beyond 93k. Even someone like yourself who is extremely strong in this lift relative to bodyweight would stand no chance against really large thickbar specialists such as Alexey (who does not even have huge hands). Its just that we don't see these guys much in NAGS competitions. In grippers I suspect large people overall tend to have hands somewhat too large for grippers (Mark Felix is a good example). Can't say I have noticed much of an advantage in pinching (on the Euro at least) for people with large hands. My good old friend Arne for example has much larger hands than myself and pinching has always been his worse event. I suspect Jedd has huge thumb pads because he has trained pinch lifting really hard for many years. Overall I agree though that grippers correlate less with bodyweight than other grip exercises.

We actually showed, conclusively, that the results of the 2.5" Crusher had almost no correlation with bodyweight above 93kg.  I'd be willing to venture, that once people are over 93kg or even 105kg (among people that deadlift regularly), we won't see huge swings in results on the axle, either, relative to bodyweight.  Your really big guys can pull 270kg, maybe even 300 on an axle (if natural), so a 190/200 pull doesn't even begin to tax them on the pull-side - that's the case with me, at least.  The deadlift is easy, and all the work is in the hands.  My best DO axle, to-date, is 195.5kg.  Picking that up is no problem.  Not letting it roll is the problem.

Maybe somewhat off topic, but I think there's some sort of shrouded mystery out there about these behemoth strongmen, and I think it is overblown.  I'd put Gil or @Jedd Johnson against any of my strongman buddies in a grip contest, any day, and not second-guess it.  I have 2 friends that overhead 190kg+ on the axle/log, and can't DO 140 on the axle!  There are some big strong dudes out there, but until they crawl out from under their rock, and demonstrate it with grip, I think it is getting blown out of proportion.

Terry Holland's "World Record" axle was done in a dark room, on an off-brand bar, and who knows what else was going on.  Also, not natural.  If that bar had 1 degree of bend, it would make the lift monumentally easier...who knows.

And you get Sarychev, best bencher in the word, coming out and lifting something like 125kg on the RT in his first comp...huge lift.  Not natural. 

Your real outliers, that are blowing up records on open-handed stuff, are not natural.  Draw a line there, and things get interesting.

Anyone can get a strong grip if they work it.  Let's worry less about bodyweight, and more about pushing the limits of the sport.  And we need to remember that a lot of the crazy lifts are not done naturally, so in my eyes, there should be an asterisk there!!

[Mikael Siversson]

Using that competition as a guide is as I pointed out elsewhere suboptimal because it attracts a large number of people that have not gotten anywhere near their grip strength potential at a lean athletic bodyweight. I also suggested that it would be more relevant to look at the NAGS data which represents a much larger data base. I have competed in the LGC grip comp many times and the big strongmen dominate thickbar every time (eg RT or the LGC handle). It is true that lean and huge strongmen are almost invariably using stuff but that's irrelevant in a sport that does not have drug testing and most likely never will. Bottom line is that large heavy competitors rarely like to be compared on a power to weight ratio basis and that's that. Grip sport correlates probably better to armwrestling than any other sport and they have weight classes and for a good reason. They don't measure people's hands or fore arm length and neither should we unless we want to turn it into a circus (imagine the heated discussions about wrap thumb length etc. etc.) and effectively kill the sport and watch unhealthy heavy bodied people battling it out. The introduction of weight classes in grip sport has most likely increased the life expectancy overall for the pool of competitors and that's a good thing in itself.

Finally I remember very clearly that there was no Jedd domination when Chad was still competing. Jedd has great overall grip strength but not enough to outperform larger individuals equally blessed with strong hands.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Mikael Siversson

[The Mac]

Would be pretty easy to run the numbers and come up with a "Surname" formula for Grip...probably wouldn't be that accurate due to small sample sIze and difficulty in rating grippers etc but you could do it... And, hey, Wilks and Schwartz formulae change over time too as more results come in (they are valid for 4 year periods before adjustment, IIRC).

[Bob Lipinski]

If anybody is super motivated, the Wilkes is based on results from elite lifters. 

A true grip "formula" would do the same. My guess is that grip strength less correlated to bodyweight than powerlifting.  

[Bob Lipinski]

Whoops, already mentioned. Sorry. 

[The Mac]

Bob, you're alive!

If someone ran the numbers over a large enough sample we wouldn't need to argue how grippers matched to bodyweight, for t'would be there in the data.

[king crusher]

45.09 for me. 166 elite at 230lbs. 

[jvance]

49.09 with a 160 blockset close @179lbs. USNats 2015.