Evan's Grip Strength And Bodyweight Training

[Evan Raftopoulos]

haven't updated this the past two days. I did bouldering both days. Yesterday after bouldering I also did

training with 2.5" crusher rolling handle:
one hand deadlifts up to 136lb
one arm bent over rows reps to failure with 101 lb, I feel I can get stronger faster with the crusher doing this with reps to failure vs deadlifts 1 rep max
wrist curl isometrics for time and reps seated with 81lb. This is a really cool exercise for strengthening for arm wrestling, I took a vid of a few reps to show you what it looked like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov86zAtgXos

- in between sets of crusher did filed coc1 88lb TNS to failure both hands

- coc3 silver bullet w/5lb ~13 sec
-41 lb blob deadlift

[Evan Raftopoulos]

forgot to add: I trained with the euro one hand pinch DL with no added wt (~50lb) reps to failure L and R. I still need to smooth the edges and figure out a better place to train than the parking lot because I'm worrying that the plates will get damaged if fall from lockout position. Man I wish there was a grip sport gym in the city. Maybe I should open one. Grip sport gym and arm wrestling club. Wish the city wasn't so expensive for renting space though.

[Evan Raftopoulos]

past two workouts

September 4, 2015

gripper workout home:
TNS closes a few sets L up to CoC2 103, R CoC2 106 and GHP5 109lb

here's a vid with the CoC2

TNS HG 116lb, just missed
practiced setting to parallel and deep set156lb MM2 rep
silver bullet with no added wt MM2 rep ~15 sec hold
some work on the shallow hub in between sets up to 25lb only for reps and time holds

September 5, 2015

2" crusher one hand DL up to 175lb, I removed the paint but still needs to get rusty to become more grippy
IM hub lift up to 62 lb (I removed some of the paint to hold chalk better)

IM hub 64.5 lb off the floor a few inches not to full lockout
50lb blob drags L and R
one hand pinch euro up to 60lb a few sets
TNS CoC 2 and GHP5

[Royz]

Dude you are one prolific logger! Too much to keep up with.

Still making great progress.

[Buccos1]

Strong hubbing!

[Evan Raftopoulos]

Dude you are one prolific logger! Too much to keep up with.

Still making great progress.

thanks my man! Let's see how long logging lasts though, some days I'm not motivated to post, especially those days with no PRs or anything different or exciting for me. My progress so far might be largely due to the fact that 1. I recently started grip sport and some times beginners tend to make gains quickly, and 2. I've been doing some type of training every day since June and even though I don't recommend this to everyone I believe that this has something to do with my progress. I expect to hit a plateau pretty soon though. I think with grip strength is a big challenge just to maintain gains.

Strong hubbing!

thanks brother! I haven't tried max on this in a while and that's a PR. As I mentioned though, I think that removing some of the paint made a good difference.

Edited September 6, 2015 by Evan Raftopoulos

[DW85]

Very diverse workouts! Cool stuff! Pulling off some impressive work!

[Jüri Sankman]

Evan, you are one strong dude! Nice number on hub lift and good job with the blob! Move on in the same direction! Seems no limits for you!

I wish I had just even one grip sport guy in my country, not talking about a whole gym.. lol.

[Evan Raftopoulos]

September 6, 2015 (yesterday)

went to the gym earlier than usual, all squat racks were taken and used the smith machine instead

up to about 100kg/220lb butt to floor, then regular squats sets of 2 reps up to 6x45s+20(290lb) +the wt of the smith machine bar

RT one arm deadlifts up to 158lb both L and R, couldn't go heavier today but happy as long as I go more than BW

Drags with RT 6 sets 228lb X 10 ft x 4 L and R , this has helped me with lifting the 41 lb blob so I thought to tried it with RT. Has anyone else tried this before?

In between RT sets I battled with my RB260 , 155lb gripper. I was so close to MMSing it again but couldn't get the job done. I haven't worked with this gripper in a while. I fought this SOB for like 25 minutes. At the end I did an assisted close attempt with my other hand stabilizing it followed by hold/negative for about 25 sec total. Might post the vid later but not sure if it's worth posting. I might wait until I close this with regular MMS. I decided this will be my main goal gripper for now because it's exactly my current BW and will be a great PR if I close it. I'm also starting to realize that I do better with grippers if I have only one goal gripper vs trying to focus on too many grippers. So from now on I'm focusing on this one until I shut it.

Did a few other things, will post in a minute.

[ZFJango]

Dude. You are working out like a caveman! Strong workouts, Evan. Very nice.

[Evan Raftopoulos]

Very diverse workouts! Cool stuff! Pulling off some impressive work!

thanks man! I don't have a detailed plan, I just go to the gym and have fun!

Evan, you are one strong dude! Nice number on hub lift and good job with the blob! Move on in the same direction! Seems no limits for you!

I wish I had just even one grip sport guy in my country, not talking about a whole gym.. lol.

thanks, I appreciate the support bro! about grip training partner, I feel you man! I haven't been able to convince anyone to join me so far. I'm having hard time organizing/finding venue for the international king kong grip challenge here in California. It seems that I'm the only guy in the entire state interested in it.

Dude. You are working out like a caveman! Strong workouts, Evan. Very nice.

thanks bro! I saw your training log, you are training hard yourself!

[Evan Raftopoulos]

other things I did yesterday:

a little bit of calisthenics training:

- handstand on parallettes for time, about 10 sec at best

- mini laches and swings at crosffit bars

- front levers at lebert equalizer

- a few L sits for time

- pistols squats on balance board and bosu, this is good practice for ninja warrior balance obstacles

Arm wrestling exercises

- one arm pulls at preacher curl machine up to 150lb few reps at end rom elbow lock position(leaning back/side lack in AW), first time I go so heavy on this and felt really good, also much safer than using heavy dumbbells

- one arm pulls with pronation TRX suspension system leaning back

- pronation with 32kg kettlebell through strap concentration curl position

- one arm lock offs at pull up bar to failure

Edited September 7, 2015 by Evan Raftopoulos

[ZFJango]

I looked up "front lever", and that is what I have been calling "body raises". I love those. They are vicious and awesome. You really have a hench workout! Hitting everything. That is how I like to roll in my workouts. It keeps my interest burning bright, and seems to give great gains. I am defo going to keep an eye on your progress, and get ideas as well from you! Thank you for sharing.

[Evan Raftopoulos]

I looked up "front lever", and that is what I have been calling "body raises". I love those. They are vicious and awesome. You really have a hench workout! Hitting everything. That is how I like to roll in my workouts. It keeps my interest burning bright, and seems to give great gains. I am defo going to keep an eye on your progress, and get ideas as well from you! Thank you for sharing.

yea man, a few of us here are training with bw exercises/calisthenics. Any work on a pull up bar works your grip too. Check out this thread

http://www.gripboard.com/index.php?showtopic=44123

[Evan Raftopoulos]

did bouldering today, finished a few V4s easy and started a new V6 problem but didn't finish it. It's my goal to finish a V6 and hopefully a V7 by the end of the year. There is a lot of carryover from climbing to grip sport and vice versa.

here's an interesting article I found today relevant to this and referring to Peter Mortensen, the guy who did OAC on the rolling thunder. Timo Lauttamus is also another guy that can do OAC on RT, also a climber https://www.youtube.com/user/19Kamau79/videos

http://ferociousstrength.com/the-correlation-between-climbing-and-thick-bar-training/

other things I did:

one hand DL with the RB 60mm/2.36" rolling handle up to 140lb, this thing spins a lot and does not hold any chalk, it also feels more slippery than the RT and all the other handles I have. I can lift about the same wt as with the 2.5" crusher.

wrist curl full flexion position with the RB handle at the cable machine isometric holds with some scapular motion using all the wts (cupping motion in arm wrestling). It reads 200lb but this is a cable crossover machine so I 'm pretty sure it's just half of that (100lb).

attempted my RB 260 -155lb again, got close with MMS and then did an assisted close with stabilizing the gripper at the top with my L hand

I weighed myself after the gym and later home 152 lbs. It wasn't my plan to lose more wt but working out every day/burning lots of calories while avoiding over eating seems to be the simple recipe for losing wt. I'll weigh myself again the next few days to see if that's my actual bw now.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Evan Raftopoulos

[Evan Raftopoulos]

incline bench press smith machine did sets of 4 and then sets of 2 with heavier wts, up to 230lb/104kg + the wt of the smith machine bar, I use the smith machine for bench pressing sometimes because I don't have a training partner

seated chest flyes machine elbows 90 wrists fully flexed, used all the wts 205lb focusing on explosiveness (for arm wrestling).

warmed up my grip with RT deadlifts and a few ligther grippers before attempting my goal gripper, the RB 260, 155lb

attempted my goal gripper and I'm confident that I did close it this time. However, my phone stopped recording due to full storage right before I felt the handles touching. That was so upsetting and couldn't close it again.I have the vid but I don't think it's worth uploading, you can see the handles like 1mm away and then the vid stops.I won't consider that I closed it though until I have a good video proof. :-)

wrist curls neutral to flexion 90lb dumbbell x8, 100lb x4 both sides, my shoulder is further out than my elbow like in AW, I really like this exercise

wrist curls with rolling thunder at cable machine AW position, focusing on going into full flexion, as much flexion as possible, I think wrist flexibility combined with strength is key in AW

~15 explosive muscle ups knees str8

BW today 154lb

[exarmy]

good job closing the 155! look forward to seeing the video

[ZFJango]

Wow!! That is a BEAST close. 155# is no joke. You should post the video, Bro. You know you touched the grips, and I would love to see you crushing it up to the point your camera dies. That's just me, man. Congratulations on crushing your GG!

[jvance]

Good job, closing a gripper that is above your BW is an extremely elite feat. Only a handful have done it.

[Evan Raftopoulos]

good job closing the 155! look forward to seeing the video

Wow!! That is a BEAST close. 155# is no joke. You should post the video, Bro. You know you touched the grips, and I would love to see you crushing it up to the point your camera dies. That's just me, man. Congratulations on crushing your GG!

Good job, closing a gripper that is above your BW is an extremely elite feat. Only a handful have done it.

thanks guys, I'll post the vid later when I get home. I'll do a few more attempts today too!

I feel I'm getting closer to MM1 but until I can close grippers in the high 150s consistently I'm not gonna go for it.

[Evan Raftopoulos]

didn't do much today, only some work with the orbigrip with ironbull t grip 3", a few attempts with the RB 260, and wrist developer orange spring pulling with the L in between sets (only up to 2-3 or 3-2 to warm up for setting the gripper)

I didn't close it, this is the best I could do, you can't see my set very well but I can only do parallel or wider with this gripper, I think I lack the strength to set it deeper

this is from yesterday when my phone stopped recording

Edited September 10, 2015 by Evan Raftopoulos

[Evan Raftopoulos]

Next week I'll be flying to Cyprus to visit family for about 3 weeks. I'm not sure if I'll have regular access to a gym there so I'm preparing to train grippers exclusively for 3 weeks. Hopefully this will get me closer to MM1.

grippers I'm planning on taking with me

coc 1 filed 88 lb (great for warm ups)

CoC2

CoC 2.5

CoC 3

RB 260

MM2 rep, 156 lb (got this from EJ, this is just a bit harder than the MM1 according to him)

GM hybrid 159 lb

Edited September 10, 2015 by Evan Raftopoulos

[Jüri Sankman]

Good job on your RB, great progress! Hope you will have a great time there and come back stronger!

J.

[Tom Scibelli]

Next week I'll be flying to Cyprus to visit family for about 3 weeks. I'm not sure if I'll have regular access to a gym there so I'm preparing to train grippers exclusively for 3 weeks. Hopefully this will get me closer to MM1.

grippers I'm planning on taking with me

coc 1 filed 88 lb (great for warm ups)

CoC2

CoC 2.5

CoC 3

RB 260

MM2 rep, 156 lb (got this from EJ, this is just a bit harder than the MM1 according to him)

GM hybrid 159 lb

Evan, while you're in Cyprus you should and meet up with Clint Darden, he's got an awesome gym there.

[Evan Raftopoulos]

today I did bouldering and campus board training for about an hour, attempted 2 V6s but didn't finish them. I ended my training with ~12 muscle ups.

I tried closing some grippers when I got home but today I was a bad day for grippers, not worth posting

Good job on your RB, great progress! Hope you will have a great time there and come back stronger!

J.

thanks brother, I'm excited to change my workout routine a bit and see what happens. I think I'll be taking some days off as well. I've been training every day since mid June I believe. I've been so addicted to grip training it will be difficult for me!

Next week I'll be flying to Cyprus to visit family for about 3 weeks. I'm not sure if I'll have regular access to a gym there so I'm preparing to train grippers exclusively for 3 weeks. Hopefully this will get me closer to MM1.

grippers I'm planning on taking with me

coc 1 filed 88 lb (great for warm ups)
CoC2
CoC 2.5
CoC 3
RB 260
MM2 rep, 156 lb (got this from EJ, this is just a bit harder than the MM1 according to him)
GM hybrid 159 lb

Evan, while you're in Cyprus you should and meet up with Clint Darden, he's got an awesome gym there.

thanks Tom, I will! One of my friends trained there with him, he posted this vid a while back