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As the title says

Today I tried to hang from a bar for two minutes to win a huge prize at the fair. I estimate the diameter of the bar was about 1.5”. At my current weight of 210 lbs, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I was right: I only managed to hang for a minute and fifteen seconds. I didn’t have chalk and I trained thick bar last night, but even in ideal conditions I think I would struggle to hold on for more than a minute and a half. The first minute felt fine, but then my left hand grip started to slip just slightly. Once that happened, I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. Though I was disappointed with my performance, I enjoyed the challenge and will likely try it again next year.

My first workout with BeefBuilder World Class at 285 pounds. Attempt to set in parallel and hold in this position:

What I gather about this thread is: 1. People who have difficulty with the set or refuse to learn how to set, complain that it's not fair for a variety of reasons and discount its legitimacy. 2. People who cant TNS or refuse to practice TNS, complain it's not fair for a variety of reasons and discount its legitimacy. But either way, the Gripmas TNS event will remain. This has been a fascinating study. Tank, I applaud you for trying something new, that is admirable. You will run a great event.

The most important factor in TNS is the kind of table used. Has to be a regulation TNS table.

Axle DoH 75x5 115x3 155x2 185x1 190x0 170x1 155x5 115x5 thumbless Bench 20x10 40x10 60x10 80x10 100x9 100x8 100x6 100x7 100x7 Rolling thunder 30x10 45x5 65x2 75x1 Loadingbag 125kg to chest Natural Stone 120kg to chest (rip forearmskin) Atlas Stone 90kg to chest Biceps/triceps rehab

I'll still recovering but its my birthday so I feel like trash talking about grippers since this debate started......................If I was healthy, it wouldn't matter what set we used for grippers or how we tested crush (hand dyno etc.,)..............................as larry bird said in the locker room prior to the 1987 NBA 3 point shootout 'I hope all you guys in here are thinking about second place, because I’m winning this.' 😝

This is the most cards I've been able to tear at once. I eyed out the half deck and it ended up being 29. Someday I'd like to be able to tear 3 full decks unbraced but that's pretty far away since once the width gets up there, every additional card makes a difference. I've torn 2 decks of this brand in about 6 seconds but that extra 29 cards made this one a heck of a fight! Tear starts at around 0:33

PR for me on the Thumbless axle. I have trained very smart after my latest back injury in January- I thought I was done ever using this great piece of equipment. I know its not WC like Adam Glass and other beasts but still very proud of this.

next time I’ll do inch rows first and see how many I can get

Carl, we had a conversation about this once at one of the contests we were in together. This is absolutely remarkable. This level of sustained strength for this many years is more impressive to me than the guys who burst onto the screen with ridiculous strength and are then gone quicker than they came. Congrats to you.

8/13/19 GG a tad bit creative:) this A.M. here is 12lb stamped (13.4) sledgehammer rows with coin x 3

08/18/2019 Grippers Training https://youtu.be/W59oLzyJw7w

Bench 50x12 70x10 90x7 115x15 PR!

I'd say one hand go for the BSS trilobite. Modular handles and you can swap out for 2", 2.5", or 3". I've heard nothing but good things, and hear that it is the spinniest handle out there. Two handed I'd recommend the AASS Napalm's Nightmare, again for the ability to swap out different handles (including pinch blocks!), making it a extremely functional 2H device. As an aside, I love the 2H NN for pinch work because I get to train both hands at once (but that's just my opinion).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqoMG3RAsTk Back when I played with grippers

Bench 50x10 70x8 90x8 110x5 130x8 PR! Pauses 117.5x8 PR! Hammer Curls 58 Pound Thick Handle Right x5 Left x5 85 Pound Dumbbell Right x8 Left x8

Independently. The weaker hand will most likely never catch up. Attempting to 'let it' catch up will severly hinder your progress on your stronger hand. There is basically no reason for why they should be balanced either.

Whoa. Whoa. Im married bro.

Honestly, at the rate I’m progressing, I may just show up, win the gripper event, take some shots and walk out 😜

Well said, Chris! If I ever host another grip contest I have seriously been thinking about a 2 finger TNS gripper event. Index and middle fingers. It's awkward. But it would be interesting to see what gripper would win the contest. Of course it depends on who shows up. Another obvious thing that any experienced gripper guy knows is you choose the narrower gripper for TNS attempts if it's near or even a few pounds heavier than the normal spread gripper of similar poundage.

People around here only seem to care the most about grippers, which are the most boring out of all IMO and the least carryover to anything else but grippers . Blows my mind as well how many awesome things some guys post with not much love for them such as @AdamTGlass @Kluv#0 and @Mike Rinderle who post regularly some pretty awesome feats..... oh well, I just post for a record of things I do for others for motivation and ideas.

This happens often with many guys, they get frustrated and give up trying to set (looking at you Vin haha) but if you really want to go far (maximize your potential) you have to keep practicing and stick with it until it feels natural and automatic. It’s like taking one step back to take several forward. Even after years of closing grippers, if I stop practicing MMS, my set gets funky. I had to struggle for a while for it to feel so natural I didn’t even have to think while doing it. And by practicing mms your wide set goes up also so it’s a win win. Sometimes I just need to practice wide set for a cert or comp for a couple weeks prior but mms is the fastest way to increase crush strength

Climber511. What a guy. Posting on the Forum on the morning of his 71st Birthday. Happy Birthday!!!😎👍

Pic of the Thumbless pull:)

It would be interesting to see what some of the world class rock climbers could do - especially at their light body weights.

https://www.trainingbeta.com/the-simplest-finger-training-program/?fbclid=IwAR2A-u6SlZ4AhZ_4bGvY519w50ka36odS0hoBg5a0ueRaQI5ZUBua6BcGdQ Nothing groundbreaking but might be new to some and at least interesting to others. The long duration work might be new to many.

I don't have the AASS one handle nightmare, but I have the other four and I would rank them exactly the same. I pull about the same on the FBBC crusher and trilobite as well. I do have the Country Crush but for some reason I just don't like it. It's well made, but i rarely use it. My favorite one to use is the FBBC crusher. It feels really good in my hand.

Squat: 60x5 100x5 130x5 150x4 170x3 190x3 200x3 200x3 200x6 @10 PR Bench 20x10 60x5 80x5 100x11 PR 100x10 100x9 120x3 tpb Axle doh 75x5 115x5 155x8 PR 155x5 155x4 Platepinch 2 20kg first time i tried and managed to do it with my right. Unfortunately didnt capture it 😕

I don't think you can really compare normal pinch and blobs. Blobs are very wide and have slopes that make them a lot more difficult than other pinching. Texture can be a huge factor too as others have mentioned. Best comparison would be wide pinch exercises but even those are very different lifts. Pinching 5 10's (or 5kg's) would be close width-wise but still wouldn't have those awkward curved slopes that blobs have.

Just started doing Middle Finger Pullups. I started out with a mixed grip then went to palms up. Was able to get a pause at the top on a couple.

I have been thinking about how to tell this story for years, and always end up putting it on the back-burner, due to its complexity and not wanting to face reality, that this journey is near-complete, and with it, the end of a huge chapter of my life. Getting into the final year, the time is now, I guess. Onward ... After my Red Nail certification in August, 2010, I was trying to think of something unique, in that I could do long-term, that no one else had ever done. From the beginning, when I started bending steel, I wanted to become one of the best all-around benders in the world and sustain this over (at the time) at least 5 years (which of course, turned out to be 10+ years). After my Red cert, I decided to undertake a personal challenge: to bend an Ironmind Red Nail, under official cert. conditions, every 7-10 days, for as long as I could sustain it. I do not have my old log from Benders Battlefield in its entirely, but kept notes from the first few years. Years 1-3 were typically done once per-week. I did a bunch of other bends (cut-Reds for certs etc.) that I did not include as part of this challenge in the overall count. Also, there were a lot of days that I bent 2-3 Reds in the same session. These were not included; just the Red bend for that week. The first few years were easy, in retrospect, especially as I compare those years to the past few years' attempts. During those first few years, Reds were usually the easiest of 2-3 "challenge bars" I would do during weekly sessions. It wasn't until I hit 40 years old around 2014 that things started to hurt more and these weekly/bi-weekly sessions became much more challenging. There were several instances where I thought about stopping, but kept going. When I hit 5 years, I told myself that I would keep doing this as long as I was physically able, and set my sights on 10 years. I have told a few people over the years about the 10 year Red challenge, but never officially posted or wrote about it in detail until now. As I type this, I am at 9 years of bending a Ironmind Red Nail every 1-2 weeks, nonstop. This was through a lot of challenges, aside from the obvious. A few of the major things I encountered that almost derailed things were: Birth of my first son, where I stayed in the hospital for multiple days, with little sleep and no one really making it easy to bend in the hospital (had to hide everything). When I made the actual attempt, it was on a few hours of sleep, just a few seconds before the nurse came into the room. She definitely would not have been happy if she walked in when I was bending the Red at this time. PRK eye surgery - I planned my bends around my surgery date, to give myself about 12 days after the surgery to bend the Red. Kidney stone surgery (invasive) - This one was tough. They told me I could resume light training after 4-5 days, and then "normal" activities after 10 days. I just figured bending was not "normal" so didn't bother even trying to explain to the doctor. Multiple injuries - After turning 40, things started to break down a lot more frequently. I haven't really changed too much in training, but aches and pains have been nonstop for the past 5 years; especially the past 1-2 years. KTA/RRBT - I did both of these programs multiple times and had great As gains with grippers. My hands were destroyed for the better part of a year, which really made bending tough, but did not stop it. As I worked through week-after-week, and month-after-month of bends, I began thinking about the gravity of this endeavor; mainly, that if I would stop, it would be over for good. It took me over a year of dedicated training to cert. the Red back when I was in my mid-30s, in much better shape and condition. After 40, I was fully aware of some of my newfound limitations, and the reality, if I would stop bending Reds, it would likely be over for good. And I wasn't willing to give this up just yet. Bending, and by extension the Red Nail, were so intertwined into my personality, identity, and weekly routine, that I have been fighting to keep this going as long as possible. At 9 years, the end is in sight. And that is partly why I am writing this now. This is probably a little too much rambling, and I might go back and fine-tune it a little later on, but I know the last year is going to be a challenge and I am hoping to use the board as a platform for accountability, and more importantly, motivation. As such, I will post updates here in this thread over the next year, and hopefully, wrap it up after 10 years of continuous, bi-weekly Red Nail bends. In the picture below are most of the Reds during this streak. I counted 292 Red Nails. As mentioned above, this does not include all of the nails, including some of the shorter (5.5") Reds and the official cert. nail, which are in the "big bend" box. It kinda makes me sad typing this up, as I know that this cannot go on forever. It;s been such a huge part of my life for so long, that I cannot remember when I wasn't bending. And wasn't waiting for the weekly/bi-weekly Red Nail bend to keep it going.

Friday Benched today as we did (mainly her) a zip wire thing yesterday. Close Grip Bench Press to 140-kilos x 1 and then 3 x 3 reps Mid-Iso Row to 80-kilos a side x 6 reps @ Rolling Thunder to 127.5-kilos x 1 and then 3 x 3 reps BH Bwt: 294lbs

I like to train both my hands fairly equally on all my single hand lifts (rolling handles, pinch blocks, hubs, grippers). I always do my weak hand first an every attempt. Even if it’s failed the previous weight. I always try to keep it close in strength to my strong hand. If I’m not going for a PR or training for a comp I usually train to my weak hand. This approach helps keep my body in balance and also helps improve my two hand lifts (axle and saxon bar) without lifting on them directly.

My lefty is almost healed now, I've been smashing the glycine and vitamin C over the last week and it seems to have helped a lot. There's no pain there now but I decided to give it another few days before I start squeezing grippers with it to be sure and just squeezed an egg to get a bit of blood flowing in there today. Right hand grippers Warmup - CoC #1 - 3 reps, CoC #1.5 - 2, GHP4 -1 Training Coc #2 - 7 second hold x 3, CoC # 2.5 - 7 second hold x 2, CoC #2 - 3 reps. I'm making a bit of progress and got the #2.5 to about 3 or 4mm from a full close. All from a wide set. Hindu squats and extensor bands between working sets Laddered back down through the lighter grippers not maxing out. I still felt fresh so I tried a few narrow sets with the #2.5 and just missed so I'm moving in the right direction but I'm not strong enough to crush it yet.

Joe Sullivan officially added to the legends class list as of last night.

You mean like this....... nothing special outside of regular staples of grip like grippers, thick bar and pinch.

8/15/19 Suitcase DL 255lb (no hook grip)on Rogue 2.0 that has no center knurling. I had not gone this heavy since last August when I did 276 lb. Lift felt good as you can tell by my reaction.

Haha. Good one

Not so fast buckaroo 🤪

Brb, going to cut up a bench shirt and sew up a gripper glove to add 20lbs to my max close. Equipped gripper competitions are gonna be a hoot

Silverbullet #3 35 PB - 9 - 8 - 27 #2 15 hold 15 rest 3 holds then my arm was done completely!

For me, not particularly. I also feel vertical lifts are way more technical than thick bar. On multiple occasions I've failed far from PR lifts on something thick bar and in frustration gone on to PR on an anvil lift in the same session. But maybe it's different for others

I can't believe no-one's commented on this. I saw this vid this morning and had a go with my anvil which is about that size, I couldn't even get it off the ground once, I just scraped it on the concrete and didn't even get the bastard hovering.

Precisely like that! I would say it is initially more powerful the lower it is, but towards the end you run out rom in you finger joint and enter an angle where they are very weak and so the end becomes extremely difficult. The higher up it is the strong rom of the fingers is bigger. Here is a Teemu video example by the way:

Rowing a pair of 45s

I didnt really believe when people said fatbar training ruins grippers, well I'm a believer. Could just precisely close #3 once with my right. Then #3.5 2 seconds sb and like 3 tries more before I gave up and did 5 seconds with #3. Completely fried forearms. Well well!

I am in Charleston for vacation and stopped by Brett Bracken’s gym. We bent and snapped. He is strong and did a great Steel Shredder 5 attempt. I snapped a Grade 8 Bolt in a neck bridge. First time doing this. Brett has done a lot of real long bars DO, 10” and 12” bars. I had never tried that. I did a 10” x 3/8 spike DO. Very awkward but fun to do. I have a cut on my belly from the bridge snap. My shirt fell forward and when the bar snapped the jagged edge cut my skin. Tuck the shirt in next time!