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Do Big Arms Matter?


Aftershock

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Well, i have had my fair share of armwrestles, and most of them are from asking people i have never seen before. Of course I check to see if they would give me a challenge, and to my surprise some dudes with huge arms were some of the easiest ive ever beaten. I am a body weight trainer and i use the IM's in my grip workout so my arms are not huge mounds of muscle. All of those dudes were weightlifters and had a bench of around 300 and deadlifts of 400 and yet i can still thrash them. So i have come to the conclusion that weights and having huge arms doesn't make you a star armwrestler. And yes there are exceptions. What do you all think?

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it dont matter how big your arms are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! armwrestling is tendon strength.

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I think big arms are the general rule and small arms are the exeption.

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Large arms are not required in order to be a successful armwrestler. On the world level many armwrestlers do, infact, have large arms, but that's a given. Armwrestling is a specialized sport with a specialized set of movements. Strength is needed to perform technique, however not all strength correlates into size. The dynamic movement of the biceps contracting is not often used in armwrestling, and subsequently bicep size has little bearing success at the table. Larger muscles do provide a larger base for your tendons, however, so size can sometimes be indicative of potential, but that's really dependant on a myriad of other factors.

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I think big arms are the general rule and small arms are the exeption.

Much more realistic. I hate the term "tendon strength", btw. You need BOTH strong tendons and strong muscles, not just one or the other. ANd frankly, if you are training for strength you will have both.

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Taras' arms look bigger than Brzenk's and John manhandled him in their last supermatch.

Marcio B. and Vovoeda have some MONSTER arms they're two of the best in the world

Lee Priest probably has bigger biceps and forearms than 90% of the elite AWs out there and he would get smoked if he pulled a world class puller of a comparable weight.

Too many other factors to know for sure.

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Taras' arms look bigger than Brzenk's and John manhandled him in their last supermatch.

Marcio B. and Vovoeda have some MONSTER arms they're two of the best in the world

Lee Priest probably has bigger biceps and forearms than 90% of the elite AWs out there and he would get smoked if he pulled a world class puller of a comparable weight.

Too many other factors to know for sure.

Hah Lee Priest would get smoked by a world class puller of any weight above 140lbs

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Taras' arms look bigger than Brzenk's and John manhandled him in their last supermatch.

Marcio B. and Vovoeda have some MONSTER arms they're two of the best in the world

Lee Priest probably has bigger biceps and forearms than 90% of the elite AWs out there and he would get smoked if he pulled a world class puller of a comparable weight.

Too many other factors to know for sure.

Hah Lee Priest would get smoked by a world class puller of any weight above 140lbs

Lee Priest would get smoked by an average puller of any weight class :whistel

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My pulling partner pulled Breznk in Colorado and he said it was like pulling a piece of machinery. At the end of the tournament they had a pull for $ 1000 cash that were he pulled him in the final's. I think it was a show up fee for John.

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My pulling partner pulled Breznk in Colorado and he said it was like pulling a piece of machinery. At the end of the tournament they had a pull for $ 1000 cash that were he pulled him in the final's. I think it was a show up fee for John.

I read on the Northeast board somewhere, that this guy who pulled Brzenk described it as tying a rope to a building and pulling on it.

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I'd just like to add that there is no such thing as tendon strength in the way people use it. Tendons don't contract therefore having strong tendons doesn't make you strong. Having strongly contracting muscles makes you strong and tendons just connect muscle to bone.

I'm not sure what you guys mean by tendon strength but i can only guess you refer to sinewy, low volume muscle with a relative high strength.

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I'd just like to add that there is no such thing as tendon strength in the way people use it. Tendons don't contract therefore having strong tendons doesn't make you strong. Having strongly contracting muscles makes you strong and tendons just connect muscle to bone.

I'm not sure what you guys mean by tendon strength but i can only guess you refer to sinewy, low volume muscle with a relative high strength.

What I mean when I refer to the strength of tendons is the ability of a tendon to keep from tearing the muscle from bone. To me it's a safety thing. If your tendons are strong, your muscles are able to do more with the forces imposed on them, b/c you don't have to fear hurting yourself as much.

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I'd just like to add that there is no such thing as tendon strength in the way people use it. Tendons don't contract therefore having strong tendons doesn't make you strong. Having strongly contracting muscles makes you strong and tendons just connect muscle to bone.

I'm not sure what you guys mean by tendon strength but i can only guess you refer to sinewy, low volume muscle with a relative high strength.

This is what I get from the term "Tendon Strength" (correct me if I am wrong).

The amount of force your muscles will be able to generate depends on your tendons. In an unusual range of motion such as armwrestling the tendons are not built up to take the kind of load the muscles are capable of putting on the arm. If the tendons can only withstand a 5lb curl, then you will not be able to curl 7lbs (even though your muscles could easily handle that weight) because the muscles cannot pull their hardest due to the tendons limiting their ability.

So in armwrestling's unusual range of motion if your tendons are not strong enough you will not be able to pull your hardest. While some people may be really strong (but they haven't worked tendons) their tendons limit their ability to pull resulting in a loss to a smaller weaker person (who has trained tendons) whose tendons allow their muscles to pull at their full capacity.

Again this is just what I think of the term "Tendon Strength", correct me if I am wrong.

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I've been curious about "tendon strength" as well. There was an interesting thread over at the Northeast board about how several armwrestlers could barely throw a ball now because there tendons were so tight. There were some exceptions but most of the guys were saying it caused them a ton of pain and some were even saying they had to throw underhand. If someone can expand on this...please do

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I agree with you there Ivar, basically all you need is the strength in the muscle and the tendons to support the force given by the muscle. So it is not only the tendon strength or only the muscle strength, its both.

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And the ice to cure the tendonitis! :cool

If you work toward balance, and work smart, you won't get tendonitis in the first place. :)

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The various arcane force vectors that press on your static lock in an armwrestle will slowly strengthen your tendons. "Tendon strength" is usually used synonymously with having a strong static lockout, not with dynamic strength.

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And one must do heavy negatives to build tendon strength ? This is what i read from Arnold Swartzanegre article.

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And one must do heavy negatives to build tendon strength ? This is what i read from Arnold Swartzanegre article.

That is one way, but might be a better builder of muscle. Another is way is lockouts in a given exercise. Another is isometrics, as already listed. Isometrics, personally, I believe are the safest way to train for tendon strength.

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  • 2 months later...

Tendon Strength: The tendon ties the muscle to bone, but the tendon also has a series of receptors that measure how much force is being placed on them. It’s a safety mechanism to prevent your body from tearing a muscle. The tendon is more sensitive to this pressure and potential damage, so the tendon will tell your brain what’s the max force that you can put on the muscle-tendon group. It’s why you’ll strain and pop tendons before you tear a muscle. A safety valve. Muscle damage occurs when the tendons are strong and the muscle is put in a bad position, like the extended leg and a ham-string pull, or an extended arm and a dead-lift bicep tare, or the bottom position on the bench and a pec tear.

Your max strength is dictated by this tendon strength and the corresponding pressure sensor, so having naturally strong tendons allows you a greater potential for muscular strength. Also, tendons grow in strength, but at a speed considerably slower than muscle. I don’t know the real numbers, but it’s something like 1/3 of the muscles speed.

To develop tendon speed, there are two schools of thought. The first is to train heavy lock outs, where the muscle is at its strongest, so the tendon can be stimulated with a weight greater than you are capable of normally handling through a full ROM. The other school is based on a study showing that tendons strengthened at a rate based off of total weight lifted and the combined total of the stimulation. That is, doing a 3x3 heavy work out, and doing some 40x10 pumping work out both provide the same stimulation in the end. In the end, the heavy work draws in more of the supporting musculature, while the light work focused on the single muscle group being worked, so my vote goes for a few heavy lock outs to build the tendon.

As it applies to Arm Wrestling… I’m an absolute armature, but from a scientific point of view, lift heavy, and spend as much time pulling on the table as you can, then eat healthy and sleep well. It all comes with time.

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Very good post, Bender! Thanks.

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