King Kong event question

[riccardomagni]

I want to preface this question with the statement that I in no way want to offend anyone.   This is merely a question from someone relatively new at grip.

Having competed both in the 2016 King Kong and also the 2017 World Armlifting Championships,  I have to wonder why we don't use the Excalibur event instead of the 2" VBar.

My best in competition is 243# (VBar) and 209# (Excalibur) respectively.  In both cases, I felt like I could have done 10kg more.  

It seems to me that the full pull of the Excalibur (or a similar device)  is more of an event.  The overload on the bicep would be less because the weight is lower.  The Excalibur would also be easier to judge.  It could also be pulled to a height (like the other events in King Kong).  Most people already have carabiners and loading pins. The only thing that they would need would be a relatively inexpensive handle.

I feel like the same type of strength is tested with both events, but the longer range of motion with the Excalibur (or the FBBC jug or something similar) seems to be a far superior test of strength. 

Any thoughts? 

Riccardo 

[Ivan Pupchenko]

As for me lift by the rules of KK - the exercise for the maximum, shown in a seconds strength, in which rules lead to a minimum difference in growth. And minimize the possibility of biased judging - both to help the athlete, and to prevent him. Straighten according to the rules of the "excalibur" without props discs to the legs is almost impossible. There were a lot of questions to this when this exercise was with the IM v-bar, and nothing particularly changed with the handle on carbine. Judges forced some athletes to stand with weight for a long time, others are immediately given the command to down, some athletes stand leaning forward with smaller weights, while others straighten props discs to their legs and "lifting" more ...

[riccardomagni]

Thanks for the reply.

[Bryan Hunsaker]

I'd be curious what @Andrew P thinks?

It looks like the Jug could be a viable substitute.  I really like the VBAR, but it can be tedious to have to use a full set of different plates, with it, as it only fits the looser metal plates, and can't handle a calibrated plate.  Judging 2" is very subjective too.  Maybe a lockout would be more fair?

[riccardomagni]

At both Odd Haugen 's FIT EXPOs and the World Armlifting Championships,  calibrated plates were used.

Good points...

Riccardo 

[Andrew P]

I didn’t respond right away because for years I’m always being questioned on why events are picked the way they are, and my knee jerk response was “because that’s the event I want to have”. But that’s not appropriate so I’ll give you the reasoning why but it’s going to have to cover all four events to show the logic behind it, or at least my logic and theories. Eric has its own reasons and opinions and we come to an agreement on the lineup every year.

 

Starting with the 2016 events, trust me this will tie back to this year before the end.

 

The 1 hand euro pinch was selected to cover the pinch strength requirement for the contest. My theory was larger handed people would have more surface area and therefore have an advantage here. But after running the contest a few times and getting the data back it was clear that this was not the case and the event ran more hand size neutral. I don’t know if this is because of the nature of pinching or the euro’s adjustable nature to hit the athletes sweet spot.

This event was not without issues as the Euro’s are expensive, heavy and take a significant time investment to run. I think I sunk around $350 into the main euro with all the 25’s I got for it. For These reasons it was decided to switch to the flask this year.

The Crusher was selected to replace the 1 hand axle used the first few years. This event has been running smooth with the lift to height now for a couple of years so I don’t have anything to add on the equipment side but being the thick bar event does have an advantage for larger handed, heavier bodyweight people. The data that’s been collected over the years has verified this.  

The Hub was sort of a wildcard event. Bodyweight and hand size play little effect here and if anything appears to favor the smaller handed athlete. First we started with the Ironmind hub but the variation in the paint from location to location was an issue. In Detroit we have 3 IM hubs all factory but 1 for some reason holds chalk much better and we all can pull 10-15 pounds more on that one over the other 2. The shallow hub solved this problem but then some of you might recall the debate year after year about finger and thumb placement. I’m not debate that here again but needless to say the idea of going through it again just made me sick to my stomach. So when it was proposed to switch to the stub, I was all for it. It fit my requirement of being a body weight and hand size neutral event with a lean towards the smaller athletes.

That brings us to the question about the Vbar. It’s a vertical lift that all the data I have shown it does not matter the size of the athletes. We have a 98kg and 120+kg guy pulling 350# at the top end for example and 74kg athletes pulling 300#. So the way I look at it we are at 1 large event, 1 small event, and 2 Neutral events. If the number of venues and participants are an indication, the format is working.

Jug vs Vbar. I have to come clean and admit that the 2” Vbar is one of my absolute favorite grip events. It has a long history with a well-established record list. It’s something unique to be able to look back 15 years and compare yourself to those guys. For the calibrated plates issue the Adjustable FF Vbar was developed to address this issue specifically. I’ve considered discontinuing the solid version but the demand for the solid is still there. That brings me to the popularity of the event. I move way more vbar’s for each jug at nearly 4X the cost of a jug. This is why I want to see the Vbar stay in the contest.

In the end I look at each contest as an experiment in see what work and what can be improved on. Even the years nothing changed the idea was to see what happened when you don’t mess with the events year to year. Last point to change the V-bar would require 3 new events this year and I didn't want to see that much change and the Euro and Hub where much higher on the need to experiment with list than the V-bar. 

[riccardomagni]

Thanks for the detailed explanation.  I appreciate the time that you took to write it as well as the time you take to organize the contest.