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2017 June - NAGS Championship - Eric Roussin


Eric Roussin

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A great grip contest took place in Nashville yesterday: the 2017 North American Grip Sport Championships. This was the fourth NAGS Championship that I attended over the past five years. Though the mix of competitors changes a bit each time, one thing remains the same: the level of competition is always high.

There were four events this year, rather than the usual number of five, but I think the formula of the three core events (one crush strength event, one pinch event, and one thick bar event) plus a medley might just be the winning combination.

Grippers were up first, and I think I can safely say that most people found the grip event to be the most difficult. For whatever reason, most struggled to close the grippers that they expected to close. I know I was one of them. In recent training I had been doing well – I managed to set a PR about a month ago with a parallel set close of a 163 gripper. I figured if I was well rested for the comp, a 160 close with my right hand would be achievable. I was wrong. I tried to open with the 150 gripper, expecting to close it without much effort, but I couldn’t quite get it. I realized my set wasn’t quite perfect, and tried the same gripper again on my second attempts. Once more, I could not close it. On my third attempt I dropped to 145 and was successful. So I moved back to 150 for my last attempt, but failed yet again.

For the left hand, I started at 125 (I think) and closed it easily. I injured my left index about a year ago and it hasn’t fully recovered. Luckily my pinch and thick bar weren’t affected, but shutting grippers hurts. So I knew I’d likely only be able to close a gripper about 20 lbs lighter than I could close with my right. Before my second attempt, something caught my eye. I noticed that Aaron Corcorran was placing the gripper with the dog leg against the finger side rather than against the thumb side. I asked him about this, because I had always assumed that it was best to place the dog leg against the thumb side. He told me that it felt better and he felt it lowered the likelihood that the gripper would slide out of his set. I decided to try and see how it felt – AND IT FELT GREAT! I don’t know if I’m late to the party with this knowledge, but I felt it made a significant difference. I was successful with my second and third attempts, and went for 145 on my last attempt. Going in I thought a 145 close was possible for me, but not probable. I did not shut it, but I was close. So after the first event, I was satisfied with my left hand result, but disappointed with my right hand result.

Two-hand pinch was up next. I’d been doing well in training, but I expected to not hit my top training numbers simply because I knew the contest Euro was not as seasoned as mine – and this makes a difference. I was hoping to get close to 220 lbs, but came up short. I lifted 201 on my second attempt, but was a bit too aggressive on my next jump to 213. So after two events, I wasn’t extremely pleased, but I can’t say I was very disappointed.

On to the axle. For this event, I expected to lift north of 400 lbs, but I wasn’t sure how much more. In Russia three weeks ago I was successful at 407, but failed at 422. And I wasn’t sure where I’d be at in Nashville because it’s hard to peak for events in close succession. But I’m happy to report that I was successful in lifting 413 lbs.

Finally, the medley. I love medleys because of the various strategies that can come into play. For this medley, the items were announced prior to the competition, so you knew what to expect. There were ten different types of feats, with an “easy”, “average”, and “hard” option for each. (I use these terms loosely). Each successful “easy” lift was worth 2 points, each “average” was worth 3, and each “hard” was worth 4. You could try as many of the options as you wanted (time permitting), and you would be credited for the most difficult option that was successfully completed. Now, for some of these, for me the choice was clear. For example, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do the 55-lb plate hub lift (hard), but I was positive I could do the 35-lb plate hub lift (average). In these situations, I knew I’d get the maximum number of points for me (in this case 3) and not waste any time. It was harder for situations where I thought I might be able to complete a feat at a certain level, but I might not. For me, there were several feats in this category. For example, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to lift 160 with the tips tester with one hand or 90 on the flask with one hand (both “hard” options). I’ve been able to lift these weights in training, but it was certainly near my limit. I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it in a medley setting at the end of a long day. So what to do? Try the hard options, and if I fail, try the “average” options? If I had more time, this is what I would have done in all of these cases, but in 60 seconds, you just don’t have the time to do this many times. So I had to pick which options to attempt. In the end, I earned 28 points, out of a maximum possible 40 points.

I really think being conservative can pay huge dividends in this type of medley. You want to be sure to minimize the amount of no-scores. Getting zero points for a feat can really affect your overall score. 2 points may not be 4, but it’s definitely better than 0. If you decided to just do all of the “average” feats, rather than attempt the “hard” ones, you would have earned 30 points, which would have been good for third or fourth overall. Then, if any time was left, you could try some of the “hard” options for which you were more confident. I only had one no-score – it was the anvil. I lifted the hard option just before the medley, and was surprised when it didn’t come up when it counted. And I didn’t have time to try the “average” option. I wasn’t thrilled with my medley performance, but it wasn’t too bad.

In the end, I secured enough points to win my first North American title. But the victory was bittersweet. Going into the contest, I knew Gil would be very difficult to beat. I expected we’d be close on pinch and axle, but I knew his crush strength was significantly better than mine. I figured beating him would require a great medley performance on my part, and a mediocre performance on his part (which was unlikely). But the grippers were so unexpectedly stiff that he bombed out on his four right hand gripper attempts. So I knew right then that I would likely win the class, unless I scratched on an event. Gil actually considered dropping out of the contest after grippers, to conserve his strength for SJ4. But I’m glad he decided to stay in. The bright side of the story is that he hit contest PRs in both the two-hand pinch and the axle!

A few stray observations:

I was very impressed by Aaron’s performance in the two-hand pinch. I think he successfully lifted 253 lbs on his third attempt. With an apparatus that was not as seasoned as most, I thought this was a very impressive number.

Phil Khoshaba and Tanner Merkle are freaks. At weights of under 83 kg, they put up numbers that rivaled or beat the biggest and most experienced competitors. Phil had one of the top right hand gripper closes, and Tanner absolutely demolished the medley! Both have great futures ahead of them in grip sport!

I’m pretty sure Tanner is the lightest competitor ever to win the overall NAGS Championship title (without adjustment for bodyweight). Incredible!

Another fun NAGS Championship with a great bunch of people. A great job done by Gil and Maria! Looking forward to next year!

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Great write-up Eric!  And darned quick too. :) 

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On 6/5/2017 at 10:39 AM, Eric Roussin said:

 

I’m pretty sure Tanner is the lightest competitor ever to win the overall NAGS Championship title (without adjustment for bodyweight). Incredible!

 

In all fairness I suspect that was an artifact of the unusual scoring of the medley. It was scored as if the 'heavy' version of an event was literally twice as heavy as the 'light'. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think that was quite the case (as in a 150k axle vs a 75k).

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In almost all of the cases, the hard item was at least twice as heavy or twice as difficult as the light item. The list of items is posted in the original contest thread.

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7 hours ago, Mikael Siversson said:

In all fairness I suspect that was an artifact of the unusual scoring of the medley. It was scored as if the 'heavy' version of an event was literally twice as heavy as the 'light'. Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think that was quite the case (as in a 150k axle vs a 75k).

Light items were worth 2pts, medium 3pts, and heavy 4pts. So for example, the light block weight was a 22lbs blob, the medium was a 45lbs blob, and the heavy was a 54lbs blob. The light mammoth coin pinch was 25lbs, the medium 40lbs, and the heavy 50lbs. I could keep going on, but you get the point: the heavy version of the event was actually twice as heavy. We structured it like this for two reasons:1.) to get around the fact that medleys are given way too much weight in the final score when you use the percentage based scoring and 2.) to make sure that the lighter and newer competitors had something to lift even if it wasn't worth as many points. @Boulderbrew won because he was strong in every event (even grippers when we all got caught off guard by the stiffness of the springs) and absolutely dominated the medley. His medley performance is on Jedd's youtube if you want to see how incredible he did.

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Yes I stand corrected in regards to the scoring being related to the weight. However Tanner's win is, in my view (based on the results in the other events) most likely a result of the big jumps between 'medium' and 'heavy'. Jedd could have been very close but not close enough to lift the 'heavy' version. This does not in itself mean that his strength was only 75% of that of the competitors scoring 4 points. I guess it keeps the interest up in regards to the overall title going into the medley. This is not a discussion of Tanner's strength (he does obviously have an extremely strong grip in almost all areas for his weight) as much as a discussion of scoring systems. Not saying it was a bad system but it can produce somewhat unexpected results (relative to the results in the more 'standard' events).

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25 minutes ago, Mikael Siversson said:

Yes I stand corrected in regards to the scoring being related to the weight. However Tanner's win is, in my view (based on the results in the other events) most likely a result of the big jumps between 'medium' and 'heavy'. Jedd could have been very close but not close enough to lift the 'heavy' version. This does not in itself mean that his strength was only 75% of that of the competitors scoring 4 points. I guess it keeps the interest up in regards to the overall title going into the medley. This is not a discussion of Tanner's strength (he does obviously have an extremely strong grip in almost all areas for his weight) as much as a discussion of scoring systems. Not saying it was a bad system but it can produce somewhat unexpected results (relative to the results in the more 'standard' events).

So what's your preferred scoring system for the competitions you host and attend?

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In the LGC competition we use the same scoring as you did for the single event categories but, as is almost invariably the case in Europe, there is no medley at the end of the competition. I think you would need say five instead of three different levels of difficulty in order to reduce the likelihood of these anomalies. You could argue it should be impossible to be crowned #1 in grip overall in North America if you scored 86k in the 2HP and 160k ish in the axle when the WR is 124k and 230k-ish (with IM rules rather than NAGS rules). Like Tanner I would benefit greatly from the inclusion of a medley as they invariably favor lighter people who often have a smaller discrepancy between left+right one hand pinch lifts and 2hp. In regards to climbers becoming interested in grip while still wanting to continue to climb at a rather competitive level it does bring up some questions. Essentially someone like Tanner is basically a 93k competitor masquerading as a 83k competitor. By his own admission he does not want to train power movements such as the axle as this would make him too heavy for climbing (and move him into the same weight class as guys like Kody with his monster pinch and Gill with his huge axle numbers). If we somehow attracted great climbers (for their weight) of various sizes they would soon dominate the sport if they all adhered to the view of Tanner. Is this really a development we like for the sport? Slender competitors with moderate or even mediocre overall body strength but huge grip strength for their weight. Herman Goerner would turn in his grave. This is one of the reasons I prefer to keep the axle as a regularly occurring event. It forces you to develop at least moderate core and back strength for your weight.

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