2017 November - Old School Grip Contest- Dan Cenidoza

[Dan Cenidoza]

The first annual Old School Grip Contest was a huge success! We had 14 competitors in two divisions, many of whom were competing in their first strength competition. This was exactly one of my goals in promoting this contest, was that we introduce our community to fun and exciting world of Grip Sport.

Grip is fun because its a non-intimidating style of training that anyone, young or old, can get involved in; and it's exciting because it can get really intense and when you have strong hands you can do some pretty awesome things.

I competed in grip throughout the mid-2000's and one of my favorite things about it was the camaraderie it fostered. It's such a small, tight nit community and we all just had fun as we trained hard, competed and fed off of each others energy.

And proof that that camaraderie is still alive, the first person to sponsor the contest was my old friend Clay Edgin of Santa Cruz Strength, who I competed with at the Global Grip Challenge in 2004. I didn't even have to ask for sponsorship, he offered. Our other sponsors included Renewed Strength, LLC - Personal Training Studio, Grapple Academy, Baltimore Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Rule 7 Meal Prep company and Maizels Training Hall. Thank you again to all of you!

Back to the contest... we had 6 events:
2-hand gripper
Sledge levering
Rope hang
York Blob lift
Anvil lift
1-hand deadlift

The events were uniquely selected to test crush, wrist, relative, pinch, all-around and supporting strength, respectively. The idea was also to use a mix of implements that were classic training tools that everyone had access to, or vintage pieces that no one had access to, thus requiring you to be creative in your training and/or just plain strong all around.

The highlight of the contest was our special guest judge, none other than Slim "The Hammerman" Farman. It was an honor to have him at the gym and there's nobody in the world more familiar with sledge levering or better equipped to judge the event. I think it made him proud to see several generations of people following in his footsteps.

I know most people from Baltimore Kettlebell Club are only vaguely familiar with Grip Sport or Slim The Hammerman by what you've seen lying around the gym or hanging in my office, well I'm glad people got to witness some more of it up close and personal this weekend.

Besides the fun and excitement, there are very practical reasons to train your grip. First of all, you're only as strong as your weakest link. Strengthen your hands and you will in turn strengthen your entire body.

Plus many of the things that you encounter in real life outside of the gym require strong hands. From opening pickle jars to breaking loose rusted bolts, you need grip strength.

And grip strength lasts too. We all know that old man that's got a vise-like grip because he turned wrenches, swung a hammer or laid brick all his life. When you shake that mans hand you know he's got vitality left in him. Just like Slim...

I hope this contest encourages and inspires people to train their grip as more than just an after-thought. To help with that, I'm going to change this month's Community Kettlebell to a Community Kettlebell - Grip Training event, where we'll introduce a couple of the foundational grip exercises and cover how to train them (sets, reps, frequency, load, etc.) Join us on Thursday, Nov. 30 at 6pm for a $10 drop in (included in membership).

Stronger than yesterday,
-Dan Cenidoza

 

 

[JHenze646]

Sweet contest and great looking trophies. Hopefully I can make the next contest.

[lder]

This write-up is a little late, but better late than never.

I had been to the host facility (Baltimore Kettlebell Club) before and knew the layout and equipment but other than that I did not know what to expect, this was my first grip contest.  Dan Cenidoza hosted two “training” days leading up to the contest so that competitors could get their hands on the equipment and get a feel for the starting and top end weights on the 6 different events.  On the day of the event the events were explained well before we started and were set up and also judged fairly.  There was not a lot of down time between each attempt but no one was rushed in their attempts either.  Overall I had a great time, set some new PR’s and plan to do it again next year. 

One other thing that Dan did not mention in his write-up was how he set the order of the competitors.  He competed in the open division and placed himself as the first competitor in each event.  Everyone else was place in the order that they signed up.  This was to his disadvantage.  Only the single hand deadlift was a rising bar event where the order did not matter, the other five events were point based, Dan put his number up and every other competitor knew what they had to beat.  Dan got edged out by 5 or so pounds in the two hand gripper event, a few seconds in the rope hang and was beat by a next gen blob clean in the blob event.  This was easily a two to five point swing overall against him.  Based on the points and events Dan would have easily won if he did not start each event.  This was a very humble and generous thing to do as the host.

The hand bent trophies and certificates were nice also.  Overall it was a great event! 

John F.