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2018 July - Hands of Doom - Hubgeezer


Hubgeezer

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Hands of Doom: Best Contest, My Worst Results

There was an Armlifting USA contest on July 14 in Sacramento California, Hands of Doom. I received an email from RJ Strossen on July 5 if I was competing or attending. I think he lives about 60 miles away from Sacramento, and I live 175 miles away from there. I started my email with "No, I only started lifting weights again in May, did not lift in the first 4 plus months of 2018, I only started doing grip work at that time as well, but have been doing grippers seriously all along, but no, I don't think I am going". But by the time I finished the email I was "Let me email Riccardo find out about it, and my brother doesn't live too far from the venue, he would probably go, so yeah, I think I will look into it". I did email Riccardo, he told me he was stepping in at the last minute for announcer duty because Clay Edgin was not able to make it. 

Riccardo encouraged me to attend, but I don't think I told him "yep I am in". Got registered, got my USA Armlifting membership and tee shirt from Haugen in short order, and both Dr. Strossen and my brother were committed to attend. It sounded fun. I had not done any deadlifting in close to two years, and never touched two of the implements, but I figured with having had four Hub workouts in the previous month, plus good gripper strength, I would do fine on both on two events. 

The venue. It was actually a gym within a gym in a low rent area. Unmarked building, Costco-high ceiling, probably used to be some sort of warehouse, just a huge box, if you told me it was 20,000 feet I would believe you. Only thing is, the place of the contest was in a much smaller side room within the gym. The fellow whose gym it was, Ben, had an Olympic Weightlifting membership operation, and it was his contest. The huge gym could have been Crossfit, but there were no machines built for wimps, it had a Louis Simmons reverse hyperextension machine, tons of thick climbing ropes, thousands of pounds of plates, etc. But the contest area was not in the jumbo gym, it was in the room at the edge of the building. Someone told me that Ben worked grip work into the routines of the Olympic lifters,  I figure that was probably true, as there were IronMind and MILO posters on the wall, over a dozen grippers hanging on nails, etc. 

Well, if that was true, Ben has some successful students, as there were a number of competitors who did very well with what are normally gadgets only known to those of the Grip Cult. Ben seemed to be early 30s, five foot 10ish, about 220, very muscular, zero body fat. Grip Guys? Clay Edgin competing, me, and Riccardo Magni was the announcer. There were 16 men competing, 5 women. Dozens of friends, relatives, volunteers, etc. in attendance. A very happy bunch I will say. Very accommodating, cheerful, helpful, interested in watching every lift, encouraging contestants, etc. The place just plain had a fantastic upbeat chemistry to it. The ladies were enjoying themselves, knew what they were doing, etc. Riccardo, as emcee, was the best I had ever seen at a contest, this was my 21st contest over the last 14 years that I had competed in, and I have been to lots of strongman and grip contests in LA as a spectator or minor grunt. People were having FUN. Riccardo could explain rules simply, quickly, thoroughly, and with a dash of humor. The judging was great. No nonexistent down signals, no fast down signals, full lockout under control, long hold before a down signal, and no weights being dropped. 

 

The events were 1) Excalibur clone (attachment to a loading pin mimicking a vertical bar), 2) IronMind Hub, 3) Two hand pinch on the Flask (crossbar, not a full lift), 4) DO Apollon's Axle, 5) Silver Bullet hold for time. Scoring was a weighted number as it pertained to the winner of each event, with the top score being 100. Lots of weight classes. Results on the Armlifting website already. 

My results? Been doing the IronMind Hub in contests since 2004. My lowest lift ever, 20% lower than what I did in my garage two weeks earlier. So, awful. Apollon's Axle, been doing in contests since 2005, my lowest lift I ever had. Silver Bullet. Done it in six different Fit Expo contests, my worst one ever, a whopping 1.8 second hold on a Number 3. The two lifts for which I never touched...not bad, can't complain. But, usually I am prepared when I enter a contest. Not this time. 

But for everyone else, yeah, it was wonderful. I wish you could bottle up whatever was present in it and package it, because you would not hear any more "we need to grow the sport", as the growth would just happen automatically. A few tall lean-but muscular Oly lifters pulling numbers most grip guys would be in envy of. Clay Edgin won the contest, but there was a fellow, Joe Mass, who was right behind him every step, even beating him on the Flask. Joe was a bit overweight (as I am right now), but had muscle mass that exceeded grip contest standards. He had a back that Stanless Steel in his prime would have been proud of. Clay held the Number 4 longer than his own World Record, but it was not a right-out-the-package gripper, so it probably will not count. 

 

The Silver Bullet was a trip in that the sequence was by bodyweight (lowest to highest, ladies first). All grippers laid out on a bench. You had one minute. If you picked up a 3.5, couldn't get it on the device, you could grab a 3. If that didn't work, you could grab a 2.5. But the 60 seconds was counting the whole time. Perhaps by the time you got a gripper you could close the handles onto the bullet device, there were only 10 seconds left on the clock. Well, that meant the most your hold would be recorded would be 10 seconds.  There were two men and two women who ran out the clock with zero score by grabbing too heavy a gripper, fiddling with the next level, failing, going down again, and just plain hitting too much hand fatigue. The women were surprisingly aggressive with their gripper picks, starting with a Number 1, then going down from there. No man touched anything harder than a 3 other than Clay. 

Something else... a wheelchair athlete fully participating in a grip contest. They had what looked to be a Universal machine that the implements got clipped onto and he would pull from his wheelchair. Sure, they were pulled sideways, but they were being pulled. He held onto a Number 2 in the Silver Bullet from his wheelchair. He was the Crowd Favorite. 

IronMind had some prizes for some of the athletes. Dr. Strossen left early, about halfway through. It took him 10 minutes to get out because of all the people who wanted their picture taken with him. It was like Hafthor from Game of Thrones was in the house. My brother told me years ago that Randy Strossen was considered by people in the know to be the best Oly Weightlifting photographer in the world.  Period. If you want to know my brother's credentials to say such a thing, ask Joe Roark about it. All I can say is the folks at that gym must have known it, because it was one of the damndest things I ever saw. 

Glad I went. I don't mind getting beaten by a Clay Edgin or a Joe Mass, but getting beat by a couple of Olympic Weightlifters? Oh, that's rough. The 2016 version of Hubgeezer would not have lost to them, and I hope if they hold the contest next year, neither will the 2019 version.

As I was walking out, one of the lady competitors said to me "I really enjoyed watching you compete". Now that was sweet (by "sweet", I don't mean the modern version of the word). Not a word normally used at grip, or for that matter, any strength contest. A nice way to end the day. 

 

Kudos to Ben, Riccardo, IronMind, Armlifting USA and all of the competitors and volunteers who put together something really special. 

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Mike, 

Thank you so much for the kind words.  I had a lot of fun.  After driving 357 miles to get there, I wanted to make sure that everyone else had fun also. 

I hope to see you at King Kong. 

Riccardo 

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Another great write up, Mike!  I think you did exceedingly well, considering your "prep" for the contest.  Did the 2" Excalibur feel pretty similar (poundage-wise) to the FBBC 2" vbar? 

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Awesome write up and you had a good time. We all have our great days and not so great days, although it looks like you did great!! Grip is the most finnicky of strength sports. If the nervous system is not primed that day we will be off. Great job nonetheless big man!!!

Joe

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Thank you, Ben and Joseph for the nice words.

Excalibur versus 2 Inch Vertical? I asked Clay in advance, and he thought it was more difficult, that the V bar had higher numbers, because of the wiggle factor. 

I pulled 93. My notes say on 98 kgs. "could not lock out", so I would think that meant I had 95-96 in me. At the King Kong in October of 2016, with a month of training, I had 105.4 on the two Inch vertical, which was as much as I could have done that day. About nine years ago, when I was practicing it, my max was 111. 

If that's what Clay said, I would tend to trust him. But I don't believe it would be much lower, as 95/96 (which I did not get but I think I would have) with no training...for me, I can't see that being more than 5% lower than on the V bar for me.

I am so proud of myself only speaking in Kilograms! 😀

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On 7/18/2018 at 1:09 PM, Hubgeezer said:

Thank you, Ben and Joseph for the nice words.

Excalibur versus 2 Inch Vertical? I asked Clay in advance, and he thought it was more difficult, that the V bar had higher numbers, because of the wiggle factor. 

I pulled 93. My notes say on 98 kgs. "could not lock out", so I would think that meant I had 95-96 in me. At the King Kong in October of 2016, with a month of training, I had 105.4 on the two Inch vertical, which was as much as I could have done that day. About nine years ago, when I was practicing it, my max was 111. 

If that's what Clay said, I would tend to trust him. But I don't believe it would be much lower, as 95/96 (which I did not get but I think I would have) with no training...for me, I can't see that being more than 5% lower than on the V bar for me.

I am so proud of myself only speaking in Kilograms! 😀

The other factor is that the VBar is a 2" lift vs. Excalibur which was locked out.  BIG DIFFERENCE.

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