Card Tearing Questions

[DieselWeasel]

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/6223/cardsjh3.jpg

^ Is the above card a plastic coated card or just paper? There are visible pores or pits in the card contained in that picture and it also appears glossy. I bought a whole bunch (50, if I recall correctly) of casino decks in bulk from FunctionalHandStrength.com in 2005 or 2006. I still have a good portion left and started training to tear a whole deck after a long hiatus from card tearing. I trained card tearing a while ago and came close, ~40 cards IIRC, but never did a full deck.

Also, today, I did 5 tears with 20 cards each, with one hand on top of the cards and the other on the bottom. Do you guys use a specific routine to build up to a full deck tear, like progressive resistance used when lifting weights (i.e. tears with 20 today, then 25 the next week, 30 the week after that, etc.) or something totally different?

Thanks for any help you guys can provide regarding all of the above.

Edited September 21, 2007 by DieselWeasel

[DAN PRAYDIS]

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/6223/cardsjh3.jpg

^ Is the above card a plastic coated card or just paper? There are visible pores or pits in the card contained in that picture and it also appears glossy. I bought a whole bunch (50, if I recall correctly) of casino decks in bulk from FunctionalHandStrength.com in 2005 or 2006. I still have a good portion left and started training to tear a whole deck after a long hiatus from card tearing. I trained card tearing a while ago and came close, ~40 cards IIRC, but never did a full deck.

Also, today, I did 5 tears with 20 cards each, with one hand on top of the cards and the other on the bottom. Do you guys use a specific routine to build up to a full deck tear, like progressive resistance used when lifting weights (i.e. tears with 20 today, then 25 the next week, 30 the week after that, etc.) or something totally different?

Thanks for any help you guys can provide regarding all of the above.

by far no expert but i have done several types of brands and sold them too if one card can be ripped easily it probably is paper some plastic cards i had won't tear at all some even stretched a bit

[DieselWeasel]

I forgot to mention some of the casinos on the back of the cards:

Mirage, Santa Fe Station, Plaza, Cannery, Sahara, Treasure Island

Edited September 21, 2007 by DieselWeasel

[TheBoneOrchard]

That looks like a joker from a Bee deck if you ask me. A casino deck like that is not "just paper" it has some sort of plastic coating, not to be confused with special all plastic card decks.

To get up to a full deck I started out by doing a lowly single suit at a time and then moving up to 1/2 deck and then 3/4. I also did some sledge hammer leveraging to strengthen my wrist some as I worked my way up.

I can do whole decks now but I use more of a both hands on the side of the deck sort of tearing than a one hand on top and one on bottom style. I find the top and bottom way to difficult still but am continuing to work up to that in the same manner ( 1/4 then 1/2 then 3/4 at a time)

Charles

[pawel r]

quoting Clay Edgin:

1). Sledgehammer levering – hold a sledgehammer out to your side and, using only your

wrist, let the hammer head slowly make its way down to your face and then back up again.

Do this slowly and with a light weight (6-8lbs) at first just to get

the feel of it and start adding weight to make it heavier. You can do this by either

sliding the weight down the handle of the hammer or duct taping it to the end. If

you’re already levering a 16lb sledge or heavier, stop reading this article and go tear

some cards! You can also lever the sledge to the front of you and side to side.

2). Narrow pinching – Not everybody has a narrow pinch block to lift, but if you’ve got a

block of wood less than 3/4” thick and can attach a chain and weights to it, then

you’ve got a worthwhile homemade training tool for tearing a deck of cards. A

narrow pinch block is valuable for your grip training anyways.

http://www.strongmanfeats.com/files/Tearing_Cards_-_Clay.pdf

me this helped

[dansweeney]

That looks alot like the Joker from a deck of Bee 92's. If thats where you are starting, you will be "Pleasantly surprised" when you try anything else! Those are the toughest cards to tear other than the 3ply Malaysian "Dolphins". I have torn full decks of Bees, Bicycles, Mavericks, Gold Crowns, and tons of other brands. I started by tearing more and more cards in every workout. I used to tear "Top and bottom" (The way you see most people tear), But Now I tear "Dennis Rogers" style. (One hand palm facing away from you. other hand pulling towards your body) This way I have more power "finishing" the deck", but since my hands are small it destroys the skin on my left thumb. I would recommend getting some Gold Crowns from Wal Mart, they are a tough tear, but only 1$ for 2 decks.

[thearm95]

I'm similar, have done 48 cards, (plastic coated but feel easy compared to bicycles).

Started with about 16 cards, then 18, 20, 22 etc....got up to 48. I recently received my 36 decks of bicycles to train on, and am finding it hard to get past the middle of these, got to start over again.

[nightowl27]

I just started last week with card tearing. I had some older ones lieing there and thought,lets try it if i can get them in the half.I took for the first time 26 cards and repeated it with another set of 26 cards. can´t tell the brand of mine and have also no clue about the difficulty of other brands

now i read an article where there´s an advice on using newspaper for tearing. i took two sheets( the big ones which are already folded one time) and folded them 5 times and had no problem destroying them. Two and a half were also ok but three double sheets were not possible. think i´ll just keep on going with 2-2.5 sheets and try in a few weeks three sheets. when i´m at four ones, i should be able to tear a full deck of cards. for that purpose i´ll order a real deck of course where i know the brand and make a video.

i use the technique no2 presented in this manual: http://www.strongmanfeats.com/files/Tearing_Cards_-_Clay.pdf

if anyone has a good advice for a rough newbie who can still a learn a lot , i would be glad to hear it from you.

[nightowl27]

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/par17.htm

here´s an article on improvising with folded newspaper instead of taking cards.

[pawel r]

look Clay: http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=IMqKansYlM4

[gripn00b]

I'm by no means an expert on tearing cards, but I am pretty knowledgeable about playing them (I do so semi-professionally) and what goes in to them.

A lot of higher end playing cards have a 'plastic' type coating that serves two purposes; resisting abrasions (aka- "markings" from use) and allowing smoother handling (aka- "dealing"). Some cards (KEM) are made entirely of a plastic material (good luck tearing these!)

While I know precisely zero about what goes into tearing cards or what's required for the various competitive aspects of it, I do know that your typical "dollar store" brand uncoated, lighter paper stock cards are going to offer less tearing resistance than your better plastic coated brands. Often times, the cheapies are narrower, but sometimes, they are the same general width as the "brand names". They're also a lot cheaper, so that's a plus.

Just try it- try tearing one single "brand" card versus one single "dollar store" card. You will see the difference right away.

Of course, the point of a lot of this stuff isn't to take the "easy way out", but it is nice to have multiple levels and degrees of challenge to work with. Not everyone is a freak of nature like a lot of you beasts

Edited November 8, 2007 by GRIPn00b

[diziet]

I am staying in Japan now and I brought a few dozen decks of US Costco bicycles to keep up practice. I went shopping around some local stores and found a few decks -- and they have a fully plastic deck that's a (almost, feels slightly bigger) a bridge sized deck that surprised me. I bought a few different decks and tore though them really easily, then absentmindedly opened the full plastic deck and was surprised. I tried giving it a really really hard hit and managed to bend a a serious top crease into 2/3rd of them but no way was I going to start to tear the deck. I tried one card and it felt much hard than a whole suit, and I tried five and could not break them. I bent the heck out of them, crushed them but could not get a tear going. I then tried putting one, three and four in the middle of my bike decks. IT seriously increased the difficulty but squeezing the plastic card between the bicycle deck allowed me to tear up to 3 extra plastic cards. I could not do 4 inside a deck. I took a picture of how it tears alone -- inside a deck it tears right along with the bike cards.

I'm gonna buy a few dozen of these decks and throw in the plastic cards in the middle of the bicycle decks for extra training. They are only 100 yen (70~ cents) each!