Sledge hammers?

[ruffhans]

i dont know much about "slim" but doesnt he lever 16 lb sledge hammers? and can any one else do this? what can he do that no one else can? i tried to down load a video clip but  it didnt work. what is a good lift with a sledge hammer? i just got a 10lb one from wallmart and started training with it. i never hear much of sledge hammer stuff, just grippers. ( not that i dont like the grippers)  any feed back would be great!!

[Guest mg6680]

"Mastery of Hand Strength" by Brookfield has some good hammer stuff.  Also, check out Tom Black's site (www.bigsteel.iwarp.com), he seems to be a hammer man.  I do my hammer work on IM's leverage bar - works the same plus the added benefit of a 2" handle.

[Tom Black]

My one big comment/suggestion regarding sledgehammers is don’t fool yourself with the weight you are using.  When you lever the hammer down there is a tendency to drop the height of the hand, and thus the angle in which the handle makes with the ground.  This lessens the torque considerably.  I recommend trying to keep the hand at least as high as your shoulder.  Also, when you look at Slim’s pictures remember that he is very tall and his arms are very long, and he can lever the hammerhead to his forehead.  For a person less than 6 feet tall and proportional arms (like myself) they would have to lever the hammer handle about 4”-8” from the head to their forehead to bring the hammer to true parallel to the ground.  If you can’t muster 10-pounds in the way I describe, then you goal should be at least a 30-degree angle as measured from the floor (Even Brookfield in MOHS is not perfectly parallel with a 10-pound hammer). This would be about 70% of the torque compared to a true parallel lift, and fairly good in my book.  A Captain of Crush recently related to me how no one on his softball team could even lever a 6-pound hammer in this manner.