Just "one" Exercise For Bending?

[Guest NailBender]

Greetings to all Benders,

If you could do ONLY ONE exercise for bending, (excluding bending itself) what would it be?

Please specify if you are a DO, DU, or REV Bender because for obvious

reasons the exercise might be different. For example:

DO - Front levering

DU- Rear Levering

I think it would be interesting and informative for all the benders to list their one

exercise. You might give another Bender an idea that would help their Bending or

vice versa.

Thanks in advance for your participation.

NailBender

[vikingsrule92]

I woluld have to say levering in general for all types. That is, if Isos don't count for this of course

[MalachiMcMullen]

The #1 exercise for me has always just been bending but if stock is hard to come by I too would say levering. Levering a sledge from the floor, I think, would carry over to DO better. I don't prefer any of the styles, I like them all but I would say that levering from the floor especially, and anything else you can do with a sledge would be great. That's the beauty of reality, you don't have to pick just one exercise

[TKtheGreek]

DO-chest crushes

[timiacobucci]

I honestly don't think anything else loads the tendons the same way as bending, levering will strengthen your wrists but all the tendons in your arms from your wrist to elbow to shoulder get hit hard in a way I don't think anything else can replicate. Not to mention conditioning. If all you did was lever and you could do massive wieght, I think you would just be good at levering. Granted you would have a great foundation to start bending, but you probably wouldn't be able to bend crap out of the box like that.

So the number one exercise is bending, excluding that, you probably aren't gonna be able to bend very well.

[MalachiMcMullen]

I honestly don't think anything else loads the tendons the same way as bending, levering will strengthen your wrists but all the tendons in your arms from your wrist to elbow to shoulder get hit hard in a way I don't think anything else can replicate. Not to mention conditioning. If all you did was lever and you could do massive wieght, I think you would just be good at levering. Granted you would have a great foundation to start bending, but you probably wouldn't be able to bend crap out of the box like that.

So the number one exercise is bending, excluding that, you probably aren't gonna be able to bend very well.

Tell that to John Wood and Slim Farman

[matthcarl]

I've thought about this for a while. I still have no real answer. I am probably unqualified to give advice...I just like bending things. I can add that pretty much all my bending progress has come from bending. I don't do a lot of levering, and I suck at grip in general. Some people point out that upper body strength comes into play for DO. True enough, but for my size my bench is weak (PR is 205 at 208 bw and I couldn't duplicate that now). An interesting thread I read from 2003 or 2004 did mention that most red nail benders (elite at the time) could deadlift a lot. I'm not going to say this is the best exercise, but I do think having a strong core helps.

[naturalstrength]

This is a great theoretical question, but unfortunately very self-limiting in answers. Any question that asks "what is the one best______?" obviously leaves you with the initial question being the answer. In other words, what is the best excercise to get good at benching? Well the answer would naturally be benching. What is the best training to get good at tennis?" Well once again it would be PLAYING tennis if you can ONLY DO ONE THING IN YOUR TRAINING. You can never practice your serve, volley, etc. and would thus be just a mediocre tennis player at best. So, going back to the initial question being if you could only do ONE excercise for bending, well the answer is simply bend. I know bending isn't an appropriate answer to this thread, but I feel it is otherwise "unanswerable" .

[timiacobucci]

Tell that to John Wood and Slim Farman

Well my point was that this is the real world and I'm sure that is not the ONLY thing they did. Like I said it would give you a great foundation to start, which I am sure was the case for them.

[matthcarl]

This is a great theoretical question, but unfortunately very self-limiting in answers. Any question that asks "what is the one best______?" obviously leaves you with the initial question being the answer. In other words, what is the best excercise to get good at benching? Well the answer would naturally be benching. What is the best training to get good at tennis?" Well once again it would be PLAYING tennis if you can ONLY DO ONE THING IN YOUR TRAINING. You can never practice your serve, volley, etc. and would thus be just a mediocre tennis player at best. So, going back to the initial question being if you could only do ONE excercise for bending, well the answer is simply bend. I know bending isn't an appropriate answer to this thread, but I feel it is otherwise "unanswerable" .

Well put, I think.

[Guest NailBender]

This is a great theoretical question, but unfortunately very self-limiting in answers. Any question that asks "what is the one best______?" obviously leaves you with the initial question being the answer. In other words, what is the best excercise to get good at benching? Well the answer would naturally be benching. What is the best training to get good at tennis?" Well once again it would be PLAYING tennis if you can ONLY DO ONE THING IN YOUR TRAINING. You can never practice your serve, volley, etc. and would thus be just a mediocre tennis player at best. So, going back to the initial question being if you could only do ONE excercise for bending, well the answer is simply bend. I know bending isn't an appropriate answer to this thread, but I feel it is otherwise "unanswerable" .

NaturalStrength I think you're looking to deep in my opinion.

The question is "if you could only choose one exercise for bending, what would it be". Not, what's the best exercise for bending because each individual is going to have a different exercise.

A point to keep in mind is in your examples of bench pressers and tennis players, you can probably

be safe in betting that bench pressers don't just bench to get better at their bench press and tennis players probably have other exercises that make them better at tennis.

A good example is David Horne's wrist developer that puts your hands and wrist in the same position as DO bending. This is not bending itself but a exercise that would for sure benefit anyone's bending.

Just something to think about and thanks for your post.

NailBender

[ScottW]

I've thought about this for a while. I still have no real answer. I am probably unqualified to give advice...I just like bending things. I can add that pretty much all my bending progress has come from bending. I don't do a lot of levering, and I suck at grip in general. Some people point out that upper body strength comes into play for DO. True enough, but for my size my bench is weak (PR is 205 at 208 bw and I couldn't duplicate that now). An interesting thread I read from 2003 or 2004 did mention that most red nail benders (elite at the time) could deadlift a lot. I'm not going to say this is the best exercise, but I do think having a strong core helps.

I've actually read that too. I think it had to do with the ideal deadlifting build(long arms compared to the torso) was the same ideal build for steel bending.

[Jaz]

I honestly don't think anything else loads the tendons the same way as bending, levering will strengthen your wrists but all the tendons in your arms from your wrist to elbow to shoulder get hit hard in a way I don't think anything else can replicate. Not to mention conditioning. If all you did was lever and you could do massive wieght, I think you would just be good at levering. Granted you would have a great foundation to start bending, but you probably wouldn't be able to bend crap out of the box like that.

So the number one exercise is bending, excluding that, you probably aren't gonna be able to bend very well.

I beg to differ, sledge work mimics the bending movement very well (the wrist movement) i didint train very long with either but i definately did more sledge work than bending and can bend blues now, i leave bending to once a week or so.

[matthcarl]

I beg to differ, sledge work mimics the bending movement very well (the wrist movement) i didint train very long with either but i definately did more sledge work than bending and can bend blues now, i leave bending to once a week or so.

Are you talking about DU or Reverse? The wrists should not move significantly with DO bending. And as I said above, I have done very little levering (cannot do 8 lb. sledge) You can argue that I'd be better if I did more sledge work, but I have bent some decent stuff just praticing bends.

[nockowt1]

I honestly don't think anything else loads the tendons the same way as bending, levering will strengthen your wrists but all the tendons in your arms from your wrist to elbow to shoulder get hit hard in a way I don't think anything else can replicate. Not to mention conditioning. If all you did was lever and you could do massive wieght, I think you would just be good at levering. Granted you would have a great foundation to start bending, but you probably wouldn't be able to bend crap out of the box like that.

So the number one exercise is bending, excluding that, you probably aren't gonna be able to bend very well.

Luckily I've gotten somewhat decent at bending reverse and DU with this Thursday being the first day I've ever been able to lever a 6lb sledgehammer. All my gains in bending have come from bending.

[bencrush]

I'm with Kevin on this one. I don't lever and have done some relatively big bends just by bending. You can't go wrong bending if you want to become a great bender. If you want to become a great sledge leverer, then by all means lever away.

[pawel r]

"The best exercise for steel bending is- steel bending. It is the advanced grip master's training tool" John Brookfield THE GRIP MASTER'S MANUAL

[Alawadhi]

Yes. John said to be better in steel bending then the best excersice is steel bending. Slim said in his DVD the best way to be better at bending steel is bending steel. Ben and everyone recommends steel bending as the best thing. Even Gazza got his huge power only from bending (with the right trianing). But if you want anything besides bending then ISOS on bar or the excersice John Brookfield recommends in his book "The Grip Masters Manual" where you lift a weight in a crushing position. I didn't tried it but I feel it's great for the crush.

[gazza]

Buy as much steel as you can afford and bend it this couples with isos is all you need.

If you cannot afford much steel just bend once a week and do isos on the other days.