I'm Done Bending

[Guest NailBender]

Greetings to all,

I'm really frustrated with bending here lately.

I'm not getting anywhere with it. If anything I'm getting weaker at it.

All my other grip feats have been affected by it and at least for

now I'm done doing any bending.

I've been involved in grip strength at least 20 years and bending

has to be the hardest most frustrating thing I've ever encountered.

It may be that bending is just not my thing. Period.

I haven't been bending for at least 10 days now and all my other

grip feats are starting to go through the roof. When bending, my wrist

felt weaker and they always ached when doing nearly anything. Now that

I stopped bending everything is good again.

I'm not saying I won't bend again, but for now I'm going to leave it alone

and concentrate on grippers, V-bar, Rolling Thunder, pinching, and tearing

playing cards. I really want to close the #3 gripper this year.

Sorry for the whining, but bending is very frustrating for me and I'm a big

fan of listening to your body and my body is saying STOP.

Thanks for reading.

NailBender

[Paul Knight]

Greetings to all,

I'm really frustrated with bending here lately.

I'm not getting anywhere with it. If anything I'm getting weaker at it.

All my other grip feats have been affected by it and at least for

now I'm done doing any bending.

I've been involved in grip strength at least 20 years and bending

has to be the hardest most frustrating thing I've ever encountered.

It may be that bending is just not my thing. Period.

I haven't been bending for at least 10 days now and all my other

grip feats are starting to go through the roof. When bending, my wrist

felt weaker and they always ached when doing nearly anything. Now that

I stopped bending everything is good again.

I'm not saying I won't bend again, but for now I'm going to leave it alone

and concentrate on grippers, V-bar, Rolling Thunder, pinching, and tearing

playing cards. I really want to close the #3 gripper this year.

Sorry for the whining, but bending is very frustrating for me and I'm a big

fan of listening to your body and my body is saying STOP.

Thanks for reading.

NailBender

"Some times you have to take a step back to move forward" don't know who coined that.

probably a good idea for a little while - hit some PR's on your other stuff and when you come back to bending, you'll be stronger than you were before.

Thanks for all the motivation you give us all the time. See you soon Joe

[cemery]

Joe,

Mabey stick with high rep sets of bending stock you can handle easily, give your wrists and tendons a strong foundation before venturing to harder bends for now. I dont bend very often for that same reason. After I bent a 5\16 * 7" crs I went out and baught 12 feet of the stuff.. . .. Now I need to go back and get something smaller I can actually train with for a while. Looking forward to meeting you at the show of hands. Good luck.

[nickr104]

Don't do it as much. Even more so with the unbraced bending DO , Reverse, and so on. Once or twice a week at the most. I am not tring to do some of the monster stuff some guys are doing , but when I bend to much the same thing happens. Everything hurts and my grip gos to pot. Rest up and moderation is what I say. At least that's what worked for me.

[Autolupus]

Bending is a huge assault on the body, nothing else hits it quite so hard. The mighty Booyah has said he'll have to rest up 2 weeks or so after a heavy bending sesh...but man that is HEAVY!

[timiacobucci]

I haven't been bending for at least 10 days now and all my other

grip feats are starting to go through the roof. When bending, my wrist

felt weaker and they always ached when doing nearly anything. Now that

I stopped bending everything is good again.

I've been involved in grip strength at least 20 years and bending

has to be the hardest most frustrating thing I've ever encountered.

The harder something is and the harder you work at it the more your body need to work at recovering. If you say bending is the harderest thing you have ever encountered, doesn't it make sense that it tears you up and you get the aches and pains you are talking about? That is just classic overtraining. But it is actually a good thing I think if you don't push it to injury.

I know I have regressed and got stuck often enough doing this. In fact I am there right now with unbraced and braced stuff. Just rest. You said all your other stuff is coming back strong, to me this sounds like you have actually gained allot of strength from bending but you never rested enough to realize the benefits of it. If it feels good to stop for a while then do so, but I guarantee if you come back to bending later you will be very surprised at how much stronger and how much better it will feel.

The harder you push it without injury the stronger you get when you eventually rest and let your body do it's adaptive response thing. You already finished the hard part, just sit back and relax and let the strength come now.

[matthcarl]

Sorry to hear you're planning to give up bending. It can be very frustrating, that's for sure, but rewarding as well when you finally make a breakthrough. I am not one of those super-talents who bent a red two weeks into training. I could not move 1/4" stock when I first tried. When I finally got past that, I was stuck on G5's for several months. But I kept at it and when I finally broke through and started hitting new PR's it was great.

[foxyj75]

Sorry to hear that. I agree with the overtraining. I used to bend 3-4 times a week when I first started, but, like you, my wrists were toasted!! It hurt to do everyday stuff. But now I bend 1 time a week. No more trashed wrists, PR's went onto the stratosphere, and I have actually gained a whole lot of muscle mass in my pecs, forearms, lats, traps, shoulders, upper back, and have even developed muscles I didn't know I had!! Nothing else except bending 1 time a week(full-on, till exhaustion), and eating a whole lot of food!! Back when my wrists hurt so bad, I took a month off to let em' heal, and when I came back, I felt like I was 2x stronger! I say take a month off, try it again(fewer times per week), and see what happens. Best of luck in your other grip endeavors!!

[luuc]

Sounds like you've been thinking about it enough, I'm still sorry to hear it.

Good luck on your grip training!

(Very good posts above me, I'm not a good speaker :P)

[Tim71]

Nailbender,

I went through the same thing once, as a matter of fact I went through it several times. I could probably dig up an old thread where I remember thinking that unbraced just wasn't my thing. Seems like I hit a G5 then for a couple months afterwards I couldn't do it again. Always was stuck on the kink too and seems like it lasted a while and I really can't explain how I overcame it and finally got the G5 consistantly and finally the G8. Slight technique adjustment perhaps?

I'm not trying to talk you into more bending though because you should listen to your body. I will say that my philosophy now is to bend for the fun of it. I started out with it because I liked it. Then I got so caught up in this goal and that goal and it became almost like a job. Then I'd quit because of the wreckage in my hands. Now I just bend what keeps me interested and enjoying the feats. May be a 40d or 60d or it may be something pretty big like a bastard or shortened one. I've made it higher than I thought I would at one time so I'm happy and you know what, at least for me when I do go for a PR now I'm usually stronger.

I keep these little 40d nails just to have fun with. They are ridiculously easy to bend but I just enjoy bending them all different ways. Is it challenging? No. Is it fun? Yes and that's what it's all about for me now. I'll still try PR bends from time to time (especially braced) but I try not to turn it into a high-pressure job anymore. At least that's what works for me.

Best wishes!

Tim

[Alawadhi]

VERY NICE POST TIM

[Tim71]

Here's a thread of victory:

G5 bend

And here's one week later:

Total disgust!

I can't remember which period that was for sure but I think that's one that lasted for a while. As you can see in one week's time I went from celebrating to about to quit short bending. Lasted for a while and went back and forth. Times I even had trouble with medium 60d nails after I had bent the G5.

Happens to us all my friend.

Thanks Alawadhi!

Tim

[Tim71]

Here's my very first long whopper of a frustrating period. As you can see from this post I was stuck on medium 60ds for months.

Small victory over stagnation

Tim

[Booyah!!!]

I think most of us go through the I'm stuck period. I certainly know how it feels, I was stuck seemed like forever below a grade 5 bolt. You will grow through it and it may still take a while. Even now, we still have to lay off, due to strength decreasing, for a week or two from time to time. This allows our body and CNS to recover. It really helps to bend with friends and to try different strengths of metal and different wrapping.

I have been bending with another young man that is also stuck. I have sent this thread to him to help him realize this is about par for the course.

Good luck NailBender. Looking forward to meeting on the 19th at SOHGC3

[Tim71]

Let me add that I can handle being stuck because I'm not strong enough to finish a bend, that's part of it, but the times of frustation for me were because I could just tell that I wasn't getting what power I had into the bolt / nail / whatever. THAT, was frustrating.

I tell you a person has a HUGE advantage if they get to start by meeting somebody else and feeling what a good wrapped bar feels like. This stuff like I did of starting with a washcloth, then on to this crappy slick leather and so on really eats at your effort. Takes a while to get it right on your own. Of course as your strength increases, the factors can be less perfect but at first it's hard to do it own your own.

Tim

[Alawadhi]

Let me say what the other said. I had once tried to bend G5 bolt for a long time. I couldn't. Until Maximus sent me an PM saying inspiring words that made me bend the G5. I am also now stuck on my 8mm stainless. Sometimes I bend it in 10 minutes, sometimes in 5 hours, sometimes I only kink it. But I know with dedication I will bend it under one minute as a warmp up. Do like what Tim Tolbert suggested. Just bend for the fun of it. Not for training.

[Guest NailBender]

Nailbender,

I went through the same thing once, as a matter of fact I went through it several times. I could probably dig up an old thread where I remember thinking that unbraced just wasn't my thing. Seems like I hit a G5 then for a couple months afterwards I couldn't do it again. Always was stuck on the kink too and seems like it lasted a while and I really can't explain how I overcame it and finally got the G5 consistantly and finally the G8. Slight technique adjustment perhaps?

I'm not trying to talk you into more bending though because you should listen to your body. I will say that my philosophy now is to bend for the fun of it. I started out with it because I liked it. Then I got so caught up in this goal and that goal and it became almost like a job. Then I'd quit because of the wreckage in my hands. Now I just bend what keeps me interested and enjoying the feats. May be a 40d or 60d or it may be something pretty big like a bastard or shortened one. I've made it higher than I thought I would at one time so I'm happy and you know what, at least for me when I do go for a PR now I'm usually stronger.

I keep these little 40d nails just to have fun with. They are ridiculously easy to bend but I just enjoy bending them all different ways. Is it challenging? No. Is it fun? Yes and that's what it's all about for me now. I'll still try PR bends from time to time (especially braced) but I try not to turn it into a high-pressure job anymore. At least that's what works for me.

Best wishes!

Tim

Tim, what you and the others said has made a lot of sense. I never made the connection

(because of mental frustration) that the bending could have made my other feats so much stronger.

Thanks for pointing that out.

After reading all these posts of encouragement and motivation I've decided to go ahead and

listen to my body and take a couple more weeks off from bending and then ease back into it

for fun and stay with easier stuff longer than I initially did when I first started.

I can't thank ALL OF YOU enough for the encouragement. This has been the most frustrating

time in my grip career. I think going through tendonitis in my arm wrestling career was easier.

At least I didn't push it to the point of injury and like someone said, this will make me stronger

in the long run.

Thanks a million guys!!!

NailBender

[timiacobucci]

One other thing, if you are hurting because of tendonitis, and maybe you have seen me say this before because I have said it often, take a whole lot of vitamin C

http://www.gripboard.com/index.php?showtop...&hl=vitamin

[EricMilfeld]

You've been given a lot of really good words of wisdom, Joe. I haven't much to add, but I always agree with the "listening to your body" approach. It is great news that your other lifts are taking off, though. Please don't let it get you down. Soon you'll be looking back at this thread after doing your first grade 8 bolt with a smile on your face. See ya soon!

[Guest NailBender]

One other thing, if you are hurting because of tendonitis, and maybe you have seen me say this before because I have said it often, take a whole lot of vitamin C

http://www.gripboard.com/index.php?showtop...&hl=vitamin

My tendonitis in my left arm is practically gone now, but

I've been taking the Vitamin C like you suggested ever since

I read your post. You're right, I think there's something to it.

I take 3- 1000mg. doses on workout days, morning, mid-day,

and evening. On non-workout days I take 2-1000mg doses

every day. I did the ice massages I posted about 3-5 times a day

and you wouldn't believe how that helps.

Thanks for the advice.

NailBender

[gazza]

Joe

Its took me 6yrs to get were i am at bending wise in that time ive had alot of frustration and despair but i kept pluggin away sometimes just coasting for weeks and mths at a time not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel most of it was lack of faith in my owen abilities and not listening to my body once i started to really believe and focus things started to happen then i realised that if i wanted it bad enough i had to make it happen i just kept pluggin away knowing that one day i would bend a red and above then i realised that what Sean quited was right its just a journey of "Time and Pain" nothing more these to things will take you as far as your mindset is willing to go.no secrets mate learn to enjoy the pain its your friend and just like a sculptor just keep chipping away.

[Guest NailBender]

Joe

Its took me 6yrs to get were i am at bending wise in that time ive had alot of frustration and despair but i kept pluggin away sometimes just coasting for weeks and mths at a time not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel most of it was lack of faith in my owen abilities and not listening to my body once i started to really believe and focus things started to happen then i realised that if i wanted it bad enough i had to make it happen i just kept pluggin away knowing that one day i would bend a red and above then i realised that what Sean quited was right its just a journey of "Time and Pain" nothing more these to things will take you as far as your mindset is willing to go.no secrets mate learn to enjoy the pain its your friend and just like a sculptor just keep chipping away.

You're my HERO Gazza!

The last sentence in your post is my guiding principle in all my training

from this point on.

Thanks for all your help Gazza!!!

Nailbender