Q On Tearing

[Guest indi]

-is the grip n rip style of tearing simply just having a real strong grip and pulling the book apart, or are there any techniques involved? i guess a better way to word it would be "is grip n rip the legit way to teara phonebook in half using just strength?

link to video i found online as an example:

sorry for the noobish answer, ive never really looked into tearing too much, and am trying to gather watever info i can on the correct way to tear using strength, as opposed to tricks and techniques.

Edited March 14, 2009 by indi

[Blackdog]

-is the grip n rip style of tearing simply just having a real strong grip and pulling the book apart, or are there any techniques involved? i guess a better way to word it would be "is grip n rip the legit way to teara phonebook in half using just strength?

link to video i found online as an example:

sorry for the noobish answer, ive never really looked into tearing too much, and am trying to gather watever info i can on the correct way to tear using strength, as opposed to tricks and techniques.

http://www.gripboard.com/index.php?showtopic=12203

There is a lot of good stuff in the Article section of the Gripboard.

[Guest indi]

appreciate the link, cheers

[pawel r]

http://www.nmstrongman.com/advancedphonebooks.html

[BigJan85]

-is the grip n rip style of tearing simply just having a real strong grip and pulling the book apart, or are there any techniques involved? i guess a better way to word it would be "is grip n rip the legit way to teara phonebook in half using just strength?

link to video i found online as an example:

sorry for the noobish answer, ive never really looked into tearing too much, and am trying to gather watever info i can on the correct way to tear using strength, as opposed to tricks and techniques.

http://www.gripboard.com/index.php?showtopic=12203

There is a lot of good stuff in the Article section of the Gripboard.

Isn't the technique described in the article considered the "popping technique" which is usually regarded as cheating? Im not accusing anyone of anything, I was just making sure that I understood was popping was.

[chop163]

Yes, that's the popping technique. I don't know if I'd really consider it "cheating", it's more just an easier technique (I would consider this cheating: http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/Co...s/stunts1.htm#1 ). In my experience most people with moderate hand strength (powerlifters, people who do a lot of manual labour, amateur strongmen, etc) can be taught to pop a 1"-1.5" book, but struggle with anything larger. To give you some idea of the difference in level of difficulty, I can pop 2.5"+ books quite easily, but have only been able Grip N' Rip books up to 1.5" (new PR for me late last week ).

Like in any strength pursuit there are "tricks" to making it easier (read technique). An average person can be shown good technique so they deadlift more in their first session than they did when they walked in off the street with no idea, but they're still not going to be able to pull 300kg. In the same vein, just because you can be taught the technique to pop a 1" phonebook doesn't necessarily mean you can do it to a 2"+ phonebook.

Edited March 16, 2009 by chop163

[Guest indi]

very nice reply, cleared up alot

i tried the grip n rip tearing style (although not with a phone book, but a reading book i have...i have 2 of the exact same ones, so i didnt mind). the book wasnt thick at all, just 7/8ths of an inch thick, i managed to tear it in half, and then tore each half into 3 pieces, totalling 6 pieces, and my hands ACHED!

very slim book, very difficult for me, but it was a nice intro into tearing

[BigJan85]

Thanks Chop, that cleared up a lot for me too. And Indi, I'm glad you mentioned tearing reading books because I've been wondering about the difficulty of that compared with a phonebook of the same thickness. It would prolly be tougher but I just don't know how much. Can anyone reply with some input on this?

[chop163]

Cheers fellas

Phonebooks themselves tend to vary quite a bit place to place, year to year. I still have yellowpages from 2005 (which are easy), 2006 (quite hard), 2007 (HARD), 2008 (quite easy) and 2009 (ridiculously hard because it has 3 covers and a cardboard index page).

Regular books are generally harder than phonebooks because the covers are thicker, but mostly because the pages are made of much better quality paper. How hard a book is compared to a phonebook really depends on the quality of the book, it's width (most books are a little narrower than a phonebook), what technique you're using, etc. So it's very hard to give an exact estimate of how much harder a book is than a phonebook without having it in hand.

[mattvod]

You mentioned phone books... but there's also card tearing... If you goto www.dieselcrew.com you can sign up for the Grip Authority newsletter. Jedd is coming out with a card-tearing manual this week that should be great. I have the nail bending one and it's helped me immensely.

[Guest indi]

yea, ive looked into card tearing also, and made a post not too long ago about it.

ive torn through an old, cheap deck of cards a long time ago, but it took almost forever and id put alot of it down to the poor condition the cards were in.

EDIT: cheers for the link and insight on the newsletter

Edited March 16, 2009 by indi

[justiceislost1988]

-is the grip n rip style of tearing simply just having a real strong grip and pulling the book apart, or are there any techniques involved? i guess a better way to word it would be "is grip n rip the legit way to teara phonebook in half using just strength?

link to video i found online as an example:

sorry for the noobish answer, ive never really looked into tearing too much, and am trying to gather watever info i can on the correct way to tear using strength, as opposed to tricks and techniques.

Answer to the bold: Yes.

I have coached a 6 year old boy into tearing 3/4" books with the popping technique. I have also gotten a 12 year old girl to tear through them, a 12 year old boy to tear them in about 5 seconds as well as 1 3/4" books in under 30 seconds, and many other young kids. Any stranger that I demonstrate for asks me "What's the trick?" I then explain the popping technique. I get most people that try ripping 1" thick phonebooks on their first attempt.

Grip n' Rip is legitimate. Popping is easy and 95% of the world population over 10 years old can pop a 1" thick phonebook.

[Guest indi]

nice.

so, moral of thread: grip n rip is the way to go!

[fortes mãos]

Your video of Pauls grip and rip is hard but using the other tech were you shape the phone book in a V is alot easier.

[Paul Knight]

the guy demonstrating the tear in that video is just super strong .......... I've heard that guy can twist a broom stick handle with his bare hands until it breaks

[David_wigren]

the guy demonstrating the tear in that video is just super strong .......... I've heard that guy can twist a broom stick handle with his bare hands until it breaks

... That's so sad

[AdamTGlass]

the guy demonstrating the tear in that video is just super strong .......... I've heard that guy can twist a broom stick handle with his bare hands until it breaks

this broom stick business is silly