Weaver Stick

[The Natural]

The faintest hints of autumn swirled in the air as I pulled up in front of Eric's. I walked into his garage to see him fiddling with what appeared to be a broom stick.

"What's that?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"A Weaver Stick," said Eric, a provocative smile growing across his face.

"Weaver Stick? Are you taking up weaving?" I quipped. Eric attached the wire hanging from the stick to a loading pin. I sensed a challenge in the cool night's air.

"The best weight lifted at the GGC was 13.5," he said. "I've loaded the stick to 13.4. Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself..."

I had never touched a Weaver Stick before, and was already quite tired from having squatted 300 kg earlier that day. But I decided to give it a try, not having anything better to do.

"You use a wrist wrap," said Eric. I thougtht he was joking.

"No thanks," I said, "I'll see what I can do "raw"." Our laughter echoed inside the garage and out into the darkness of night.

Grabbing the stick, I lifted it easily and comfortably.

"Not bad," I said. Eric looked on with a devilish grin. I could see another challenge on the horizon.

Eric changed the weight, but did not tell me what it now was.

Chalking my hands, I approached the stick and set my feet. The rear end of the stick rose towards the heavens, going well beyond "parallel".

"That's an unofficial national record," said Eric. "14.3 pounds. More than what was done at the GGC. And without a wrist strap."

"Pretty good," I said over my shoulder, shuffling inside to raid his kitchen.

-Rex

[Paul Knight]

My favorite post on the gripboard ever ...

need to go change my underwear

ya'll get vid?

[The Mac]

If only there was a rule about such claims and the need for video proof......

[Joefrey]

Good post. You have talent to relate stories. I really like it.

[Jedd Johnson]

Too bad you weren't at GGC.

[jpmmkrahling]

Very well articulated Rex, what did Steve do? isn't he at 15 lbs? Is that within your range?

[MalachiMcMullen]

Steve did 17 and some change. Rex has a ways to go.

[Guest Bullitt]

Nice job Rex. Especially after those squats.

Of course Andrew did 13.5 + the loading pin after 4 rounds of grippers, 2HP, and lifting 455lbs on the axle. And he ran out of attempts, so who knows what he might have pulled.

Still, great job for your first time trying it.

[jad]

The faintest hints of autumn swirled in the air as I pulled up in front of Eric's. I walked into his garage to see him fiddling with what appeared to be a broom stick.

"What's that?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"A Weaver Stick," said Eric, a provocative smile growing across his face.

"Weaver Stick? Are you taking up weaving?" I quipped. Eric attached the wire hanging from the stick to a loading pin. I sensed a challenge in the cool night's air.

"The best weight lifted at the GGC was 13.5," he said. "I've loaded the stick to 13.4. Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself..."

I had never touched a Weaver Stick before, and was already quite tired from having squatted 300 kg earlier that day. But I decided to give it a try, not having anything better to do.

"You use a wrist wrap," said Eric. I thougtht he was joking.

"No thanks," I said, "I'll see what I can do "raw"." Our laughter echoed inside the garage and out into the darkness of night.

Grabbing the stick, I lifted it easily and comfortably.

"Not bad," I said. Eric looked on with a devilish grin. I could see another challenge on the horizon.

Eric changed the weight, but did not tell me what it now was.

Chalking my hands, I approached the stick and set my feet. The rear end of the stick rose towards the heavens, going well beyond "parallel".

"That's an unofficial national record," said Eric. "14.3 pounds. More than what was done at the GGC. And without a wrist strap."

"Pretty good," I said over my shoulder, shuffling inside to raid his kitchen.

-Rex

LMAO!

[bencrush]

Good stuff Rex!

[Bob Lipinski]

What you need to do is break John Grimek's weaver stick to the front record. Don't you have any sense of history?

[The Natural]

What you need to do is break John Grimek's weaver stick to the front record. Don't you have any sense of history?

Bob, while my respect for the old-timers is great, I must confess some ignorance as to what is "world class" these days...I don't own a Weaver Stick myself and only came over to Eric's to use his computer and his running water. Eric asked me what I think I could lever to the rear with some focused training. I shrugged my shoulders and said "20 pounds?" I could tell from the stillness around us that I had given a number that is "uncharted territory". He let me answer before telling me what the "official world record" is...8.1 kg.

-Rex

[cemery]

Nice post Rex. And nice " Weavering".

[The Mac]

I squatted a grand this morning - um, is that any good??

Oh, and as I forgot to add it earlier, nice lifting.

Edited September 25, 2009 by The Mac

[rico300zx]

Nice Rex,

I'm going to have to see what all the hub bub is about this thing. Somebody please post a pic with written legal dimentions, id like to weigh in on this event some day. also I'm beginning to think that wrist straps are in the same catagory as the deadlifting straps. Didn't wonder woman wear them?

Rico

[The Natural]

Nice Rex,

I'm going to have to see what all the hub bub is about this thing. Somebody please post a pic with written legal dimentions, id like to weigh in on this event some day. also I'm beginning to think that wrist straps are in the same catagory as the deadlifting straps. Didn't wonder woman wear them?

Rico

There's no need to bother with it. From a mechanical perspective, from an aesthetic perspective, indeed, from every perspective that is worth assuming, the Weaver Stick is beyond a failure. In fact, if the Weaver Stick were the only thing that an alien race could examine to determine the intelligence and sophistication of our species, it would likely put us somewhere between granite stones and star fish in the hierarchy of cognition. That the Weaver Stick has not already become extinct is most likely due to a slavish adherence to tradition, and perhaps some misguided affection for this "Weaver" person. Weaver himself probably never intended the use of this crude instrument to ever become a standard event in grip competition or any other kind of competition. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he most likely fashioned it as a makeshift tool, realizing that it was far from ideal but good enough for the job at hand, in much the same way a man may sometimes use a quarter in the absence of a flat head screwdriver. What we're doing, though, is throwing aside the screwdriver even after we've found one and sticking with our quarter. If the Weaver stick is to remain, we may as well be consistently caveman and replace grippers with the old test of trying to squeeze plier handles until they bend.

-Rex

[rico300zx]

I was going to say the same thing but I didn't want the weaver fans to be upset at me.

Rico

[Bob Lipinski]

Huh, I suppose trying it as something different isn't good then! You should have let Jedd and Chris know this before their contests, you could have saved them from looking silly.

[Jedd Johnson]

Huh, I suppose trying it as something different isn't good then! You should have let Jedd and Chris know this before their contests, you could have saved them from looking silly.

Weaver Stick definitely tests wrist strength. The stronger your wrist the better you will do. Also time on the implement and practice will help you as well.

I think from the aspect of the crowd's viewing pleasure it is a good test as well. I heard plenty of ooh's and ahh's during the event and I could see the other competitors watching in anticipation to see if each person would get the lift.

The WS is also an ugly lift. It shakes a lot. It hurts. I would never say it was a functional lift for athletes.

I think the best thing about it though is the ease of judging it. There are like 3 factors to watch and control and it take body size and measurements out of the equation, unlike levering to the head where people can place their head and neck in a way where it shortens the ROM. Also, the table top wrist curl looks like an idiotic way to test wrist strength to me.

I have heard feedback that bending is a poor example of wrist strength. I agree if it's double over or double under, but reverse has seemed pretty reasonable test to me, but again, lots of negative feedback on that one as well.

So as a promoter, you have to look at the equipment available, the options of events, the feedback from past contests, the ease of scoring and judging and you have to come up with a decent event.

If I wanted to give myself an automatic advantage, I would choose reverse bending, but how fair is that?

Hammers - no. Too hard to judge and there's always somebody who tries to massage the rules. Whether it's bouncing hammers off the head, or raising the shoulder, or dropping the hand, or something.

This was the process I went through in choosing events. Weaver Stick was something I never included in a contest before. I had fun doing it at Climber's before and it seemed like a simple concept to judge (and it was easy to judge), so I weighed all the options and chose it.

If it's a primitive lift, so what. So are a lot of other events in grip and strongman.

I wonder what might be a better choice for measuring wrist strength, Rex. I am always open to feedback. Maybe there are other wrist strength events I have forgotten about, but I would love to hear them.

You can bet, however, that no matter what the event, no matter how simple, difficult, etc. someone is going to have negative feedback about it. Someone will say, I'm not going to GGC because of X event. Well, the fact is - THAT IS THE ONLY FEEDBACK I DON'T ACCEPT ANYMORE. There are plenty of events I don't want to do or don't like in Grip contests and I travel to them anyway. I'm done trying to satisfy people with the event choices to try to get them to come to the East Coast to compete. I am going to use other methods such as equipment, rules, and ease of judging for my events and not try to cater anymore.

Please Rex post your specific ideas about good tests of wrist strength for contests, along with how to judge them and keep everyone honest because I am all ears.

Thanks.

[jad]

I'd have to agree with Jedd. I think for contest purposes, Weaver Stick is going to be hard to beat. Rex, I thought you didn't want tables in sledge levering because you'd "like to leave some shred of tradition" intact and now you don't like Weaver Stick because it's primative?

[jpmmkrahling]

Does anyone have the actual dimensions for the weaver stick, i want to make one this weekend and give it a try.

[climber511]

Does anyone have the actual dimensions for the weaver stick, i want to make one this weekend and give it a try.

http://www.davidhorne-gripmaster.com/bhsarules.html

Here ya go Mike - Weaver stick rules. Plus some other interesting stuff.

[Guest Bullitt]

The wrist wraps are used in reverse weaver to protect the wrist because the stick sometimes swings wildly to one side or the other and can cause serious injury. If anything it seems to hinder the amount of weight you can lever because you are levering against the strap to get it above parallel. Most of the competitors at GGC wanted to try it without the wrap, but it was decided for safety reasons that everyone needed to use it. After seeing some of the ones that got away, everyone was happy that they wore them.

I'm new to this game and The US Grip Nationals was my 2nd contest ever. I must say that the Weaver stick event was the most hotly contested and of the single events certainly drew the most reaction from the crowd (other than when Jedd was going for the American and world record in the 2HP and when Andrew was going for a new axle WR). It was a fast paced event that lent itself to quick weight changes and constant action. Everyone agreed it was a great test of wrist strength that was simple and easy to judge.

Again, having only competed twice, I'm no expert. However, I do think it's really easy to sit back and critique an event in someone elses contest when you haven't ever gone through the experience of promoting and judging a grip contest yourself. If someone doesn't like an event, then don't go to the contest or put on your own contest and have the events you think should be included. Sitting there and putting down the hard work of others in an internet thread just seems a little weak to me. The amount of work it took to put on something as well run as this championship was crazy. There were impartial judges, loaders, camera crew, as well as a world wide internet feed. Jedd did an excellent job and the events were fair and represented the 4 areas of grip superbly.

From reading this, the Milo article, and other posts, i know that Rex has a vision of what he would like the sport of grip to become and how he would like grip contests to be run. That's great. There is room in every sport for growth and improvement. I suggest he gets involved and run a contest. If it's that much better than the ones that guys like Jedd, Bob, Chris, Aaron, Eric, etc. have been running over the years, then his will become the one everyone wants to go to and other promoters will start to immitate his show in order to draw contestants and fans, and the sport will evolve. As much criticism as he has for the contests out there, it's a wonder these guys were ever able to pull off a contest that someone would attend before he joined the grip community.

[The Natural]

Take it easy, Mike. It sounds like the GGC had an overall good list of events, including the Big Three. I was having a little fun earlier talking trash about the Weaver, and waxed rhetorical. But you must admit, it's jerry-built and poses unnecessary risk. That rear hammer lever at SOH, e.g. is just as good and mechanically makes more sense.

Your idea about the popularity of a contest being the evidence for its quality may seem plausible at first, but in fact, it's not all that strong. For example, the farmer's hold is a great test of grip strength. But strangely, most grip guys (even many top guys) could not deadlift the handles to begin with, much less hold them for any respectable time. So here we have a high quality event that would deter many from attending any contest that includes it. Conversely, some places in the US have a dense concentration of grip guys, and the competitions are just as much a reunion of friends as anything else. People will show up no matter the events and rave about the contest the next day, simply because they had a good time.

Don't want to open up that debate again, though. Just sayin'. This "let the market decide" argument you make comes up every couple of months, even though it's not a good one.

-Rex

Edited September 26, 2009 by The Natural

[jad]

I'd be curious to see how many of the "top guys" would fail on these 350 farmers, assuming they were taken off of blocks. Beatty has had HH two years in a row and Chris Rice beat The Chad one year and Chad won it the next with Beatty in 2nd and I believe Dave T in third. To clarify: The "top guys" still do quite well on the HH so if it turns out that they don't do so well on farmers, even taken off of blocks, it just goes to show that farmers is more total body than grip.