EricMilfeld Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 (edited) For a change of pace, I thought I would pose this question in reference to gripping or strength sports in general. Remember folks, only through trial and error do we learn and grow. So don't be embarrassed to share with the group. As a 15 year old bean pole of 130 pounds, I had my parents drive me the 4 hours down to Corpus Christi, for the 1983 Texas State Powerlifting Championships. There I proceeded to fail miserably 3 times with a deadlift of 363 pounds at knee level. Talk about humiliating. Lesson learned: Opening with a personal best may not be the wisest strategy. And then this morning, after being all excited about recent talk about tearing cards and phonebooks, I did it again. I took a deep breath, gripped the yellow pages with all my might, and then... creased the first 150 pages. Lesson learned: I can't tear diddly squat! Edited February 9, 2003 by eric milfeld Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amaury Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 How strong are your thumbs and wrists Eric ? Now that i'm a phonebook tearing specialist... Here are my specs: - Close the #2 consistently with my right hand (and up to 3reps) and 3-4 mm away with my left (i suppose you can do all this and even a bit more ) - Bend an ironmind blue nail with difficulty and a yellow nail easily. - can pinch 70lbs with my right hand and 55 with my left. And these truely amazing abilities (let's play sybersnott for a moment) enable me to tear phonebooks... You certainly have much stronger hands and wrists then i tend to think what you need is to find the GROOVE AND TECHNIQUE...and there will be no more miserable failures with phonebooks (at least if they are around 500 pages ). You can pull like a horse and nothing will happen, change slightly the direction/position and the tear will start Now my most miserable failure: trying to bend a 5/16"x 8.5" stretched iron bar in front of my brother and failing to just put a kink in it...you get red in the face you grunt like a pig and after a 30sec effort you unwrap the bar and...nothing!!! ahhhhhh i hate that feeling !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan McMillan Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 We have two ponies that are pretty wild...are own fault really, they're just pets and we don't "work" with them enough. Well last summer we decided they needed their hooves trimmed. And I thought I could hold onto them no problem. The male took me for a ride hanging onto his hoof. So in the end my girlfriend's father held them..with his arthritic hands and all Jon@han Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJM Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Where's the failure in that Jon? You managed to hang onto the hoof!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldGuy Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 I always train to failure, but it is never miserable! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Piche Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Driving 5 hours to my first powerlifting contest. Opening with 550 in the squat. And not going low enough and BOMBING. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amaury Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 (edited) "You'd better find some depth boy!" I think I read that good one on hardgainer.com... a unique fast track to amazing progress in the squat by someone called Bill Piche Edited February 9, 2003 by amaury Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bearcat 74 Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Going to NJ to hang out with Pat and Steve, with hopes of going to Bollenbach's to certify on the 4. Getting there and failing ever damn time. I had a good time, but I was highly disappointed with the results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Piche Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 "You'd better find some depth boy!"I think I read that good one on hardgainer.com... a unique fast track to amazing progress in the squat by someone called Bill Piche Yeah, the great Larry Pacifico was there with a couple of his lifters. One of his lifters told me this. The ironic thing is that I would have had all three easily passed in what seems the majority of org's these days. Unbelieveable what they are passing as legit squats these days. Half squats, legs braced, no workouts, double/triple suits. But, I digress.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Piche Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Here's an example of what I am talking about: Click Here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terminator Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Going to NJ to hang out with Pat and Steve, with hopes of going to Bollenbach's to certify on the 4. Getting there and failing ever damn time. I had a good time, but I was highly disappointed with the results. Miserable failure? [great feat removed otherwise I would have to close the whole thread - wannagrip] The best therapy is to replace the "failure" with success, and I know that is coming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terminator Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Here's an example of what I am talking about:Click Here That IS a lame excuse for a squat..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldGuy Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Sounds to me that someone has closed the #4 in training! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amaury Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 That IS a lame excuse for a squat..... Yeah...A japanese would rather called that a bow IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bearcat 74 Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 Sounds to me that someone has closed the #4 in training! Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I had/have. I was just hoping the adrenaline spike would kick in and that last little bit would be done. I'm trying to close it in training. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bearcat 74 Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 I hope that "squat" didn't count. Pathetic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricMilfeld Posted February 9, 2003 Author Share Posted February 9, 2003 (edited) amaury, My thumbs are strong. I'm pinching 85 with my left and 80 with my right, in the form of 2x 35's with weight attached by rope through the holes. If I lack strength for the phonebook trick, it would definitely be in my wrists. Off a bench, I've wrist curled with a 160 pound barbell. I've just started training on my home made Inch, which is 1/16 inch too thick, and have done 143 with my left and 10 pounds less with my right. That was a full deadlift by the way. So yeh, I'll have to continue working on my nonexistent technique. Edited February 10, 2003 by eric milfeld Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Piche Posted February 9, 2003 Share Posted February 9, 2003 I hope that "squat" didn't count. Pathetic! Count? It was a record. That org is crap. It's the org all the westside guys lift in. Big surprise. I go to that guy's site and he has other videos. For example, he does good mornings and they are really partial squats! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Harlan Jacobs Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 When I was 28 years old, Bill Pearl came into the gym I was training at. He was in town for the week and just happen to pick my gym to train at. Well on the second day he was there I was doing chest and he sak if he could work in. It was my max day. It was the day that I was going to do 500 for the first time. I warmed up, Loaded it up, got ready. I had Bill Pearl yelling at , I had "The eye of the tiger " on the stero , And I missed it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I scratched with Bill Pearl watching ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sybersnott Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Letter to Bill Pearl: "You made me miss!!!". Too funny! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJM Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 22 years ago this weekend, I'm working the door at a local nightclub and I get there late. About 1/2 hour into my shift, this cute cocktail waitress comes up to me to tell me that two of the patrons are drunk and obnoxious and she wants me to remove them from the premises. So I stroll through the club following the waitress looking for the guys I'm supposed to bounce. She points to two guys who have their backs to me and tells me that's them. Both guys are larger than me by a good amount and I'm thinking that this could go hard on me. Clever guy that I am, I get another bouncer's attention and tell him to come with me. I walk up to the shorter of the two guys, put my hand on his shoulder, friendly like, and ask if there was a problem. I'm ready to grab the guy and toss him when he turns around and says, "No, why?" I answer, "That's great Mr. Klecko! Can I have your autograph?" There I am, staring at Joe Klecko and Randy Rasmussen of the NY Jets, about to wet my pants. Needless to say, he doesn't get bounced, I don't get the girl, and every other bouncer in the club has been having a field day with that story since it happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnimalCage Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Last January, my ego got the best of me. Just had to show off my newfound talent for ripping phone books. Went way too big (2") to impress the eight peole gathered round. The book was unscathed, and I ripped a tendon in my right elbow. Took almost a year to heal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricMilfeld Posted February 11, 2003 Author Share Posted February 11, 2003 (edited) AnimalCage, I don't know whether to say "so sorry to hear that" or "congratulations", but your story may very well take the prize for Most Miserable Failure, yet Edited February 11, 2003 by eric milfeld Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff T Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 aus grip champs rolling thunder 56kg say no more at least there's always next year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnimalCage Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Eric, Maybe I can beat my own story. Last October, I participated in my first competition, the 2002 SuperGrip Challenge. Before it all started, I had my first meeting with an Inch Dumbbell. I gave it a fair number of valiant tries. Nothing. Oh well. Time for the comp to start. First event: Grippers. No problem, right? I can rep a #2 easily. Lo and behold, my forearms locked up, and I couldn't even close a #1 righty. The best I could do was #1 lefty. Never having done thickbar work, I deduced that the IDB attempts made my forearms cramp. I was miserable the rest of the day, but I still enjoyed the comp overall. Live and learn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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