Meet Announcement:

[bencrush]

http://www.usawa.com/national-grip-championships/

Andy Durniat won the 2010 Dino Gym Grip Challenge. Will he return to defend his title and win the FIRST EVER USAWA National Grip Championships? In this picture Andy is setting the USAWA All-TIme best lift of 140 kilograms in the One Arm No Thumb Deadlift.

The Dino Gym Grip Meet was such a HUGE SUCCESS last year - we decided to do it again this year. The tradition of grip challenges have been around quite a while in the USAWA – thanks to Kevin Fulton’s grip meets. However, this year the USAWA has taken grip competitions to “a new level” as the USAWA Executive Board approved this meet as the USAWA National Grip Championships. This is the FIRST TIME the USAWA will have a Grip Nationals – the start of a NEW tradition that I hope will continue for many years.

Considering this is a National Championships, a few things had to be done with this meet in order to fulfill our established USAWA rules of conducting a championship. First of all, only Official USAWA Lifts can be in a Nationals – thus NO exhibition lifts. However, we have a host of great grip lifts in our Rule Book so this was not a problem. Second, traditional scoring will be done with age and body-weight corrections on the “total weight” lifted. And thirdly, all individual body-weight classes and age divisions will be contested for National Championship Awards. This is the reason for the entry deadline of February 1st - so I can have the time to have the appropriate awards made up. I will be strict with this deadline.

The lifts are:

Pinch Grip

Vertical Bar Deadlift – 1 bar, 2″, One Hand

Deadlift – Middle Fingers

Deadift – Fulton Bar, Ciavattone Grip

Deadlift – 3″ Bar

The 2011 National Grip Championships will be on Saturday, February 12th, 2011. Luckily this year the second weekend of February avoided Valentine’s Day! For an ENTRY FORM visit the USAWA site.

[bencrush]

Don't let Andrew Durniat take the title without a fight! Join us at the first-ever USAWA National Grip Championship in February at Al's Dino Gym. Visiting Al's gym is reason enough to schedule this competition on the calendar. Al has also generously waived the entry fee! The only fee required will be USAWA membership fee of $25. You can pay that at the meet if you'd like. There are so many grip, strongman, and other miscellaneous training toys to play with afterwards that it could be the "after grip party" of the decade.

2 months to train guys. Please tell your friends and anyone else you think might be interested in competing. I'm not a promoter this year, but I'd still love to see a huge turnout for this contest!

[Bill Piche]

I have always been really impressed by this org and the events. True man against the steel.

[bencrush]

I have always been really impressed by this org and the events. True man against the steel.

Thanks Bill! One impressive thing to me is that the rules are very strict on most of the lifts I've seen. I have also seen (and was lifting on a few of those occasions) 3+ second pauses on some grip stuff before hearing the down signal from a judge. I'd much rather hear of that (long counts) than no pause or short pauses so someone can get a lift in. The long pauses were done because the judge was slightly questioning the solid nature of the lift - or the amount of control the lifter was showing.

[barbe705]

If I didn't have a big trip planned in the spring I would be there. from the reports on the last one it was well run. I hope you get a good turn out.

[andurniat]

I hope to make it out again. Very well run and the Dino gym is one to be experienced.