Want To Start Bending .. Where Do I Start?

[Jones1874]

Lately, ive decided to switch up my goals and prioritise different areas of lower arm strength. ive decided to leave the grippers alone and focus more on my supporting grip, alng with strengthening my wrists. i know my wrists are weak and id really like to change that.

im just looking for some basic, straight forward advice..

assuming my wrists are really weak, id like to know what would be the best thing to start bending. aswell as, strengthening the wrists before bending, technique and hand/ wrist/ elbow placement, what wraps i should use, how often i should do it, how to avoid injuries etc .. just basic know how, enough to get me started.

looking forward to the replys on this one. i think this will add some zest to my routine, and hopefully get my lower arm strength up to par.

Thanks in advance.

[PeterSweden]

FBBC har the beginners benders bag. Its really good for beginners and also get 2 pairs of suede wraps with that.

I'd start with buing a sledge hammer tho. Levering the hammer in different directions and doing static holds.

This is a good way to prepare your wrist and arms for bending aswell.

[PeterSweden]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqNvkXt2CPw

[yummy]

FBBC har the beginners benders bag. Its really good for beginners and also get 2 pairs of suede wraps with that.

I'd start with buing a sledge hammer tho. Levering the hammer in different directions and doing static holds.

This is a good way to prepare your wrist and arms for bending aswell.

this plus buy jedd johnsons e book on bending and you will be good to go

http://www.thegripauthority.com/bending.htm

[CANCRUSHER]

I'll tell you this:bend always in IM pads cause in this way you'll build tough hands and pain tolerance that is the most important thing in bending.

Then if you're interested in the red nail certification bend 7 inches stuff only.

[yummy]

I'll tell you this:bend always in IM pads cause in this way you'll build tough hands and pain tolerance that is the most important thing in bending.

Then if you're interested in the red nail certification bend 7 inches stuff only.

I believe technique and strong wrists is more important. Working with the suede wraps you get from fbbc will be fine. Also I think working various lengths can help develop your overall bending strength plenty of red nail benders have bent outside of 7 inches.

[Jones1874]

FBBC har the beginners benders bag. Its really good for beginners and also get 2 pairs of suede wraps with that.

I'd start with buing a sledge hammer tho. Levering the hammer in different directions and doing static holds.

This is a good way to prepare your wrist and arms for bending aswell.

Ill have to price them up to see how much it will cost to get them shipped to the UK. otherwise i could always get them from a local builders supplies if it works out cheaper. i have a pair of suede wraps which came with david hornes wrist developer, so they should be ready to go.

ive tried the sledge levering before and theres just no way i can do it, i really dont have the wrist flexibility. the static holds wont be a problem though. how often should i look at doing those? i would have though i could do that more often than bending.

Edited December 18, 2012 by alexjones234

[PeterSweden]

FBBC har the beginners benders bag. Its really good for beginners and also get 2 pairs of suede wraps with that.

I'd start with buing a sledge hammer tho. Levering the hammer in different directions and doing static holds.

This is a good way to prepare your wrist and arms for bending aswell.

Ill have to price them up to see how much it will cost to get them shipped to the UK. otherwise i could always get them from a local builders supplies if it works out cheaper. i have a pair of suede wraps which came with david hornes wrist developer, so they should be ready to go.

ive tried the sledge levering before and theres just no way i can do it, i really dont have the wrist flexibility. the static holds wont be a problem though. how often should i look at doing those? i would have though i could do that more often than bending.

Everyone is different try to lever higher up on the handle and work your way down as you get stronger. I did lever once a week when I did it last year. Got sore in the whole forearm from doing it hehe

[Jones1874]

FBBC har the beginners benders bag. Its really good for beginners and also get 2 pairs of suede wraps with that.

I'd start with buing a sledge hammer tho. Levering the hammer in different directions and doing static holds.

This is a good way to prepare your wrist and arms for bending aswell.

Ill have to price them up to see how much it will cost to get them shipped to the UK. otherwise i could always get them from a local builders supplies if it works out cheaper. i have a pair of suede wraps which came with david hornes wrist developer, so they should be ready to go.

ive tried the sledge levering before and theres just no way i can do it, i really dont have the wrist flexibility. the static holds wont be a problem though. how often should i look at doing those? i would have though i could do that more often than bending.

Everyone is different try to lever higher up on the handle and work your way down as you get stronger. I did lever once a week when I did it last year. Got sore in the whole forearm from doing it hehe

Haha. it looks hardcore though. I wish i could do it without any strain. Im doing some exercises to strengthen the wrist: Curls with a homemade Ironmind Stacker (These are awesome) and Uneven DB Rotations. Thing is, neither of these exercises strengthen the wrists in the areas that are going to be challenged when bending. Is there a really easy grade of steel i could start off bending for volume? something easy enough for a beginner to bend and develop technique on and not likely to cause injuries?

[Mike Sharkey]

Personally, I believe if you want to be good at bending, you should bend. Though levering and other exercises may help you, there is no substitute for bending steel. As a strength discipline it is unique and the forces that are required, and are put upon the body cannot be simulated.

I actually think the IM bag of nails of the FBBC bag is a very good place to start. the white nails and green nails will soon be easy (like day 2), but the blue and yellow are pretty much always going to be useful to you. for me the FBBC bag doesn't have enough of the easier stock, but the variety is good. if you have a decent strength level and have good access to technique information, you can make use of a lot of the stock quickly.

Personally, I too would recommend bending in IMP's for a while. Bending is highly technical, perhaps as technical as OLY lifting. If you were learning to snatch, you wouldn't keep using bars of differing length and size and shape. This is what changing wraps all the time is like. At the most I would bend in single leathers. I have been cautioned and will caution you against using doubles. This is how you get hurt, especially in the beginning. You can rotate between IMP's and leathers, using the IMP's until your hands can't take it, then switching to leather for a day or two.

Thirdly I highly recommend bending, at least for a while, in all 3 styles. DO will probably be your bread & butter, especially if you do other grip work, but you will probably find that one of the two wrist styles works well for you. And really, there is nothing comparable in the strength world in terms of wrist strength to reverse and DU bending. if your are new to it, even bending a dozen white nails in these styles is gonna make you stronger. they hurt, get used to it.

There are several excellent video tutorials that i recommend checking out on steelbenders.org. Sean Cashman has a DO tutorial that is excellent in showing hand placement, and Jason Steeves has a fantastic tutorial on reverse (that he did for me ). on you tube you will find a reverse tutorial from Adam Glass that helped make the style make sense to me.

As far as ordering steel goes, here is Aaron's callibration chart:

http://www.az-grip.com/calibration.php

try to find some easy 60D nails. these should probably be your first goal. or a yellow or blue nail in every style. that's a good foundation.

onlinemetals.com is a good place to have special things cut (like some 3/16" stainless square that will be slightly easier than a yellow)

toolanddie.com is the place to buy 01 drill rod and cut it. us the chart to see where you are at. buy some I,J,K & L bars and cut them to 7". the poundage is pretty consistent.

whomever said if you want to cert the red only bend 7" is absolutely correct. but i personally wouldn't worry about that for a few months till you get your feet wet.

Tiger Balm is great for muscle and bone soreness.

Tuf Foot is an excellent product for toughening your hands (its for dog's paws)

Good Luck

Mike.

Edited December 19, 2012 by Mike Sharkey

[yummy]

Could you link the tutorial videos I can't seem to find them

[Jones1874]

Cheers for that Mike. Very informative post. I just have a couple more questions just before i get started.

- Wouldnt i be better starting with the Ironmind White Nails rather than the bag of nails? because i have zero technique or strength, just thought it would be better to have a full bag of easy nails rather than a mix. i wouldnt want to move up too early with no technique to speak of.

- what are IMP's? and what do you mean by bending in doubles?

- i have some suede wraps here already. Are they ok to use?

- is it neccessary to bend in all 3 styles? i was mainly looking at the DO and DU because it seems less technical than the reverse. the lower the risk factor, the better is the way im seeing it.

- Do you have a link to any of those videos or do i have to join the steel benders webiste?

- Whats the difference between red and white tiger balm?

Thanks in advance.

Edited December 19, 2012 by alexjones234

[Jedd Johnson]

Hi, Alex.

I have a couple of products on Bending that will help you out greatly.

Nail Bending eBook: http://www.thegripauthority.com/bending.htm

Nail Bending DVD: http://www.thegripauthority.com/nail-bending-dvd.htm

Braced Bending: http://www.thegripauthority.com/braced-bending-dvd.htm

Braced Bending is a bit different, but it is a natural jump from non-braced short bending, like nail bending.

I am open to putting together a nice package deal to save you on shipping if you like. Just shoot me a PM.

Thanks,

Jedd

[yummy]

The ironmind bag is a little more expensive and you get less variety.-you do get a nice bag though and the ironmind wraps plus a lot nails in general-

I think the white nails are very easy even for a beginner especially since you have prior grip experience yet both are a good starting place.

Imps= Ironmind pads that come with the ironmind bag or bought separately from ironmind. Bending in doubles I believe is wrapping the end of the nail twice with leather-instead of the normal once- to give better leverage and make it so you don't feel much pain when driving into the bar. I think suede wraps are fine I like them more then my ironmind pads and the difference is not huge they are just a little more comfortable which is probably a good thing for you.

Its not necessary to bend in all 3 styles but it can help give you a better bending workout when starting out, I think the DO technique is the most technical though while I feel reverse is quite simple yet still the most challenging since it requires the most wrist strength.

I can't find the videos either and just use w/e tiger balm is the strongest that you can find at your local pharmacy market.

Those ebooks really will answer all your questions and more though

Edited December 19, 2012 by yummy

[Shoggoth]

Here's the reverse video I did for Mike a while back.

[Mike Sharkey]

Hi, Alex.

I have a couple of products on Bending that will help you out greatly.

Nail Bending eBook: http://www.thegripauthority.com/bending.htm

Nail Bending DVD: http://www.thegripauthority.com/nail-bending-dvd.htm

Braced Bending: http://www.thegripauthority.com/braced-bending-dvd.htm

Braced Bending is a bit different, but it is a natural jump from non-braced short bending, like nail bending.

I am open to putting together a nice package deal to save you on shipping if you like. Just shoot me a PM.

Thanks,

Jedd

Jedd's eBook is great! that's how I started .

watch a lot of videos!

here's the unquestionablly best bending video EVER

here's Seans's video:

here's a recent video of EJ killing big steel:

Edited December 19, 2012 by Mike Sharkey

[GatorGrip]

That was Jedd all jacked up on red paint! Best bending video I have seen lately!

[RTvG]

Hadn't seen that video from Jedd yet! Crazy good!

[Chez]

I really like Sean's double overhand video. Never seen that one before. Definitely going to study that one and try to fix my technique.

[Mike Sharkey]

I really like Sean's double overhand video. Never seen that one before. Definitely going to study that one and try to fix my technique.

Yup. And Sean is my size. 185#... he's getting hexabastards and Edgins now in doubles.

[Mike Sharkey]

After thinking about this further, I'm sorry I showed it to you ... My chances of beating you onto the Red Nail Roster have just gone down the drain

[Chez]

After thinking about this further, I'm sorry I showed it to you ... My chances of beating you onto the Red Nail Roster have just gone down the drain

haha. I have been sucking big time at bending. Haven't done any in the past couple weeks. Plan on rededicating myself as soon as my MM3 attempts are over. It hard to balance bending and grip. Bending messes up my gripper strength so I have been purposely staying away as I prepare for the MM3.

[Mike Sharkey]

After thinking about this further, I'm sorry I showed it to you ... My chances of beating you onto the Red Nail Roster have just gone down the drain

haha. I have been sucking big time at bending. Haven't done any in the past couple weeks. Plan on rededicating myself as soon as my MM3 attempts are over. It hard to balance bending and grip. Bending messes up my gripper strength so I have been purposely staying away as I prepare for the MM3.

Grippers Shmippers ..... bending is actually helped me a little bit, but i use the gripper crush. and by 'helped' me I mean I can close the # 1.5 now. I think the #2 isn't that far away from me though. I'm totally shooting myself in the foot but, if you are sweet I'll teach you a great technique to open up your shoulder flexibility.

the good news is I'm getting movement when I iso my Red, so you best get to work.

Edited December 20, 2012 by Mike Sharkey

[Mike Sharkey]

Cheers for that Mike. Very informative post. I just have a couple more questions just before i get started.

- Wouldnt i be better starting with the Ironmind White Nails rather than the bag of nails? because i have zero technique or strength, just thought it would be better to have a full bag of easy nails rather than a mix. i wouldnt want to move up too early with no technique to speak of.

- what are IMP's? and what do you mean by bending in doubles?

- i have some suede wraps here already. Are they ok to use?

- is it neccessary to bend in all 3 styles? i was mainly looking at the DO and DU because it seems less technical than the reverse. the lower the risk factor, the better is the way im seeing it.

- Do you have a link to any of those videos or do i have to join the steel benders webiste?

- Whats the difference between red and white tiger balm?

Thanks in advance.

Sorry I got distracted by the Hulk...er Chez.

I think the white nails are going to be super easy for you regardless of your previous training. they're good to have, but I think within a few weeks you can certainly bend a yellow nail. IMP's are Iron Mind Pads. Thin Cordura, some people like them, some people hate them. personally I like bending in them a lot, I just need a touch more kink strength to cert the Red. I wouldn't necessarily say all three styles are necessary, but at least one wrist style is good to work on. DU doesn't really make much sense to me, but I love reverse.

Jedd's ebook is seriously great, I'm sure the video is even better. if you really wanna delve into it www.steelbenders.org is the place. ignore the hubris and you can pick up a lot of tips. just go through all the cert videos and you will see some of the best benders of all time.

Good Luck

Mike

[jvance]

I should reiterate what has already been said in this thread; that working all three styles equally will work the wrists specifically. Personally, I don't like the double overhand style - partly because of a pec injury that prevents me from going 100%, but also because it focuses more on upper body strength than wrist strength. I think the other two styles; double underhand and reverse - really put the focus of your bending strength in your lower arms and hands. You may not get to kill big steel as fast, but you get a stronger foundation where it counts.