oldtimer Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 On August 24, we had the second annual Grip Fest, here in Castro Valley, California. We're a small group--five competitors, two spectators, and one official photographer. We competed in my rumpus room gym and outside in the backyard from noon til almost 5 p.m. followed by pizza afterwards. Events: Inch Dumbbell Replica--Clay Edgin lifted it and yet he didn't. After a bunch of us tried to lift it off the ground high enough so anyone could see--we finally decided to insert a newspaper under it with the idea that one of the spectators could tug on the paper if the db even broke the ground. Well, Clay did it-- Eli yanked the paper, and Spider and the rest of us cheered. However, we didn't see any daylight, so Clay tried several times more but couldn't break it high enough for it to be clear. So yes he lifted it, well sort of... He also won the farmer's walk with a short lap with a pair of 270s--I won't mention what weight the rest of us used. Clay also won the one-rep maximum weight chinup contest. At a bodyweight of 289 + 30 lb. strapped on, he won with a 319 total. A few of us had more strapped on but we couldn't match the total. He also won everything else except the 3" pinch block lift--which my son, Ken won with 64 3/4 lb. Basically, it is one slippery Teflon-like block. We also did the Rolling Thunder, two kinds of dynamometers--hydraulic and spring. Clay only did about 95 kg this time, but I had seen him do 100 kg a couple of weeks before on the hydraulic. Switch to the Pleasanton Highland Games--Dave Brown, 6'2, 350, did 107 kg on the same dyno, Mike Smith, another highland games pro, 6'0, 300, did 100 kg. No one could close the RB 300 ip, although Brown and Smith didn't try because they were still competing in the games. I'd now rate the RB 300 as about equal to the IM 3.5 averaging in more tries by grip people. All for now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricMilfeld Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 Too bad I no longer live in California. Thanks for the highlights Oldtimer. And congratulations Clay! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bseedot Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 Sounds like fun. Congrats to all! How long was the farmer's walk? BC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom of Iowa2 Posted September 7, 2003 Share Posted September 7, 2003 Nice contest! Congrats to Clay...he sounds like he has a lot of potential. Sometime?big tall guys take awhile to get their FULL strength..so he's just getting started. Sounds like a great after noon...I'd like to see some of those Highalnd games guys(off season)work some grip specific stuff.A lot of those guys seem to have incredible grips...would be cool to see them do a full grip contest. Also thats a pretty decent farmers walk weight..especially to someone so 'new'to lifting weights!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtimer Posted September 8, 2003 Author Share Posted September 8, 2003 We had more than one Farmer's Walk. Originally we did just 115s for distance, but Clay won easily. Then he did 250s for 1 lap of 25 feet, and 270s for 1 lap of 25 feet. But he saved himself a little, because we still had 3 or 4 more official events to go, as described above. We also tried to bend some IM nails, a whole slew of horseshoes, the Weaver stick, bending bottle caps using a straight thumb and forefinger, and even some slow-start armwrestling. Some of us are still sore--I'm one of them. No more arm wrestling for me until I'm in much better shape--the pressure on the elbow joint was incredible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan McMillan Posted September 9, 2003 Share Posted September 9, 2003 Interesting choice of events espeically the max weight chin! Jon@han Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clay Edgin Posted September 10, 2003 Share Posted September 10, 2003 This was such a fun day. I can't wait for the next one! The Inch bell didn't cooperate as well as I had hoped, but it will soon. The farmer's walk was my favorite event. I could have done more weight but it was about 6,000 degrees outside (officially 97 degrees in the shade) and I wanted to have some gas in the tank for the other events. Thanks again Dale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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