Culmination Of The Evolution

[EricMilfeld]

Today I put to test my theory that my technique would ultimately evolve into an overhand style, without the initial reverse grip effort. The scientific experiment conducted today confirms my theory. I started with a very easy certification bend (not yet official) of a 280 Challenge Bar, moved onto a 5 1/2" grade 8 (inspired by David Ostlund's recent success with this tough little piece of steel), and wrapped it all up (pun intended) with a 6 1/2" Red nail bent to completion in about three or four minutes, all of which was done under the watchful eye of Weldon. I really think I've simply come to the point where trying to kink the bar with a reverse grip is wasting my energy. Following in the footsteps of Giants!

[austinslater]

Awesome work!

[Matt Van Weele]

Eric I would say your the man but that honor has to go to Pat. You are no doubt second in command. Nice work!

[bballdad]

Thanks for sharing your discoveries Eric !!!!

Keep pushing the enevelope bro!!

[Ray Hansford]

Good stuff Eric!!!

[nils]

It it starting to seem like all the benders that aren't using underhand grips are coming to that conclusion.

Are there any red nail benders left with the old terminator style?

[Mikael Siversson]

Eric,

Your style migth be a violation of...

"Material is to protect the hands of the competitor, not to assist by adding leverage."

The video clip of a red bend of yours indicates that you do indeed use the double fabric padding to gain leverage in the initial double overhand position. You may not gain full recognition of your hard bends unless you change your style (i.e., moving your hands back onto the bar). My suggestion is that we put a limit on how much of the fabric that can protrude beyond the ends of the bar. I can't see any reason to allow more than an inch for protection purpose (which means we will have to use different towels for different lengths of the bar). If you need more than an inch you are without any doubt using that extra length to gain leverage and thus violating the rules.

[austinslater]

To me it doesnt seem to be an excessive amount of material.

[nils]

To me it doesnt seem to be an excessive amount of material.

Doesn't it seem like the bend is done holding onto and crushing into material that is actually outside the red nail itself to you?

Look at the hands in the red nail video.

Eric is probably the most extreme in this area, but there are many that are on the same route. I don't know yet how big difference it makes, for me the gain is noticable but not extremely large, but I might be bad at the technique.

But does it matter as long as the bending is purely for ones own sake?

I agree with Mikael that for contests there has to be some rules that makes the leveraging gains the same for everyone, and overall, small.

Edited April 18, 2004 by nils

[austinslater]

I still have to disagree. How can you tell? I might be missing something but this looks like a good bend to me.

[Mikael Siversson]

Yes, you have certainly missed something. Let Eric try with a cloth that only extends a little bit beyond the ends of the nail and you will see a different result. Then you can ask yourself how on earth can bending a nail become much harder by removing parts of a cloth that has no direct contact with the bar if no significant leverage was gained by the extra length of the cloth.

[bballdad]

Looked like a good bend to me.

[Clay Edgin]

Mikael is the Simon Cowell of the Gripboard

Nice work Eric. It will be interesting to watch you chasing the immortals

[Mikael Siversson]

I like Simon. He does not yield to the mob.

[jad]

Looked like a legitimate bend to me. The more material you use the less pressure you can apply to the nail so loading up on extra material isn't quite the advantage some claim it to be. If this isn't the case why not just wrap a nail up in beach towel which are generally 2.5-3 feet wide and with all that supposed extra leverage most anybody could bend a 60d common.

As far as him holding on to and crushing into material that is outside the Red nail itself: He would have to unless you want to see the ends of the nail go through his palms. Anytime his hand is going to be on the points/tips of nail applying pressure he would need padding over the end which results in the so called extra material.

[Rick Walker]

Hmmmm.....

I read this post and it got me thinking. So, I went to 3 videos.

The first was the man, Terminator. I viewed this video 10 times, paused it, and blew it up to get a closer look: Pat's 6.5 red

I then went to this video of Eric, and did the same thing: Eric & the red

Finally, I went to this video of Shrug, and again, studied it: shrug & the red

Interesting. Before I read Mikael's post, I did not notice the differences or the material. Sharp eye Mikael. I can certainly appreciate that!

Pat uses leather to bend. I only know this because I witnessed the awesomeness first hand at NOS2. You can see from the video that no material is sticking out the other side of his hands. You can also get a good look at hs technique-his hands are clearly on the nail, I would venture to guess at least up to his middle finger if not further. But...keep in mind this is a 6.5 inch red as compared to the other videos in which the reds are 7 inches.

Shrug uses 2 small towels on top of one large towel. When he is grasping the nail there is a ton of material sticking out both sides of his hands. HOWEVER: when he bends the nail, his hands are touching. His hands are very large, but, I would say the nail is 75-80% in his hands. I would say from the video, and watching him bend first hand, that he uses no leverage from the towels at all.

Eric uses the kevlar cloths and a towel. Again, there is a significant amount of towel hanging off both sides of his hands. From the angle on the intial bend, it is too hard to tell if he is using the towel to his advantage. However, pause it when he begins his chest crush. There is a huge gap between his hands, and his knuckles are almost directly facing one another. As he crushes down, there is a significant amount of crushing before the nail begins to move at all. I say that there is almost no nail in his hands and mostly towel.

Eric is a hell of a bender. Towel or no towel, not many of this planet could match you, I certainly cannot. This is not meant as a dig or flame at all Eric, but you are clearly using the towel to your advantage. Like Mikael, I would like to see the bend with little to no excess towel hanging over the end, or, your hands much closer together.

In clsoing I would like to say that all three of you guys are bad ass and very inspirational to all on this board.

Rick Walker

[gazza]

2 things

1st Pat has probably bent more than most on this board and certainly of the higher strength stuff Reds etc,so has probably conditioned his hands and pain tolerance to a lot higher degree than Erics,hense his nickname of psycho to his friends.

2nd when Eric and Shrug etc and the rest of us have bent anywere near what Pat has bent in quantity and hardness we too might have hands that dont need etra padding.

How many people can even think about a RED even with extra padding i certainly cannot,but dont pretend to be in ERICS league anyway,maybe oneday

Eric has gone from an initial kink with the Terminator style,to now just useing the double overhand style,i think its not all down to the padding,just maybe ERIC has gotten smarter and a good deal stronger.

Also the Holle brothers who bend all use the double overhand style,and always have and 2 of them can bend cut REDS and 2 are nocking on the REDS door.

Even Pat has found the double overhand better,hes gone from 1-2 reds...too 19reds in an afternoon.

Anybody that can bend a RED nail even braced is an awesome bender in my book,i think we are becomeing a little to critical of world class feats

[Zach Passman]

Anybody that can bend a RED nail even braced is an awesome bender in my book,i think we are becomeing a little to critical of world class feats

Gazza-

One point that's important-

World-class feats MUST be viewed with a critical eye--more so since they are to be held as "world-class."

Powerlifting's a good example--the world records are regularly held up to serious scrutiny, expecially in light of the contentious federation fragmentation.

Zach

[David Horne]

Rick,

What a very well thought out post.

Since bar bending is part of the GRIP SPORT and is relatively new, there will more and likely be rule changes to hone it. We have already began eyeing up various changes, which actually have come about after the discussion of various wraps which had been previously mentioned on the GB.

There will be exciting stuff in the future:

1) like the kinking of big bars, like the 450k.

2) we will also have a section for the Challenge Bars that will ONLY allow you to use the two small 2" x 2" pieces of leather, that you can get from us, or cut off an ordinary weights belt. I think you understand what I mean. Nothing else! This is tough-I've tried it!

3)As for the 'NORMAL' bending, then we will either use two pieces of material, or one piece that doesn't extend beyond an inch of the bar. I favour that if we use one piece of cloth and it is two large you have to fold the sides in before you wrap. I'm sure that either of these rulings will stop any problems occuring.

What do you think?

By the way, Eric is a great sport (as has been shown in the past) and will definitely not see this as any slant against himself or any techniques so far. We are trying to do the best to move this sport up and upwards. It's a learning curve for us all.

David

[gazza]

Zach

Fully agree with you,we dont want to go the way of some power lifting feds with ultra gear etc.

But i sometimes feel that all the fun is being taken out of it with alot of the critisicing of some feats etc.

Nothing personal about Mikaels or Ricks replies,i know that we cannot have it both ways,but its hardly life threatening,its a hobbie for me,fare enough if its in a comp or for a certification process the yeah criticise and annalize away,but for me the rest should be looked on for inspiration,motivation and fun.

Just my 2 cents.

[OldGuy]

Well said Gazza! It is all about fun and motivation to train.

[OldGuy]

Why not limit the size of the cloth, for example say 10' x 10''? It being up to you how you wrap. If we are trying to all bend with the same bars, then why not all use the same wrapping cloth? No doubt in my mind that the wrap should only be used to protect the hand. and not for any leverage advantages.

[jad]

I'm still confused as to how gripping the ends of a towel that aren't in contact with the nail is giving him extra leverage. If so much force was going into the ends of the towel not in contact with the Red nail wouldn't the towel rip? I know the nail is wrapped in kevlar and I'm not talking about it poking through but actually ripping from all the force, if he really is using it as an extended handle to get more levereage. We're talking about a towel here, I could see the point if he stuck two long unflexible objects or sleeves on the end but the excess towel will just give and rip if he pulls/pushes on it too hard. As far as the comments about his hands not being on the nail: If you look at the pics of Gavin bending the Red in MILO most of his hands are off the nail too. Why would one not get out as far as possible on the ends of the nail? It seems like one could generate maximum leverage that way. I'm really trying to see all sides here I'm just having a difficult time.

Edited April 18, 2004 by jad

[EricMilfeld]

First of all, thanks for the support and kind words guys! Secondly, I take no offense to any of the criticism of my bending technique. I welcome it as part of the process we use to fine tune our fledgling sport. Also, I don't consider myself to be the second best bender in the world. Far from it. Furthermore, with regards to all around hand and wrist strength, I know guys like Steve Mc Granahan, James Smith, Pat Povilatitis, Steve Weiner, and others, would blow me out of the water. In fact, using other bending styles, my abilities are quite average.

Let me explain my technique as I see it. I grasp the nail with only my first two fingers of each hand up until the time I start to push one end of the nail into the open palm of my other hand. This is the last stage of my bend before I interlock my fingers for the second to last crushdown stage (the last crushdown stage is grasping it like a gripper and squeezing with help from the other hand).

Now here is where I think there may be a misunderstanding. As much as I'm gripping the nail with my first two fingers and pulling downwards, I'm pushing into the end of the nail with my thumbpad. This is why I use the Irom Mind nylon pads to protect my thumbpads. There's a fulcrum effect taking place as I start the bend. I'm applying an upwards force with my fingers as I'm applying a downwards force by pushing into the nail's end with my thumbpads. The excess towel hanging off of the nail's end is doing just that, it's hanging. I've been using extra wide towels because after a bend or two the towels would be riddled with holes, and so I would position the nail off to the sides of these holes on successive bends. I've simply been trying to save on towels. But now that I'm preventing holes from developing in the towel by use of the IM pads, I see no reason why I can't use a towel that extends no further than one inch per side. I will try this in my next workout and report my findings. Who knows, maybe I'm somehow benefitting from the extra towel length. If this proves to be the case, I will be the first to acknowledge it. And by the way, if the IM pads were larger, enabling me to get a few more wraps around the nail to protect my thumbpads, I would have no issue with using only two of these with only one inch extending beyond the nail, with no towel being used whatsoever. But doing this would require custom cutting pads to fit various length bars.

[Bill Piche]

Not being a bender and reading thru this thread with interest, I think this idea will sort things out for everyone:

"2) we will also have a section for the Challenge Bars that will ONLY allow you to use the two small 2" x 2" pieces of leather, that you can get from us, or cut off an ordinary weights belt. I think you understand what I mean. Nothing else! This is tough-I've tried it!"

The concept is no different than passing around the same gripper ala MMG's.