Is V-bar Worth Training Regulary?

[deaner]

I assure you that when I do it, I don't hold back, I'm only thinking about the long term effects of doing it on a regular basis. This I'm afraid may result in my being labled a "pussy" I'm afraid. I mean no offense of course, I love reading your posts, probably more than any others on here. If you, being that you've trained this lift for a long time, haven't had any problems in this area, then that would be real helpful information I think.

[jimwylie1]

I've tried the 2" v bar and liked it a lot. I liked the fact that the weights lifted are lower too - hoisting 160 odd kg becomes tiring...

Mikael, pinning the thumb didn't offer any advantage for me, so I avoided it. There's no doubt that the 2" lift would favour the larger handed competitor though. Therefore, I am all for it .

[Mikael Siversson]

Pinning the thumb?

You mean pinning some of the fingers with the thumb.

On a 1 1/2'' bar I can effectively push down on one of the fingers with the thumb and it certainly helps me lift more. Same with a 1'' bar.

Don't you push on the fingers with the thumb on a 1'' bar either?

[DuTCH]

It's worth training it. As far as injuries, i hadn't touched a v-bar in like 8 months or so, and last week tried it again.. What used to be easy weight for me, say, 110kg, almost felt like it would tear my wrist off!

conclusion, the spinning of the v-bar is good for healthy and flexible wrists! yay!

[jimwylie1]

Sorry, I did mean pinning some of the fingers with the thumb.

I found that I could barely pin any of the fingers and that that thumb was better utilised on the bar. I would say that you'd need a monster hand to gain any advantage.

Yes, I do push on the fingers with the 1" bar.

[CoC#3]

Jim Wylie, how big are your hands?

[Bob Lipinski]

There is definitely a skin conditioning factor that you need to train the vbar for if you want to do well in the vbar.

Vbar seems to be correlated with thick bar type stuff, but that just may be coincidental. Out of the 3 guys I know in michigan who I have seen pull 330+ in the vbar, all of them broke 400 off the ground with a 2" bar.

[mobsterone]

LOL - i haven't got anything against volume Mr Siversson, infact many suggest i do too much. 20-30 negs on a #4 is a relatively normal workout for me while doing a high volume phase. There is a fine line though between high volume and getting skin tears which slow progress. It is for this reason that i suggest a 2'' vbar, especially if your hands are bigger than 8''. You will be able to do more come competition time with a 1'' bar and you won't have had the skin tears in the off season which obviosuly don't help. I hope you can see where i am comng from. I will be putting me idea to the test at GB iron grip 2007 !!!!!

As the ideas are untested it is better to preface them with either - in your opinion or what works for me (as u did).

[mobsterone]

Having PM'd various guys (those that were ahead of me and then behind me and then ahead of me... over the last 2 years or so) who proved their worth on the V-Bar I can say that two or three factors are important.

1) Yes you do need to train it regularly to see serious improvement - more so if competitive

2) Find out what set and rep scheme works for you. High volume singles seem best. I'm currently using 12 singles at max weight per session.

3) Allowing the skin and hands to recover. This one seemed the most useful. My initial questions were along the lines of set and reps and 'what do you do?'. I looked at the various replies I had and it varied between 3 reps (my scheme then) and as high as 15 singles. However, I was training the lift twice a week and getting tears and small blood blisters every time. As you'll see in the next paragraph it took a few such sessions for me to ask the right question - I can use any set scheme which suits me - it was the issue of recovary which I needed to look at. Fortunately I was able to ask and get some nice answers.

In some lifts, such as grippers, even when training the rest of the aspects of your grip hard you can still get away with 2 or more (for some but not me) sessions per week. V-bar IS NOT SUCH AN EXERCISE. Done well, done hard and properly pushed 10 days minimum between sessions seems about right and some take as many as 15 days. A middle ground of slightly more often than once every 12-14 days seems about right for most.

It's worth adding that the idea of 'uneven loading' seems facile to me. Given that we do a fair old few one hand lifts and often see a difference between left and right hand the V-Bar is no worse than other lifts. But here's a thought if it really is that bad - bring up the weak hand. A few kilos / lbs will not make that much of a difference 20-kilos / 44lbs or more might. It can seem to be a cack handed way of lifting - Jim's 240-kilo+ hooked effort and the various unhooked lifts of 350-400lbs are never pretty but if the weights are close between hands than the load on the body can be evened out.

If you check my log you'll see that I warm up with 60, 75, 90 and 105-kilos (132, 180, 198 and 230lbs approx) and then use my session target weight (today was 130-kilos / 286lbs plus the bar) for 12 singles. Both hands are trained equally and I do the left and then the right within a few seconds (just enough time to set myself) and pull as high as I can (well over 2-inches). I have deliberatly dropped weight below what I have previously done and am currently adding 5-kilos / 11lbs per hand per session which is once every 10 days. The closer I get to my max I am sure the 5-kilo progression will turn into 2.5-kilo / 5.5lb progression. The 12 x 1 may also reduce a little but I'd like to be able to keep at least 8 x 1 as a guiding mark. I wont say what my target weight is but I'd like it to be as close to, or better than, my previous best and with both hands. I haven't done my best yet (as last years British V-Bar effort was a dismal flabbergastenpoopy up on my part).

[mobsterone]

There is definitely a skin conditioning factor that you need to train the vbar for if you want to do well in the vbar.

Vbar seems to be correlated with thick bar type stuff, but that just may be coincidental. Out of the 3 guys I know in michigan who I have seen pull 330+ in the vbar, all of them broke 400 off the ground with a 2" bar.

I think I'm with the comment made earlier - 1", 2" whatever, those that are good at one would be good at the next size up. It isn't just hand size (I get tired of hearing about those with small hands - few are genuinely smal handed in strength sports and as such are just whining babies ) but will apply themselves. Mikeal has it mostly right when he infers that any such lift is tough - bite the damn bullets you frigging pussies and get the work done.

I'm no fan of the KTA program and would never dream of doing 30 negs like CoC 3 does but the KTA works for many and Sam seems to do ok on the high negs so I cannot say 'that's too tough!' or 'it doesn't work'. So it's whimping out when people say v-bar is a tough lift - yes it is - get on with it. There are some on many strength boards across the net who seem convinced that it is easy for some guys to train and get strong - it might amount in reality to 1% or less. The other 4-5% who form the elite trained damn hard. We see images in the galleries from time to time of busted fingers and even split palms (ouch!) but once healed the toughest go at it again, again and again. Kinney was one such beast.

So no more of this 'it's a tough lift'. Put on some nasty crazy assed metal band screaming their lungs raw, get the chalk out and lift, lift and lift again. Tape up the wounds, heal for as long as it takes and go at it some more. It's not rocket science.

[Mikael Siversson]

I do vbar every 8 days but can handle doing it every 6 days for shorter periods. When I broke the total WR in February I had done about six weeks of very sixth day training with 5 tripples apart from warm up. Most of the tripples were done with elastic tape protecting the skin. The week before the competition I did 5 tripples with four minutes rest between the sets using 132.5k for my left hand and 150k with my right hand. The tripples were followed by a couple of singles without protection for the hands. Throughout this six weeks period I ate like a pig and gained 3k in bodyweight (from 82 to 85). Without the weight gain I don't think my body could have handled the workload.

I will post a picture in the gallery showing how I protect my hands for a vbar workout. A thin towel work as well but elastic tape is even better I think.

[Scott Styles]

I've done grippers till my hands are raw. I've split thumb webbing on pinches and kept going. I've bruised my palm on bends. I've bruised my forearms with kettlebells. I've lost calluses to my wrist roller.

None of that is as painful as training v-bar. It sets your skin on fire. The pain doesn't stop when the workout is over either.

Uneven loading doesn't magically balance out just because you do it on both sides of the body. The upper and lower back are put in an awkward position with well over half of your deadlift max hanging from a single arm. The weight is likely spinning, was picked up abruptly, and will be dropped abruptly. Get careless or make a mistake and you're taking on risk of injury to the shoulder, any of the muscles of the back, or a disc in the spine. An injury in any of those areas will plauge you in activities far more important than grip.

I'm not saying the lift cannot be trained safely with progressive increases in weight and good form, I just don't think the pain and risk are worth the reward.

[jad]

Only if you're doing contests. It's worthless other than that IMO.

[jimwylie1]

Only if you're doing contests. It's worthless other than that IMO.

Don't know if I'd agree that it's worthless, but I can think of other grip lifts that I'd rather do. Hauling all those plates out of the shed every time you wanna train the lift can be a real ball-ache too.

As a completion lift, it’s great - standard equipment, quick to perform and easy to judge.

[Mikael Siversson]

People who badmouths events in which they excell have my utmost respect. They are rare though.

[Florian Kellersmann]

Only if you're doing contests. It's worthless other than that IMO.

Don't know if I'd agree that it's worthless, but I can think of other grip lifts that I'd rather do. Hauling all those plates out of the shed every time you wanna train the lift can be a real ball-ache too.

As a completion lift, it’s great - standard equipment, quick to perform and easy to judge.

I agree with you that the equipment and the judging of v-bar-lifts in competition is easy. Another question is, if it's a good test of handstrength? I agree with you guys, that training v-bar might help you to do better on the v-bar. But if your goal is to have strong hands - this is my goal, by the way - I wouldn't spend too much time with the v-bar.

[Mikael Siversson]

My main objection to much of the reasoning in this thread relates to the fact that few if any has done a thorough test evaluating vbar cross-over.

For example train grippers only for three months and see how you do in a range of other grip exercises.

Do the same with vbar etc.

After that we could have a somewhat more meaningful discussion.

Moreover, I dare say that all of you that dismiss vbar as useful for strengthening the hands have never really explored the lift in depth with large volume training.

Edited December 29, 2006 by Mikael Siversson

[Florian Kellersmann]

My main objection to much of the reasoning in this thread relates to the fact that few if any has done a thorough test evaluating vbar cross-over.

For example train grippers only for three months and see how you do in a range of other grip exercises.

Do the same with vbar etc.

After that we could have a somewhat more meaningful discussion.

Moreover, I dare say that all of you that dismiss vbar as useful for strengthening the hands have never really explored the lift in depth with large volume training.

For me this is true. I've never done large volume training with the v-bar and I will never do it.

For me is OK though, if YOU train the v-bar until your hands are strong enough to pinch 2x45 pound York discs, to lift the Inch and to close a SE or a #4

[austinslater]

I tend to agree with Flo's thoughts on the subject. I personally dont like the v-bar and didnt see much carryover to anything else.

[Mikael Siversson]

For me this is true. I've never done large volume training with the v-bar and I will never do it.

For me is OK though, if YOU train the v-bar until your hands are strong enough to pinch 2x45 pound York discs, to lift the Inch and to close a SE or a #4

I would not be surprised if I could pinch two York 45's already. I am good at wide pinching; must be all that vbar lifting.

[burkhardmacht]

For me this is true. I've never done large volume training with the v-bar and I will never do it.

For me is OK though, if YOU train the v-bar until your hands are strong enough to pinch 2x45 pound York discs, to lift the Inch and to close a SE or a #4

I would not be surprised if I could pinch two York 45's already. I am good at wide pinching; must be all that vbar lifting.

Would be very nice to see a video of that!

In my opinion it's much more spectacular to pinch 2x45# plates than to lift a huge weight on the vbar. The vbar is my strongest event at the moment but I don't like it because I can't see any carry over effects. If You want to be good in vbar - train it. If You would like to have strong hands - train heavy support, fatbar and pinch (and do some squatting before breakfast)!

[jimwylie1]

Mikael, I was just making the point that there are exercises out there that I'd rather do if given the choice. What I would say is that you can get a good workout from the lift. Same with any of the established grip lifts really - if you train them hard enough and correctly, your hands will get tired, your forearms will get engorged with blood etc – what I believe they call ‘the pump’.

As for cross-over, well, I don't really buy into the idea that training one particular grip exercise will make you strong in another (except maybe wrist work and bending). As a rule of thumb it's probably just better to train on the lifts that you want to improve on. Anybody that wants to pinch 2 45’s should do some pinching.

From a personal perspective, I'm going to start this lift again in the New Year. I'll be looking at all that the likes of Mikael have written on the subject and taking away the bits of info and training tips that I think will work for me.

[DuTCH]

It's worth training it. As far as injuries, i hadn't touched a v-bar in like 8 months or so, and last week tried it again.. What used to be easy weight for me, say, 110kg, almost felt like it would tear my wrist off!

conclusion, the spinning of the v-bar is good for healthy and flexible wrists! yay!

People who badmouths events in which they excell have my utmost respect. They are rare though.

I hate v-bar, don't train it!

[mobsterone]

I hope the same applies to the other lifts come Feb 24th...

[DuTCH]

Yeah.. aint it so..

(ticket purchased, i'm coming baby!)