Bending Frequency

[J.Burns]

How often should one bend in terms of on a weekly bases? Any opinion would be fantastic thank you

[Chez]

I think it depends on the person and how quickly they recover. It also changes the more you bend. Right now 4-5 days in between bending sessions works for me.

[J.Burns]

Ok and how much steel would each session consist of

[Chez]

that choice was "be a jack of all trades and master of none, and bend ALL styles and be decent at all of them and dedicate LOTS of time to making it happen" or "be a bad mother**cker at just one style and do it as fast as possible".. and I chose #2.

You definitely accomplished that Tommy. Hope you still have time for bending dude.

Ok and how much steel would each session consist of

8-10 pieces of steel usually, but only like 3-4 of those are "tough" bends for me. The rest is light warm up steel. I have a big flexibility issue so the light steel helps loosen me up and prepare me for the tougher stuff.

[J.Burns]

Thanks guys big help.

[Jedd Johnson]

Here is an article I did on it a while back. It discusses implementing Bending along with other training. Hope it helps you.

http://www.dieselcrew.com/balancing-steel-bending-with-other-training

[mightyjoe]

How often should one bend in terms of on a weekly bases? Any opinion would be fantastic thank you

I honestly don't see how anyone could answer your question but yourself and the way you

would answer your question is self experimentation and keeping a training journal.

In the past before I knew any better I never did progress much at all by following others

programs or tried to do what they did. It was only when I started experimenting for myself

and keeping notes that I made progress. For example, what if one opinion claims that he gets

great results from bending everyday and another opinion claims he gets great results from once a week?

How can this be helpful for YOU? It can't! The only way to know is experiment yourself.

It's kind of like someone asking what's the BEST exercise for acquiring larger biceps? My answer to these type questions

is BEST for who? Same with any exercise/movement. I strongly believe that the biggest hindrance to strength

progression in any strength related sport/activity is listening to others without doing just one experiment for yourself.

Is it wrong to listen to others? Absolutely not! As long as you don't blindly follow advice and refuse to question things

and try things for yourself. Test everything! Ask questions! Lots of questions! Internal dialogue is a great tool for personal

insight.

Hope this post doesn't come across wrong but my point is to try and get others to understand that one of the keys to

success is experimentation. I used to have a signature at the end of my posts that said, "One experiment is better than

one million opinions" and I stand by that saying. Think about it!

[daniel reinard]

If you're starting out do as Tommy did. The MAJORITY of benders have found success to start with light to medium type bends on a near daily basis. The idea is you need to dial the technique in before getting all buck wild on big bars. Also there is a significant amount of skin, tendon and pain tolerance growth that needs to be overcome which luckily comes along with noob gains. Once you feel super automatic with the technique and toughness you can go to once every half week or so and do tougher bends. I do a tough session once every 4-8 days, depending on how hard I went the day before. The place where people get in trouble is they transition to hard bars while still going near daily in their workouts. That will only get you hurt. I was there 2+ years ago. No one told me to get more rest when hitting max effort bars. Then again, back then, the "IN" thing was to do kink ISOs daily. Looking back most those guys hurt their shoulders just as I did. What Tommy outlined is a pretty solid system that people are doing now to build up from a beginner to be able to transition to pushing up the PRs. It's working for alot of the recent Red certed people. I also agree in what Tommy said about picking a style. Pick a path and design your plan around it. What's working best for the jack of all trades types is to focus on one style for 1-2 months then rotating to another style. This is the same with grip work. When focusing on one thing we normally get to a burnt out stage 1-2 months along and we see best results when training in blocks that are rotated that often. eg, 1-2 months of thickbar, then grippers, then pinch, etc. Or for bending rotate reverse, DU and DO every couple months. Wigren is a perfect example of his all around badassery and rotated training cycles.

[Buccos1]

How often should one bend in terms of on a weekly bases? Any opinion would be fantastic thank you

There's a lot of good advice in here already. Like was said, somebody trying to establish this needs to experiment. I've gone through several "stages" in bending, and have had to make changes to accommodate age, injuries, and other training goals. One thing has been constant: my approach is constantly evolving.

Here are a few basic, general recommendations: Part of the fun when first starting out was discovering everything and how things fit together. At this beginning point, a huge volume of stock can be bent at the 3/16 and 1/4" diameters, with little worry about recovery (Any injuries accrued tend to be minimal/non-serious). The focus should be on technique and adaptations to the hands/fingers ... and having a lot of fun!. At a novice or intermediate level, I'd recommend pushing it, but strategically. At the intermediate stage (when at the Red level), more focus needs to be on recovery and reducing volume of top bends. (These recommendations are things that worked for me, and things I picked up through experimentation.) At one point in my bending, I'd do Reds as a second warm-up, before trying a 485-95 x 7 bar. After awhile, it was just too much, and I had to cut down on the "warm-ups," and focus on a more all-around, full-body warmup leading up to the top 1 or 2 bends.

As far as frequency goes (and this is what worked for me), you could probally bend every other day. When you have a month-or-two in, start spacing out the sessions by 2-3 days, depending on how much stock you are doing per session (add or subtract a day). When you are at the intermediate stage, and are likely working toward a bigger goal, and/or pushing it hard each session, you might have to incorporate some specific warmup/cooldown/recovery techniques into your program, if not already doing them. Jedd has a lot of awesome stuff out there regarding this. If you are bending multiple styles, there are countless ways to work this into your training, but you need to be even more careful with programming. As for stock, when I started out with easy stuff at the beginning, I'd bend anywhere from 7-10 pieces per session. That was the maximum volume at the beginning, and went down to 5-6 (2 max) around when I was trying to cert. the Red. Now, I bend a total of 3-4 bars per session (including warmup). Hope this helps some!

[Broly]

Just my 2 cents but in the beginning do it whenever you can and if you're up to it. As you get better and move to harder steel then you'll need more recovery and can do once every 4th or 5th day. Oh and I abosutely agree with Tommy, go with choice #2 and be a bad ass mofo. Go all out on Double Overhand and smash everything in site.

Keep an open mind and listen to everything the experience benders have to offer. Try it all out and just tweak it as you go along. I had all the same questions in the beginning and tried several apporaches based off advice. In the end I took a litle bit from each and formulated what worked for me.

[J.Burns]

Thanks guys. As to what joe said. Of course but I think getting a better idea in terms of metal stock is totally different then what wieght goes on a barbell. For example dont want to go waste money on 5/16 steel when I can only bend a 6 inch bright nail. Which brings me to another issue up here in the great white north ( at least where I live) no such thing as a 60penny nail. Only bright nails which are slightly larger then quarter inch about 9/32. Thanks everyone for the excellent advice!

[mightyjoe]

Thanks guys. As to what joe said. Of course but I think getting a better idea in terms of metal stock is totally different then what wieght goes on a barbell. For example dont want to go waste money on 5/16 steel when I can only bend a 6 inch bright nail. Which brings me to another issue up here in the great white north ( at least where I live) no such thing as a 60penny nail. Only bright nails which are slightly larger then quarter inch about 9/32. Thanks everyone for the excellent advice!

The subject as I understood it was bending frequency. You didn't mention bending stock in your initial question.

Just clarifying here as it seems my suggestions were off course to you. My only intention was to offer insight to your query.

All is good!

I wish you well in all your goals!!!

[J.Burns]

Not trying to disrespect joe I am a big fan of yours i am just excited to start my bending journey. I appreciate eberything!