Odin's Grip Journey

[Griparn]

How long have you been training for the inch? And how much could you lift when you first started?

Great videos btw!

[odin]

How long have you been training for the inch? And how much could you lift when you first started?

Great videos btw!

Thanks Griparn, glad you like the videos.

Here's a still picture from my first workout and

from the same workout. I've always been able to get at least a little air under it since I started using it almost 5 and 1/2 months ago (early October). O

, (here's a still picture)and then decided to add weight for the next 3 months to help me learn to fight the rotation better. I'll likely try an "unloaded" pull again around April 9th or 12th (I try to train the Inch every 10-14 days on Wed. or Sat., but have waited as long as 18 days in the past). Edited March 18, 2008 by odin

[Teemu I]

Bob, do you have a RT or equivalent rolling handle? If you do, what is your best lift so far? Or have you had a chance to try?

[odin]

Bob, do you have a RT or equivalent rolling handle? If you do, what is your best lift so far? Or have you had a chance to try?

Teemu, I do have one. The last time I used it was September 18, about three weeks before Roger Steffens gave me the Inch. The RT had been in storage for over 3 years (I think 171 was the most I did in 2004 when I'd previously used it), so I used a graphite lubricant to make sure it was rolling well (Sybersnotting is what I call it, since it was his idea that I'd read about on the GB). I was able to I break the ground using my RH with 176 (pretty good, but not perfect lift) & 181 (barely broke ground) after maxing out with my 3 inch DB. I would guess I'm a bit stronger now.

If/when I DL the Inch, please remind me to max on the RT within a week or two so I can contribute a data point to the ubiquitous question: How much will I need to lift on the Rolling Thunder before I will be able to lift the Inch?

[Teemu I]

Bob, do you have a RT or equivalent rolling handle? If you do, what is your best lift so far? Or have you had a chance to try?

Teemu, I do have one. The last time I used it was September 18, about three weeks before Roger Steffens gave me the Inch. The RT had been in storage for over 3 years (I think 171 was the most I did in 2004 when I'd previously used it), so I used a graphite lubricant to make sure it was rolling well (Sybersnotting is what I call it, since it was his idea that I'd read about on the GB). I was able to I break the ground using my RH with 176 (pretty good, but not perfect lift) & 181 (barely broke ground) after maxing out with my 3 inch DB. I would guess I'm a bit stronger now.

If/when I DL the Inch, please remind me to max on the RT within a week or two so I can contribute a data point to the ubiquitous question: How much will I need to lift on the Rolling Thunder before I will be able to lift the Inch?

OK, should have find that out by looking through your log more carefully. Those are good lifts on the RT, but I do think you must be significantly stronger at the moment. All the Inch work certainly takes care of the RT. I will remind you to max on the RT when the Inch goes up so we will know how the RT and Inch compares in your case.

[odin]

Bob, do you have a RT or equivalent rolling handle? If you do, what is your best lift so far? Or have you had a chance to try?

Teemu, I do have one. The last time I used it was September 18, about three weeks before Roger Steffens gave me the Inch. The RT had been in storage for over 3 years (I think 171 was the most I did in 2004 when I'd previously used it), so I used a graphite lubricant to make sure it was rolling well (Sybersnotting is what I call it, since it was his idea that I'd read about on the GB). I was able to I break the ground using my RH with 176 (pretty good, but not perfect lift) & 181 (barely broke ground) after maxing out with my 3 inch DB. I would guess I'm a bit stronger now.

If/when I DL the Inch, please remind me to max on the RT within a week or two so I can contribute a data point to the ubiquitous question: How much will I need to lift on the Rolling Thunder before I will be able to lift the Inch?

OK, should have find that out by looking through your log more carefully. Those are good lifts on the RT, but I do think you must be significantly stronger at the moment. All the Inch work certainly takes care of the RT. I will remind you to max on the RT when the Inch goes up so we will know how the RT and Inch compares in your case.

Teemu, no problem, my log is long and detailed.

Maybe one of the curious will send me a NEW handle.

[odin]

3/19/07

Played with RP Trainer (from Mlstrass), Great tool, will write a review in a week or so when I'm done with my wife's green card paperwork (removal of conditions). Huge energy black hole dealing with all this crap. Irritates me that "illegals" don't have to jump through all the hoops people trying to do things "by the book" do.

3/20/07

BW:163.0 lbs.

Extensors: OH resistance

Yoga: 1 hour

OH Press 115 lbs.x4 reps|115 lbs.x3 reps|115 lbs.x2 reps (weak, body not feeling right)

Tried some pinching: no strength at all

forgot to note in the last wrist workout that I did reverse wrist curls 75 lbs. x 25 reps

Edited March 21, 2008 by odin

[Griparn]

Thanks for the info Odin and good luck with your wife's green card!

[odin]

3/22/08

Chins: BW+25 lbs.x5 reps

Pullups: BW+25 lbs.x5 reps

Parallel Grip Pullups: BW+25 lbs.x5 reps

Hang Cleans: 95 lbs.x 5 reps|95 lbs.x 5 reps|95 lbs.x 5 reps|

Bent Over Rows 115 lbs.x 5 reps|115 lbs.x 5 reps|(set bar on ground between reps)

Wrist Curls: 135 lbs.x 22 reps| 155 lbs.x 7reps|

Plate Wrist Curls: 25 lbs.x 11 reps RH, 0 reps+11 FR LH (L thumb too painful w/o assistance)26.25 lbs.x 5 reps RH, 25 lbs.x 5 FR LH| 27.5 lbs.x 4 reps+1 FR RH, 25 lbs.x 5 FR LH| (added platemates on far end of plate to increase leverage)

3/23/08

BW: 163.0 lbs.

Wrist Curls: 135 lbs.x 3 reps| 165 lbs.x 3reps|185 lbs.x 1rep|205 lbs.x1 attempt

Behind-the-back Wrist Curls: 225 lbs.x5 reps|250 lbs.x3 attempts|275lbs.x1 cheat

Finger Curls: 225 lbs.x 5 reps |250lbs.x5 reps|250lbs.x4 reps|250lbs.x3 reps|275 lbs.x5 cheat/negatives

2.4 inch Thug Wrist Roller: already tired, 70 lbs. was tough (I've done 100 lbs. of plates when less tired-heard weights improve quickly on WR-so I'm not too worried)

Reverse Wrist Curls: 85 lbs.x12 reps|85 lbs.x9 reps|85 lbs.x 5 reps

Reverse Curls (thumbless): 80 lbs.x7 reps|80 lbs.x7 reps|80 lbs.x7 reps|

Levering (choked up on old sledge that weighs 10 on scale, no markings)

Pronation & Supination: (hit harder than normal)

Rolling Thunder: attached to low pulley for light reverse curls, etc.

2.4 inch Thug Wrist Roller: 40 lbs. to finish (really, really done).

[John Eaton]

Nice looking workout Bob

[odin]

Thanks for the info Odin and good luck with your wife's green card!

Thanks Griparn! Just sent the paperwork off on Saturday morning. Lots of little details, think it looked real good after I assembled everything, put in tabs and in a folder using those ACCO 2-hole punched binder things. I never did anything this neat or well-organized when I was in school, must be love. Now we just have to wait and hope for approval.

Nice looking workout Bob

Thanks John, I was lagging a bit due to the green card work. I'm sore from the chins, but in a good way. I'm trying to improve my wrist and forearm strength, pinch is secondary for the time being, and, of course the Inch is my #1 goal.

You had a great contest performance John!

Great new avatar BTW.

Edited March 24, 2008 by odin

[odin]

]3/24/08

At work did pronation & supination with a normal hammer for high reps (Scott George's suggestion)

Warmup: 5 sprints and stretching (Achilles felt great tonight)

Front Squats: 100 lbs.x3 reps|100 lbs.x3 reps|100 lbs.x3 reps|100 lbs.x3 reps|100 lbs.x3 reps|

Worked on keeping more upright during front squats. I'm lucky my upper body is flexible; it has been very, very easy for me to learn the clean grip. I'm still using dimes under my heels. I am working on keeping the bar against my neck so I feel a slight choking sensation, my elbows high, and my upper body straight up as possible-but I feel like my tendency is to lean forward a bit. The weight feels very light for me, but I'm keeping both the reps and weight low so i can work on form and concentrate fully for a short period. Each set felt better than the previous one.

Sprints: did 5 more, felt great!

[hab34buy]

Just sent the paperwork off on Saturday morning. Lots of little details, think it looked real good after I assembled everything, put in tabs and in a folder using those ACCO 2-hole punched binder things. I never did anything this neat or well-organized when I was in school, must be love. Now we just have to wait and hope for approval.

I've had friends who have dealt with the whole green card stuff. Their words explaining it to me were simply this: It's a pain! Details help in those kinds of things with the binder etc.. Best wishes for approval. (nice training by the way)

[gumpster]

I hope everything gets approved for your wife. I kind of had the same issue for myself in order to get permanent residency here in my wife's country. Tons of paperwork, fees, waiting, even a 1 year probationary period before it was all settled. It's definitely worth it for your wife and probably required by law anyway.

As for your workouts - I'm impressed! You're 12 years older than me but you get in several more days each week for exercise. I guess the fact that your hitting different areas each day allows you to do back to back workouts. You wouldn't be able to do that if it were just grip stuff I'm sure. I'm positive I couldn't do 5 pullups without any weight added and those plate curls are outstanding as well (25# would kill me right now - I can barely get my 20# once).

I'll be interested to see how you feel when you start bending. I had a few months of sledge levering behind me when I started but it didn't really prepare me for the stresses of bending. I have soreness in entirely new places because of it. Bending just can't be replicated with other exercises. I think your work strengthening your body overall will help a lot though. You'll be using your upper arms, shoulders, chest & back to kill those bars (not just the elbows down). But first is the Inch...

[anson]

Nice hammer work, it'll help with your Inch I'm sure. When I started doing direct wrist work everything else improved.

[John Eaton]

Nice to see the sledge work Bob I better watch it or you might sneak up on me in levering I'm trying to sneak up to you on blobs but I have a ways to go on that.

[odin]

Thanks for the support and compliment jw7!

I hope everything gets approved for your wife. I kind of had the same issue for myself in order to get permanent residency here in my wife's country. Tons of paperwork, fees, waiting, even a 1 year probationary period before it was all settled. It's definitely worth it for your wife and probably required by law anyway.

As for your workouts - I'm impressed! You're 12 years older than me but you get in several more days each week for exercise. I guess the fact that your hitting different areas each day allows you to do back to back workouts. You wouldn't be able to do that if it were just grip stuff I'm sure. I'm positive I couldn't do 5 pullups without any weight added and those plate curls are outstanding as well (25# would kill me right now - I can barely get my 20# once).

I'll be interested to see how you feel when you start bending. I had a few months of sledge levering behind me when I started but it didn't really prepare me for the stresses of bending. I have soreness in entirely new places because of it. Bending just can't be replicated with other exercises. I think your work strengthening your body overall will help a lot though. You'll be using your upper arms, shoulders, chest & back to kill those bars (not just the elbows down). But first is the Inch...

Gumpster,

Paperwork is boring and takes time away from other things, but hopefully all is ok. I might have to do the same thing as you if we retire there-yikes!

I don't really feel that age is much of an issue except for recovery and bouncing back after injuries. My workouts usually just involve a few sets of one or more compound movements. I've been trying to increase either the weights or the reps every workout, usually do 3 sets of 5 reps before adding weight. I've gone over two weeks between certain exercises, which isn't ideal, but have still improved-most likely because I am not at an advanced enough level for it to matter-so everything I try will work within reason until I hit the intermediate level or so(an elite-level athlete would have to be much more cognizant of time between workouts and other factors).

I may need to have some weight training goals before i bend, perhaps I should have to DO DL 335+ strict OH press 150+, chin with 75+, reverse-grip bench 185 or 205, etc.-will need to think about that. I need to do heavy weighted dips as well (perhaps +100 lbs.?-need a dip station. Your post made me think more of the whole-body stress; it may be as long as December before i feel ready to really attack steel, but perhaps I'll do light work and build up to some easy volume using all the different styles. I am patient and in this for the long haul.

Anson & John, I'm still getting used to the levering and not pushing it too much because my L elbow flares up when I do. I do think this may be a particular dimension of strength I'll need to build up to fully DL the Inch (some have told me I could pull it at any time, others say I'm years away). It would be nice if it the levering helps in other areas.

[odin]

Wednesday 3/26/08

Inch Overload Workout VII

Inch-Added weight with magnets

+40 lbs: one set two attempts: broke ground RH+LH.

+25 lbs.: one set of 2 attempts ok

+10 lbs.: one sets of 2 attempts nothing great

Lots of attempted holds and mini-tramp bounce/negatives, some good holds.

Thursday 3/27/08

Yoga: 1 hour

attempted Inch holds and mini-tramp bounce/negatives

, did it 2x

Friday 3/28/08

Rolling Thunder: first time I've tried since Roger gave me the Inch, broke ground about half an inch with 180 in plates RH, but felt a little tweak under lat, so dropped to 135 lbs in plates.x 17 reps RH (some were well above waist), 12 reps LH|135 lbs.x 12reps RH, 5 reps LH

Saturday 3/29/08

Ran some sprints, Achilles extra stiff, but loosened up well.

DO DL: 225x3 reps| 270x5 reps

Last time I did DO DL was 3/9, but I felt strong and the weights just flew right up, not a "grinding" type of set at all.

Sunday 3/30/08

BW: 163.0

Military Press 115 lbs.x5 reps|115 lbs.x5 reps|115 lbs.x5 reps| Last time (3/20) I did only 4-3-2 reps; this time was great, felt like I could have done 1-2 more reps each set.

Inch: Did a couple pulls from the ground with empty Inch and with 5 lbs. added on the"easy side" for fun because my grip was pretty wasted from the other days but wanted to see if I could do anything at all, might have been highest pulls ever, so i think the "overload" workouts helped in some way if I could do this after this 5-day Inch/RT/DL blitzkrieg. I wanted to make sure I fully KTAd myself for my fresh attempts in about two weeks, so I did several sets of attempted holds and bounced negatives, blood on front edge of bell like usual.

EDIT: Heard from two different sources that i have the extra/"mutant" forearm muscle that Tommy and Wes have (click here for picture), any experts out there?

Edited March 31, 2008 by odin

[Teemu I]

Looking good Bob, even the gripper close looked better than before even though you hardly practice them.

[odin]

Looking good Bob, even the gripper close looked better than before even though you hardly practice them.

Thanks Teemu! I think I'm going to work a bit (nothing crazy) with the RP trainer and see if the RB 240N & #3 go down before GGC. I'm hoping to do it with my "fumbling" near-CC set rather than a proper MM set, I figure i could likely already close a #3 with technique improvements since I closed the 156.4 gripper in a choker easily at Gripmas.

I'm trying to avoid gripper specialization and any extreme negatives, etc. until I can close the # 3. If I can pull that off, it'd be nice.

Edited March 31, 2008 by odin

[lifesnotfair]

Huh! Where can I see pics of Tommy and Wes's mutant muscle?

If it's that one that sticks out... I kinda see it in my left forearm, but not in my right!! Weird.

[odin]

Huh! Where can I see pics of Tommy and Wes's mutant muscle?

If it's that one that sticks out... I kinda see it in my left forearm, but not in my right!! Weird.

I don't know, John Eaton said someone (I think Wes?) researched it; I think some people do have it in one arm and not the other.

[Teemu I]

Looking good Bob, even the gripper close looked better than before even though you hardly practice them.

Thanks Teemu! I think I'm going to work a bit (nothing crazy) with the RP trainer and see if the RB 240N & #3 go down before GGC. I'm hoping to do it with my "fumbling" near-CC set rather than a proper MM set, I figure i could likely already close a #3 with technique improvements since I closed the 156.4 gripper in a choker easily at Gripmas.

I'm trying to avoid gripper specialization and any extreme negatives, etc. until I can close the # 3. If I can pull that off, it'd be nice.

I think you are on the right track: keeping your hands healthy by building up a strong base. Seeing how far you've come on the various widths on pinch, I can be 100% certain that you don't need to go to the extreme to nail #3. In my opinion, #3 atleast should be doable with parallel set without going to the extreme with crazy negs or similar hard specialization. Beyond #3 it's likely to be different.

As for choker close correspondence to regular parallel set, I think you have to be closing a gripper from atleast 1" distance or rather closer to 1 and 1/4" distance to get it with parallel set. This is a guideline I've formulated through my own experience using the progressive distance choker method succesfully with 3.28, 3.54 and 3.86 -level grippers. 30mm has been the actual width for me that's pretty much guaranteed the MM-set close. It hasn't held true with one gripper though. At my best gripper strength peak so far I managed to close my 3.80 BBSE from 30mm choked distance, yet I missed the close but that's more to do with off-hand setting strength. I'm of the opinion that parallel is a good starting point on a choker work, but you need to work them wider than that for best results. Of course you can jump up to higher grippers instead and work the same distance, but the progressive distance choker work on the same gripper is a good way to microload. It's also easier on the head as you can get succesful closes more often when you progress little step by step. Success creates good momentum and that's what you need for good gains.

OOPS! Didn't intend to write about the choker work this much into your log. But anyway I'm sure the isolated R & P work will help on all aspects of grip work that you are doing and of course carryover best to your gripper closes. In fact I think that the wider set you use, the more it comes to R & P strength.

[odin]

Looking good Bob, even the gripper close looked better than before even though you hardly practice them.

Thanks Teemu! I think I'm going to work a bit (nothing crazy) with the RP trainer and see if the RB 240N & #3 go down before GGC. I'm hoping to do it with my "fumbling" near-CC set rather than a proper MM set, I figure i could likely already close a #3 with technique improvements since I closed the 156.4 gripper in a choker easily at Gripmas.

I'm trying to avoid gripper specialization and any extreme negatives, etc. until I can close the # 3. If I can pull that off, it'd be nice.

I think you are on the right track: keeping your hands healthy by building up a strong base. Seeing how far you've come on the various widths on pinch, I can be 100% certain that you don't need to go to the extreme to nail #3. In my opinion, #3 atleast should be doable with parallel set without going to the extreme with crazy negs or similar hard specialization. Beyond #3 it's likely to be different.

As for choker close correspondence to regular parallel set, I think you have to be closing a gripper from atleast 1" distance or rather closer to 1 and 1/4" distance to get it with parallel set. This is a guideline I've formulated through my own experience using the progressive distance choker method succesfully with 3.28, 3.54 and 3.86 -level grippers. 30mm has been the actual width for me that's pretty much guaranteed the MM-set close. It hasn't held true with one gripper though. At my best gripper strength peak so far I managed to close my 3.80 BBSE from 30mm choked distance, yet I missed the close but that's more to do with off-hand setting strength. I'm of the opinion that parallel is a good starting point on a choker work, but you need to work them wider than that for best results. Of course you can jump up to higher grippers instead and work the same distance, but the progressive distance choker work on the same gripper is a good way to microload. It's also easier on the head as you can get succesful closes more often when you progress little step by step. Success creates good momentum and that's what you need for good gains.

OOPS! Didn't intend to write about the choker work this much into your log. But anyway I'm sure the isolated R & P work will help on all aspects of grip work that you are doing and of course carryover best to your gripper closes. In fact I think that the wider set you use, the more it comes to R & P strength.

Teemu, you might not believe it, but that is EXACTLY the information I've been looking for! :cool :rock I've been wondering about choker work and any information will help, because I plan to do a LOT of it once I start hitting grippers.

It's fine to write whatever you want in my log. It's here to exchange ideas and help each other.

[jad]

Very interesting info Teemu! In my experience; I was closest to getting my #4 shut when I could get 2 out of 5 attempts shut at 7/8" in the choker. I was consistent with 1/8" and on good attempts would get within a 1/16" on the #4, MMS. I would agree with the 1" as a minimum for sure.