BAD Armwrestling Exercises - Don’t Waste Your Time on These 

0:38 barbell wrist curls with both hands 3:09 already bent wrist big handle exercises 6:15 pulling with a belt without using the fingers

​@@schrodingerchainsawthanks!

Before you completely write it off you should try it with your elbows tucked closer together than your hands - basically trying to touch your elbows (Coach Ray and all the Latvians do this) - and it should allow you the range of motion you need in a two-handed wrist curl.

yeah i feel a sorta crackin in my wrist when i did these. 1 arm wrist curls feel significantly better, but less time efficient.

Thanks. Somehow after you started following me, several other people followed by Nathan Holle did as well. That feels neat because there’s a bit of overlap in our sports and to me the guy has basically been like royalty for the 15 years I’ve known his name.

@@ChrisDrummondAW no worries man, yes Nathan is a grip god and we have a lot of the same followers on here. He is such a humble guy, very low key but one of the strongest guys in the world grip wise. I started your thumb exercises a couple of weeks back and I've gained thumb size already from your exercises and I know other grip guys who I talk to have followed suit as I've been sharing your thumb training video . I also follow you on Instagram. I'm into grip training and have been grip mad for years but yes grip training and arm wrestling sure have overlap training wise. I've been an AW fan for over 20 years ive just never had the chance to try it as it's more niche here in the north east of England but I'm excited as a local club has just opened so I'm going to try it out. Yesterday I tested my pronation and riser strength Strict like Devon does and got 30kg/66lbs pronation and 25kg/55lb riser. I uploaded the vids to my RU-vid channel. I was told on the Reddit AW that 25kg/55lb is a fairly decent riser strength for a beginner and someone who weighs 74kg/163lb. My grip and wrist training has gave me a good head start I think for AW training.

Thanks for the sub. Don’t agree about the pronation, though, that range is pretty critical for developing the brachioradialis which is the main drive resisting being supinated.

The loop is just so you don't have to squeeze the belt with your fingers when doing the riser which you would have to do if you were just grabbing a belt. If you just have a loop and put all 4 fingers through the loop like here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YIhpyoX3mTE.html then you lower the connection point into your hand and get a bit of extra leverage.

Try dropping your knuckles and elevating your thumb/wrist in the setup to protect your pronation more. The exercises are pretty basic, just pronating with a belt on your thumb is the best way to train the movement in my opinion.

Pulling every week is ok if you don’t go too hard. If you’re getting ripped open then your training partners aren’t doing you any favors and you need to let matches go. I rarely get on the table for practice except for right before a tournament so I don’t have to manage table soreness with westside for armwrestling.

lol just stop doing wetside, theres a reason all those guys look like shit, are crippled and get outlifted by guys smaller than them

Science says our tendons need about 10 days for recovery. So if you feel huge soreness maybe it's better to have another table time after 2 weeks.

They create videos for views. I don't care what they say. Last 4 years of training videos are useless.

Yeah and that team seems to struggle with elbow and wrist pains a lot. Janis can barely compete because he's always injured. It's strange because he's a physical therapist, you'd think he'd understand that some of the exercises he designed for his club aren't good for the body.

​@@yorumcu31 So you don't take advice from pro arm wrestlers because you think they do it for view's?? 😅😅.. ..Yeah yeah...

@@Brian_Saginashvili_ Yeah yeah.

@@yorumcu31 fully downs

+20 since this video already, it's coming along. Thanks for the support.

Arent you the austrian national champion???

🤣

Man I was 230lbs at 18 I’ve never gained weight for armwrestling. Rapid weight changes are mostly water and not useful. Most people will perform best at whatever weight they settle at naturally. Dieting into lighter weight classes is usually detrimental too.

what he does is different than what I’m describing. He’s trying to basically teach you not to use side pressure (the way it’s conventionally defined).

20kg isn’t very much so that doesn’t mean your arm is safe there, and you have no idea how close you are to breaking it. If it was so easy to know then nobody would ever break their arms.

@@ChrisDrummondAW but why do people say 15lbs of torque at arm break position is enough to cause fractures?🤔 When I have been exerting way more than 15lbs on my humerus without getting remotely hurt

@@bmad1386 It is enough to cause fractures with the average person, but only if the bone gets overflexed in that direction. What specific bad positions are you talking about? With your hand outside of your shoulders? Or with just side pressure? If your arms are a little more flexible, like Devon, you probably could get your hand outside of your shoulders a bit without too much trouble....but dont push it. I can tell if i`m overdoing it.

@@ChrisDrummondAW I mostly agree although i`d argue your body does let you know when its on the verge of serious injury, but many dont notice or dont recognize the signs. There would be a sharp pain in your arm, and probably more than sharp, if its about to break. There were times when i was arm wrestling, and suddenly did a move i perhaps shouldnt have, and immediately felt a sharp pain and stopped pulling. My opponent stopped as well, which would have been probably bad if he didnt. But, the pain was probably from micro injuries to my bone and/or muscle inflammation. Sometimes, there is probably no pain till it happens....i`m not entirely sure, but there likely would be some pain, which they might attribute to something less serious and keep pulling.

You shouldn’t feel joint or connective tissue pain. Without more information it’s impossible to know but it’s most likely the way you grip the dumbbell, your range of motion, or the degree of deviation in your wrist at the start and through the range of motion.

Probably but I don’t know your particular affliction. Isometrics save tendons, try that.

It’s not a bad exercise but it’s not nearly as important as other things.

@@ChrisDrummondAW okay. Thank you for the response.

It's fine, he knows what he's doing. I think he overisolates some things but he doesn't make any glaring mistakes. He's the champ, it clearly works well enough.

@@maqenza I don't think that doing just wrist rise with the strap on the hand is as good as doing it over the knuckles but if he consistently deals with pain in his metacarpals and knuckles then that's what he has to do. It's fine, he's taking the arm out by putting that sling on. As far as the backpressure, that does mimic the straps more. It's not wrong but it does let you lift more without adding any extra benefit. It's fine, we just have to remember there's going to be a 10-20% higher lift that way than just on the hand.

It doesn’t change anything about what I said.

@@ChrisDrummondAW Huh? When you tuck your elbows closer than your hands the line in the hands you were talking about stays straight and you can freely curl instead of deviating like you said.

@@the9th96 No, it doesn't. The only way that line stays straight and parallel to the ground is if you only half-bend your wrist. Elbow position is irrelevant - the hand moves relative to the forearm when flexing the wrist so changing the starting position in space will never change the fact that your hands deviate during wrist flexion and they deviate in opposite directions. I used to have Sandris programming for me and this was a point of disagreement. Ultimately it came down to him saying "that's just the right way to do it" and being unable to resolve the fact that the only way to do the reps was to loosen the grip on the bar and let the bar move within the hand. And it's no wonder that Janis, who originally taught all these guys what to do, is too banged up from training to compete often.

@@ChrisDrummondAW I understand what you're saying but saying starting position doesn't help with that is just completely wrong. If I do a normal two-hand wrist curl with the barbell - Yes. Everything you are saying is correct and it is awful and nobody should be doing that at all so there is no contention there from me. Again - I agree with you here. I also agree that there are probably way better alternatives to this. But if I do the same thing, hands in the same position - only now - I move my elbows in and they are completely tucked in together and touching, I am able to do it with not only better range of motion but the biomechanics of my palm deviating isn't causing an impediment along the way. I subbed to you because I think you fill an information hole in terms of content for Armwrestling and I like what you say but I'm just going to have to disagree with you here man. If they don't work for you that is fine and if you disagree with the Latvian system that is fine too. Not all exercises and systems work for everyone. You might think it's not optimal to train with barbell wrist curls or use certain exercises but I'm gonna have to go with the people who are winning world titles like Sandris on this here.

No… ez bars are shit for wrist curls too. You’re stuck with one angle for any kind of bar and they’re all equally shit for wrist curls.

@@ChrisDrummondAW Makes sense. Thank you for your points.

Why would you do that instead of using a wrist wrench? Using a belt like that takes more load off the wrist. It’s better than nothing I guess but I don’t know why you would do that except to try to lift heavier weights than your wrist can handle which usually makes elbow pain worse.

@@ChrisDrummondAW I do 2 sidepressure exercises! When the cable comes from up and infront of me i use a wristwrench or spinning handle. The 2nd exercise i often use a strap because i want to take load of the wrist. Focusing on internal rotation. The bulgarians often do this exercise and its great

@@Larsse1 if it’s just internal rotation that’s fine, I do that as well but that’s just one component of side pressure.

@@Larsse1 - A belt works great if you are working supination or pronation, but the rule is to force your hand and wrist to keep up, otherwise you are just destroying your elbow for nothing. The wrist wrench is great, but it doesn’t work pronation or supination in a hook or top roll.

@@kingwillie206 No it doesn't destroy the elbow 🙂