Guys, John is saying you should have a max session for 1.5 hours every week. It should be so intense, that if you added any other intense workouts, it would push you over the edge and into overtraining. The session should be so intense that you require a week or so to recover. A light session in between gets the blood moving and aids recovery. This resembles some advanced strength training protocols that push your CNS and tissues to their limit, then incorporate light days to maintain motor pattern and aid recovery. It makes perfect sense.
When you look at someone that looks just like a normal regular guy and suddenly found out that he is Superman in arm wrestlin. It's almost unreal to grasp this man. GOAT
@@hemingway3508 after voevoda stop armwrestling, there were more competitors that were coming in the game, brzenk armwrestled them. Voevoda didn't. Voevoda didn't prove for the long run
I work very well in a defensive and offensive hook, but my problem is getting my opponent in a hook, some supination training is all that is needed, but at the same time i can deliver a neat top roll, i can work with both techniques, as training is concerned i do small range movements and some static holds,it all seems to work, but remember that training on an actual table trains you arm way better than weights, good to hear from john and keep the videos coming Ryan.
Hey bud, I’ve been subscribed to you for awhile now. Huge props for getting John onto the podcast. If I may, could you ask John about his brother. I used to watch the old classic arm wrestling videos of the late 80s early 90s and remember watching them both. Hope all is well with Johns brother. Guy was very strong as well and not too far behind John in strength.
Thanks for the advices. Here in Bulgaria we sometimes train up to 3 times A DAY ( every day ). Sounds crazy but the top bulgarian armwrestlers actually stick to this . Cool to see that the GOAT has a compliatly different approach .
Armwrestling is such a cool sport. For my size, I've got pretty big and strong biceps, triceps, shoulders, pecs and back... but I'm hopeless because I've got short arms, thin wrists and small hands lol. Ah well, I'll just continue to enjoy watching these videos. Always a pleasure to see Brzenk!
that’s a really weak excuse! short arms,strong biceps, back ,chest and shoulder? sounds like you can be a great hooker. And there can even be advantages to having a smaller hand if you know how to use it, now you might not be nr 1 in the world but don’t use the excuse that you are genetically handicaps
The real question is what was cut off in the end! He gave you even more secrets didn't he.... DIDNT HE!? Lmao nah great vid man when are you competing again?
@@nfrost1986 yes he only did that for the movie... because they nedeed training scenes, but John does rarly workout, so they went to that kids playfield and he did some exerices for them....
John is the best and the LEGEND. And of course he is right. BUT.....to have group of guys to help you to armwrestle it's very difficult. That's why people training in the gym.
People say he doesn't respect the goat. Dude respects all his peers, its an ACT. Travis is a very solid, moralistically driven dude. They ALL yell at eachothers faces and tap into that beast when at the table. Its called passion and hyping too is part of it. If people just stood there and pulled and nothing else happened it wouldn't be as diverse or big as it is getting right now.
I guess John will take the secret of his arm wrestling technique into his grave. There must be some special thing he was doing which no one else did. Its incredible that he can win against guys which are 3-4 inches taller and have huge size advantages in nearly every aspect.
mind-boggling that this man dominated for 25+ years without intensive weight training. Right, wrong, or otherwise, you can't argue with success. It worked for him. (understatement of the year? lol)
I've never fully agreed with John on this. He is just too gifted. Everybody else on the planet, no matter how elite, requires extensive weight training together with table time. Asking someone with a talent why they are good at something doesn't really make sense. He is just too perfect of a storm.
Yep, I mean pulling heavy on the table once a week might be fine. But doing lots of volume really helps in recovery, and maybe even getting stronger I'm noticing. Well, at least I feel really recovered and strong on the muscles I've done lots of volume on. And then there's developing muscles that are used but weren't hit as hard during your tabletime training. I mean, why not train everything involved to the greatest of your recovering ability, or at least to a certain extent, right?
Have you ever given it a try?? I thought I was doing my best by doing table time once a week and then 2 other days of weights, etc. Now I've cut back to just table time once a week and my strength has gone way up very fast 😳🦾 Don't knock it unless you've tried it lad 👍👍
@@stephenmcsweeney357 Been doing it for years, due to laziness with the weights. The perceived gains in strength you feel now is almost certainly only because you are more fresh when pulling, and thus very short-term. I take it you cut back for a few weeks and cannot believe your power on pull-day? Alas, a few months down the line, you will have lost a few months of gains. Anyone on your level will likely crush you a year from now if they train weights and do table time, compared to if you only do table time. 3 is more than 1. Wish it wasn't the case, would've suited me perfectly. Stay strong💪
John and Ryan, what're your opinions about training high level calisthenics that build tendon and ligament strength like one arm pull ups, the front lever, and the planche in terms of benefit to armwrestling?
Robert Taylor Firstly, i’m not an armwrestler, but i’ve been training Calisthenics for over 1,5 years (i decided to quit 3,5 year of weight training in gym) and i can hold some static, dynamic skills as you mentioned about. Next, i realized that my tendons & ligaments, muscles become really strong (i was really surprised because i could win a friend with 20kg heavier than me. He’s a guy always won me easily before)
Well pretty sure that big Russian that beat Larrat easily does a lot of focused weight training, and doesn't just arm wrestle for training. Think of it like MMA you can spar all you want, but if you don't train your body for conditioning, strength and other things outside of just sparring, you aren't going to be good enough. It's same with arm wrestling if all you do is arm-wrestle and you go against someone that is your equal but they also do focused arm-wrestling weight strengthening, then they are going to have an advantage over you. Just arm wrestling your training partners won't be enough going forward in the sport.
he never said you shouldn’t condition though... if you were an MMA fighter and you didn’t spar much you’d be fucked. That’s what John (best arm wrestler in history) is saying
A pitcher can workout in the gym, but they get their best gains from? Throwing pitches. A quarterback can workout in the gym, but most practices are spent? Throwing passes and reading defenses. A boxer lifts weights, but they learn to throw punches, take punches, and master space? By sparring. The gym isn't the key to success. In fact, a lot of guys break down their own connective tissue by doing too much in the gym. Skeletomuscular tissue doesn't grow and repair the same way connective tissue does. They are vascularized differently. Hence the phrase, "Don't leave it all in the gym." The gym should be about baseline strength and bloodflow/repair. Not top end strength, and not where you expect to receive gains on the table. Denis lifts a lot of weights when he's competing in weightlifting. He scales is way back when he's competing in arm wrestling though and does do a lot of work at the table. But those are basically closed sessions. It's the same reason a football team doesn't air their practices on RU-vid - you keep that secretive. Just because you see some weight lifting videos on the internet doesn't mean that's all he's doing. Denis has a good team around him and he works at the table a lot. Furthermore, John Brzenk has a winning record against Cyplenkov. With John was in his 40's and Denis in his prime, he beat Denis multiple times. A guy who weights almost 100 pounds more than he does too. John went undefeated for nearly 20 years in the super-match format; he's been the only guy who can consistently crack Michael Todd's king's move; he beat a prime Chaffee at the A1 3-0 at nearly 50 years old; he joins the WAL for one season and takes the right-handed trophy with relative ease following a massive shoulder injury. So I think John knows what he's talking about. The game hasn't "evolved" past him. Weights will not bring you more success than table time. P.S. He never said to not lift weights. Just that table time is the MOST IMPORTANT thing to do the most of.
Speaking subjectively however, Dennis C. would be an example for why weights work well also, he curls 300lbs and he is the champ currently. Beating Devon easily 4 out of 5 times.
John doesnt care about normal gym machines but nowadays are a Lot of machines designed for imitate armwrestling fights SO nowadays this kind of gyms are good for armwrestling obviously
The only problem is i don't have squad or people near me interested in armwrestling. With obvious reasons..i.e the main reason i didn't get varieties of hands.
The internet community probably hates this video because most of them believe steroids and weights are the way to arm wrestling greatness. Lest they forget, this is the guy who has beaten them all. Sure, the PED users from eastern block countries grow to ridiculous proportions and have feats of impressive strength for blips of time. But it isn't sustainable, and top end strength isn't enough in arm wrestling. This is the greatest puller of all-time talking here. This is a guy who, in his 40's, beat a prime Cyplenkov with ease multiple times. Nearly 50 years old, he beat Chaffee at the A1 with relative ease. He's been the only one who consistently cracks Michael Todd's King's Move. The only guy he never got a chance to come back and re-match was Pushkar. He went nearly 20 years unbeaten in the super-match format. John does it all naturally. He isn't intimidated by any challenge, but he also doesn't make excuses when he loses.
He doesn't do it naturally. That's being delusional. You need at least test for recovery. Two reasons for that- you can practice technique and motor patterns more so your nervous system is more effective and you recover faster so you can get to the table more often. That's without the fact that they pack on mass and increase strength in general. He isn't on any anabolic cocktail, but he's on something. Steroids do make that much of a difference and a fully trained natty vs a fully trained megaman (which is really what steroids make you) the user wins.
Brzenk was on steroids,testosterone injections and he won a young inexperienced Denis who just started -not a prime Denis- right hand(Denis left is untouched) Facts
People get so pissed when they hear the truth. Lol its amazing. He does pull ups and regular every day shit. He's saying getting big or killing yourself and this sport with HGH and steroids, is not the way. As devon has demonstrated with the mountain, previously, it does not matter how strong you are to a certain extent. Work on your srmwresrking and figure out your weaknesses and strengths, work on all of them. Its IMPOSSIBLE to figure all this out by simply lifting weights. If we have to EXPLAIN this then what makes you think you're ever going to be able to make it in armwrestling. Seriously. Lol good God. Its pretty fucking simple.
Gino Rossellini John is in the Guiness Book as the greatest armwrestler of all times. I'm not sure who has won more matches, even tried to find that information for you. What is known, though... Without question, is that no-one has been able to do what John did... To be a middleweight puller who was able to... Year end, year out... To dominate in the open division... With both hands, for decades. Oleg is similar, with a birth defect anomaly as the main reason, but only for a short time and only with the one arm.
Ugh, I have no one to arm wrestle against. No one I know likes it. I beat them all once and they don’t want to pull ever again. I live on the big island of Hawaii. No one seems to like arm wrestling here except me. Guess I can’t train.
of course armwrestling is the best training for armwrestling but if you don't have a partner and have to train alone, resistance bands are the best solution. Hang it somewhere on the wall at a good angle so that you can pull it towards you as if it were an opposing hand. Thanks John, thanks for everything.
Ryan your killing yourself with all these mental heavy weights. Your trashing your body. You will be like ronnie coleman , not like jay cutler who is in perfect condition. Brezenk reminds me of jay cutler he trained for longevity. Dont mess your body up. All these jack ass lifts will waste your joints tendons bones and cartilage. Your shoulder already shows wear. Be safe is all.