Got the York 85 up today (in reality, the one I have weighs in at 43.2#) with the right hand. I’m getting very close on the York 90, on my way to the Blob (half of a York 100# barbell).
Which used to be where you stopped. Now, however, something like 7 people have lifted what’s being called “Blobzilla,” one half of a 130# York dumbbell.
I may never make it to either the Blob or Blobzilla, but it’s been very rewarding going after these things, that much I can tell you.
If I can get it again after dinner I’ll try to grab some video.
update: It got kinda cold out so I’ll try to film it tomorrow.
Meantime, here is Jedd Johnson lifting Blobzilla for the first time. Johnson either holds the world record (or is second to David Horne, depending on the day) for the two-handed pinch lift. The video is absolutely hysterical; the reaction Johnson has to being one of less than a handful (literally) of people ever to complete this lift is nothing short of infectious.
And it mirrors what I looked like when I lifted over 50# on the hub for the first time.
Jeebus.
Hey, can you open this jar…with your mind?
What bh said. You better be careful with the new baby. You’ll be able to pick him up with an index finger.
Pick up the kid by his head every day. When he’s grown you’ll be able to lift 150 pounds (or whatever) in the grip of one hand!
I am not worthy. You could probably wrench my arm off at the shoulder, one-handed.
Call me when you can open one of those stiff plastic “clamshell” packages without resorting to a bladed implement.
I’ve got a garage full of the damned things, and you’d be doing me a solid.
Wait until his skull has knitted, of course. You don’t want him going through life with notches in his head that your fingers fit into.
The idea of a prudent caveat to “pick up the kid by his head every day” is just cracking me up.
My work here is done then.
Added video of Jedd Johnson nailing Blobzilla for the first time. Hysterical.
you need the full 130# for the baracky noggin
Johnson earns a double Jeebus there. Man.
I’m not sure your average gorilla could do that. (Maybe there’s also a thumb issue involved but still.)
I don’t have the thick fingers lots of these guys do. I think that plays into it, and I think it’s kind of something you’re born with. Although I’ve seen a guy who looks like he couldn’t bench 150 lbs lift blobzilla while simultaneously lifting a York Blob by the face. He may be the only guy on earth to have done it. http://youtu.be/dEzGRF7L614 So who knows? There doesn’t seem to be a magic bullet.
He did it in flip-flops.
Legend.
He did it in flip-flops.
osha owns him
Jeff, I had a job for about seven years putting boxes of various turnkey computer documentation on pack-in assembly racks at a major PC manufacturer. We had placemats, books, books in pouches, folded instruction inserts etc. They were for servers, lap tops, and desktops. And I live in Austin so that should be a huge clue as to which computer manufacturer we were serving.
Anyway the point is we would damage some of the product with the box cutters when opening the cartons to put them on the racks. For some reason, my supervisor seemed to love to blame ME for all the cut product complaints he got despite there being five of us and two shifts. VERY early on in that job, (third day on the job in fact) due to getting sick of the blame, I just stopped using the box cutters altogether. I would tear the flaps off the carton tops with my hands. I developed a technique for starting a tear and then ‘rolling’ the cardboard flap up which left a passably straight cut. This resulted in me having scarily smooth surfaces on the undersides of my fingers and palms but it also made my hands very strong in terms of grip, such that I once tore open my hand flesh when opening a stuck jar. I had hand gripping strength that exceeded the material durability of my hands and with no slippage the lid became a cutting tool and it put a destructive lateral shear force on my skin.
So if you want a way to build up hand grip strength gradually and don’t mind having weirdly smooth fingers and palms, and big mid finger knuckles you might try collecting shipping cartons and cut them into pannels and tear off strips of them with the “rolling” technique. Now I was doing that for 7 hours out of a 10 hours work day usually six days a week but I did have scary gripping strength. In fact I broke a rust-frozen telescoping flagpole joint loose once when trying to turn it into a TV antenna pole.
Roll-tearing carboard mostly works your thumb, first two fingers and wrist BTW.
I dunno. That seems damned handy and the sort of thing that could keep a kid properly grounded.
That’s a good technique, palaeomerus. I’ve torn phone books, and whenever we have a pizza box or a Guinness carton, etc., I like to roll it and fold it and compress it. But to train more generally for tearing, I have a phone book that I’ve wrapped in about 10 layers of duct tape. Then I try tearing it, for about five attempts per hand. Saves me a bunch on space and trash. Because I ain’t ever gonna rip through it.
That little skinny shit lifted BOTH?!?!?
Yes. In flip flops. Plus, he’s a Raider fan.
He must have eagle somewhere in his bloodline.
Hurts just watching those clips.
I’m 6’0″ and 180 and look like that guy — or did, actually — and have big hands but like a piano player’s.
35 years ago I was a mason for 5 years. Having built block warehouses from 12″ concrete block with a crew for awhile I got to the point where I could lift two twelves in each hand by standing them vertically side be side and hooking a thumb under one block’s “top” web and the other four fingers under a web in the other block, pulling them together and up.
As far as I know that’s 110# a hand in an awkward arrangement, which looking back today makes little sense. Maybe not knowing what you are capable of at the time helps.
And like palaeomerus I also had no fingerprints.
The guy is clearly not weak. Bulk and strength aren’t completely correlated. I had a roommate that probably didn’t weigh more than 125 lbs that could absolutely slay me at mercy, arm-wrestling, or any feat of one-on-one strength. I could out-legpress him, and outbench him, but he was damned strong for his size.
Had a practice triathlon this AM – 2 mile swim. 40 mile bike, 15k run. Thought about skinny flip flop dude lifting the blob the whole time.
I would think pain tolerance has to be part of the equation. Some of this stuff hurts and if you’re not able to handle even a little bit of pain, you’re not going to succeed.
At one point in my life I had incredible hand strength due to my work as a welder.
Now that I’m a computer jockey, the hand strength just isn’t what it used to be.
I’m in awe of people who have this kind of grip strength.
here‘s the skinny dude doing what looks to be a very hard hand-strength lift, plus 150-lb over the head press. Getting that thing off the ground looks much harder than the rest, I have to say.
Oh. He’s a fucking climber. Badass.
And another oh…he’s here. Looks legit.
Maybe I should practice trying to bend my aero bars while riding.
I didn’t say he was weak. In fact, you can’t be, in order to break some of these lifts off the ground. If he’s a climber, that explains the finger strength.
Alternately, I’ve known a lot of grip guys who are just that: grip guys. They can close a gripper or lift a blob, but that’s about it.
The difficulty with some of these one-handed pinch lifts is how open your hand is, or the surface you have to grip onto. When I’m doing a 320# deadlift with one hand on a plateau buster handle, that’s an entirely different animal than trying to lift a York 80 blob, or 50# on a hub, or 100+ # attached to an anvil horn. Closed hand strength and open hand strength are different things.
That’s why guys who are into strong man stuff often train with thick handled dumbbells or axles, etc. That’s how you build strength. I can farmer’s walk about 120# in each hand on a bar with a 2.5″ handle. That’s 52# lighter than the inch dumbbell, though. And it isn’t trying to spin out of my hand, like an Inch dumbbell does. So you really have to try some of this stuff to have a good perspective on it.
Watch a video of a guy lifting a 50# Blob and, to the casual observer, it’s like, “so what?” You see that on YouTube all the time, guys pissing all over some dude’s achievement. But that’s because it looks like you should be able to do it, having never tried it — and hell, you can lift a 50# dumbbell up off the ground, right? So suddenly you’re an armchair strongman. And feeling cocky, you get one of these things and try it yourself.
And then you aren’t heard from again.
There’s a video of the same guy doing a squat in a rock gym. What’s most amazing about it isn’t Dan doing the squat; it’s what the guy in the scene behind him is doing. It looks easy, but just go and try doing that yourself and find out what it takes to be able to climb under a horizontal overhang with only some little hand- and foot-holds to keep you from falling.
Climbers tend to have pretty high strength-to-weight ratios, for obvious reasons.
I think I’d at least be wearing my steel-toed moccasins if I was to try to emulate Jedd there…
I said it once so I won’t belabor the issue. Just be careful. I’ve got over 30 years of relying on the strength of my arms an back and now I’m paying the price. Be careful.