Triple-Double Hub Lift Challenge

By Josh Mac (
Youtube Channel: Rox31313)

Hello Diesels!

In the long standing tradition of competition, the gauntlet has been thrown down once again! This grip challenge is called the Triple-Double Hub and it wont take you long to figure out why!

This one is a plate hub lift, so it makes it easier on those who don’t have a griptopz or Ironmind hub and loading pin. “What’s a hub lift?” you probably are asking.

HUB LIFTING:

The act of making gravity your bitch as you maliciously rip a steel plate from the earth by the most vulnerable part of its anatomy, its hub. Grabbing a plate by it’s nipple isn’t just a sure fire way to get noticed at your big box gym by the mirror screamers (and management), it’s also a terrific way to tax the thumb and all of the fingers.

The benefits of this lift aren’t just movie star good looks and major sex appeal. Strong hands and flanges pay dividends in the kitchen when you wife barks orders at you to open jars, or giving absolutely DEVASTATING purple-nurples, or turning door knobs with violent authority or simply holding on for dear life as Sylvester Stallone dangles you from a steel wire over an open chasm. Smooth move Gabe Walker!

The challenge won’t JUST be completing the feat, but will be judged by the heaviest plate used. Think you’ve got what it takes? Alright, lets get into it!

First, the Triple:

This refers to the three elite grip feats that are performed. They are:
1. The hand to hand transfer (lifting the plate from the floor with one hand and tossing it to the other using only its hub)
2. The hub curl (curling the plate by its hub)
3. The hub clean (lifting the plate by the hub from below the KNEES to above the head)

Now, the double:
DOING IT WITH BOTH HANDS WITHOUT PUTTING THE PLATE DOWN!!!!

Kinda like this:

This just got REAL!

Rules

-Must film plate and the weight must be visible
-No tacky or spray adhesives. (Chalk is allowed)
-Plate must not touch the ground until all 6 feats are completed.
-Lifter may not allow plate to rest on any part of the body during the lift for leverage.
-Lifter is judged by weight plate used. (10, 25,35,45 or kg plates)
-Magnet weights (like platemates) can be used to increase the weight.
- The feat can be done in whatever order the lifter wants, so long as each hand performs all three lifts without putting the plate down or letting it rest on any part of the body.
-Event is NOT timed, but in the event of a tie the faster time would obviously win.
-Video submissions should have the title: “DieselCrew Triple-Double Hub lift challenge”
-Video description must contain: http://www.dieselcrew.com/grip-strength-hub-lifting-pinch-grip

*Completion of the 6 feats certifies you as a bon-a-fide BAD ASS in my book (“My book” is imaginary and its contents can’t be verified.)

Let’s get as many submissions as we can on this. I don’t care if it’s a 5# plate, this ain’t easy!

Special thanks to Jedd for allowing me to concoct this evil feat and share it here with his readers and also for motivating me to get into grip. His weekly challenges got me off my ass and into the gym to try thing I had never heard of, and also put me in touch with others like me all over the country.

Also shout out to Jason English (Youtube channel: BigJsExtremeFitness ) for the inspiration behind this challenge.

If you haven’t seen his channel yet, get on it. This guy either knows it, invented it or forgot it and he’s been hitting grip with Paul Knight down in Texas. Speaking of Texas, He’s hosting a HUGE Grip/Powerlifting/strongman/bodybuilding/figure Expo in Red Oak, TX At Brookshires starting at 9AM on April 28th 2012. Video’s, posters, t-shirts will be available for purchase and as many sick GRIP feats as your eyeballs can handle! You’ve been warned!

Good luck, Get the video’s in!!!!!!!!

Josh Mac
Youtube: Rox31313

BLOBZILLA – Laughing at my past attempts to lift him.

If you’ve been reading this site for a while, or following the sport of Grip for a while, then you have heard the name Daniel Reinard.

Daniel Reinard found out about the sport of Grip in 2010 and within less than 2 years has made it his home.

Daniel has accomplished many amazing feats of strength up until this point, including attaining the World Record for the 83-kg class on the Two Hands Pinch at one time, lifting a Fatman Blob in the normal fashion, backwards, and by the face, and he even coined a new Griplement, BLOBZILLA.

You see, after mastering the York Fatman Blob quicker than most people with much more experience and much more bodyweight (Daniel weighs only about 200), Daniel was “looking for a project.”

This project was to be a block weight that would take him several months or even longer to train on in order to accomplish – a true “long range goal.”

Well, Blobzilla, half of a 130-lb York Legacy Blob, proved to be no match for this climber from Southern California either, because within about 2 month’s time, he lifted it as well.

Daniel Reinard Lifts Blobzilla

Daniel was readily posting training videos of his sessions working on Blobzilla and the more I had Blobzilla thrown in my face, the more I knew I had to have one. So I arranged a pick-up of two 130-lb York Dumbbells through my cohort in Braced Bending mischief, Mike Rinderle. He went to York and got them. In the words of Johnny Cash, he went “right up to the factory and picked them up – it’s cheaper that way.” Mike picked them up and even chop-sawed them and shipped them to us. What an awesome guy!

Another perennial Giant in the Block Weight world is Wade Gillingham. He was actually the first person in the U.S. to lift Blobzilla, doing so the first workout he did after receiving it in the mail. He was in on the group that got them along with me.

Another HUGE star of Block Weight Lifting and also Thick Bar Lifting is Laine Snook. He gave the European Kilogram-equivalent version a serious ride, cleaning it to his shoulder with EEEASE. This actually happened many, many months ago, as Laine is an ELITE Block Weight Lifter.

Finally, after several months of having Blobzilla laugh and blow flames in my face, I was able to tame this sucker in my gym, the first workout after the recent Mighty Mitts competition.

Completing this feat on this particular day was totally unexpected. I pretty much brought Blobzilla to the lifting area between lifts, tried to pick it up, and it broke off the floor. I would have been happy just to get that on tape and show some of my friends I was making progress, so I filmed it and pulled it off the ground a few inches with each hand.

That was when I knew it just might be the day for a Blobzilla showdown.

I had just finished several months of INTENSE thick bar training for Mighty Mitts with very little work on Blobzilla the last few weeks as I was passing through a high specialization phase of my training.

Here are the videos showing how it all came to be…

My First Ever Full Lift of Blobzilla

Several years ago, I was told by someone who doesn’t even train Grip anymore that “going off” like this was unprofessional. Well, I am sorry, but if this offends anybody they are just going to have to get used to it.

About a year ago I suffered an injury that I wasn’t sure I would ever come back from. It kept me from competing in Mighty Mitts 2011 and I was unsure of whether I’d ever be top-form again. Grip Training is my favorite part of of training and I do it to push myself to higher and harder goals. And after all these years, big PR’s like this come fewer and farther between.

The training and the constantly dealing with failure for weeks, months and sometimes years at a time can get down right emotionally draining, so when something big like this finally happens, I am NOT ever going to restrain myself again. To me, accomplishing something like this is damn close to winning the lottery, so shoot me if I carry on like a lunatic when I finally succeed.

First Time Lifting Blobzilla Lefty

It’s always more impressive when you can do a feat with each hand, so I was again extremely excited when I was able to lift Blobzilla lefty as well.

Comparing Blobzilla to Other Blobs and Blob-like Implements

This video shows you just way Blobzilla is so damn tough to lift. To be 100% honest, I originally thought this feat would be fairly easy, due to the flat side for the thumb, but when 65-lbs bulges out on the finger side like this one does, it makes for a damn tough feat.

One of the comments I got when I posted this at Gripboard.com was that it reminded them of my first Red Nail Bend from 2004 and my first Blob Face Lift from 2006, where I obviously blew up on camera and went nuts. I never thought about it that way.

Pretty much the only time I have “let myself go” on big feats the last few years has been when breaking the Two Hands Pinch Record. Other than that, I have been locked in this “stay professional no matter what” mode that I was told was more appropriate.

Well, it isn’t going to be like that anymore. To me, lifting is something I do to enjoy. No matter how many partners come and go, how much distance keeps good friends from visiting, or how much I would rather stay home to train than miss time with my little girl, nothing will stop me from enjoying my grip training, and when big sh*t like this goes down, don’t stop the clip – you might just see a madman speaking in gibberish, cutting promo’s, clotheslining training partners, and slapping benches.

If that kind of emotion doesn’t seem professional to you, then I guess you won’t enjoy my PR videos.

Now, there are still a handful of other people who own Blobzillas in the US (and there may be more soon), so there will be more guys who tame the York Beast with time: Paul Knight, Fernando Rodriguez, Andy Thomas, and Russ Farver all own Blobzillas, so it is really just a matter of time.

I can’t wait to see the videos.

All the best in your training,

Jedd

413 in the Hizzy

As I have said before, I am dedicated to bringing you the best information to help you with your strength training.

If I do something in my training like reach a new milestone, I can’t wait to come back here and not just tell you about it but also how I was able to get it.

Much of my success is based around experimentation in my own training.

This is primarily because not a lot of people do the kind of training that I do: Grip Training, Strongman Training/Odd Object Training. And if they do, they usually don’t have a website.

Recently, it became time to put my thinking and experimenting hat on again. I sat down and really thought about how to bring up my Thick Bar Grip Strength.

With Mighty Mitts being an almost entirely Thick Bar contest, and with it being my Achilles heel of Grip, I knew I had to attack it hard, but go about it the right way to stay healthy. I came up with a new experiment to try, and so far it has seemed to be paying off for me BIG TIME, especially in the Axle Double Overhand Deadlift.

This is a lift that plagued me for years. Reaching the 400-lb Plateau started out tough, and just got harder, as I outlined in this info-packed post: First 400-lb Axle Deadlift.

The other day, although I wasn’t quite able to get a real nice pause at the top, I was able to pull 413-lbs to the lockout position.

I have done the same Thick Bar Workout twice a week for the last 5 weeks, not counting this current week, because I am de-loading. Each workout starts with my Primary Lift which is either Axle or Inch Dumbbell, and then I have three Auxiliary Lifts that I do for Thick Bar as well.

This combination has been so productive, I outlined the entire structure for my guys and gals at TheGripAuthority during February. Click the banner below to join today and check out what I have been doing.

All the best in your training.

Jedd

Hello DIESELS!

There’s nothing that bothers me more than when I buy something and it doesn’t meet my expectations.

To give you an idea of what I mean, I recently picked up one of those lights with the flexible bodies that you can hook around stuff and direct light where you want it.

Yeah, too bad when you hang it upside down, the light portion literally falls off the body part.

GARBAGE!

It is experiences like this one that have forged my approach to designing information products. My goal is always to exceed your expectations.

When you buy one of my DVD’s or eBooks, I want you to finish going through it and not only learn exactly what you wanted to when you picked up my DVD, but also many other things that will help you in your training.

To illustrate this, check out the feedback we recently received from Carlos Rodriguez about the Braced Bending DVD:

“I received the Braced dvd this past weekend. Jedd I was literally blown away by the dvd. I admire the fact that Mike and yourself take a no B.S. approach to giving instruction and demonstration. There is no fluff, no corny
soundtrack , and rock solid advice!!! Great job and congrats on a really awesome product Jedd.

There are a couple of things that I was doing wrong with my bending, but I believe the Braced dvd has helped me tremendously. Also the pics of Carl Ansara are pretty impressive, the Bazooka Joe tee was very cool. He is one strong dude.”

Thanks for the compliments, Carlos, and I am glad the DVD is helping you so much.

My partner on the Braced Bending DVD, Mike Rinderle, has the same approach I do – to provide you with the absolute best information about Feats of Strength.

We take a great deal of time planning our products and we even add things in as we go along to enhance them throughout the process, such as close-ups, voice-overs, slow-motion replays, and more.

We even added a a presentation that Carl Ansara, one of the best braced benders in the world, put together for us for the Bonus Section.

If you want the best information on Feats of Strength, you’ve come to the right place. Check out everything we cover in this DVD:

This is the cool collectible Chapter Card
that comes with your Braced Bending DVD.

Go get it here: Braced Bending DVD.

All the best in your bending.

Jedd

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK!

Since Mike Rinderle and I released the Hammering Horseshoes DVD, we have continued to receive outstanding feedback, and Mike and I really appreciate it when you all write in to us. We truly tried to put out a video that would break away all the chains that could keep someone from performing this awesome feat of strength.

We recently received this note from David Mitti through Facebook:

Hey Mike, Just bent my first horseshoe, a St. Croix Ultra Lite #2 the other day. A LOT harder than it looks, but I got it past 180. It was an awesome feeling. Just wanted to say thanks for all the info provided on the Hammering Horseshoes DVD. I now have the bug…LOL. Thanks again, David M. Peace – Out

Thanks a lot for the note, David – keep on slaying the shoes.

Occasionally, we not only get an email from the customers, but we also get a video – very cool!

This is performing strongman and missionary evangelist, Peter Mehl, bending his first horseshoe. Peter related to us that he had always wanted to include horseshoe bending in his act, but was unsure of how to go about doing it.

As you can see, Peter now has very good technique for horseshoe bending, to go along with his already present strength, so he was able to knock out his first shoe no problem.

From Peter’s YouTube video description:

Peter Mehl Bends a Horseshoe past [180] degrees and then attempts to bend it into a shape of a heart. Peter is a Missionary Evangelist in Ukraine and Moldova where he oversees more than 150 crusades each year. In many of them he does feats of strength youth outreaches. He also has a team of Ukrainians he has raised up to do the same feats.

Peter, keep up the good work with the feats, and much respect for the work you are doing overseas – very awesome.

If you would like to get started bending horseshoes, now is the time. All you need to do is pick up our DVD and we will tell you everything you need to know!

Grab it today at this link: Hammering Horseshoes DVD

All the best in your training,

Jedd