Grip Strength Training – Block Weight Lifting
Friday, September 30th, 2011As I’ve said before, I can’t say enough how appreciative I am that so many years ago Richard Sorin had the balls enough to challenge himself to lift a dumbbell head off a broken 100-lb York Dumbbell, which he lovingly called the Blob.
After learning about this, Blob and Block Weight lifting have been the most fun types of training I have done over the course of the last almost ten years.
Block Weights
Block Weights, by definition, are any block-shaped weight that can be used for wide open hand pinch training. Here are a few types of Block Weights:
- Blobs (Fatmans, Next Gen’s, Legacy’s, Blob50′s, etc)
- Dumbbell Heads (severed, broken or cut heads of a dumbbell, especially Hex Blocks)
- Chunks (pieces of iron, steel or stone that are shaped like Blobs/Block Weights)
- Globs (dumbbell heads from globe-shaped dumbbells)
- Scale Weights (block-shaped weights with handles used in industry for calibrating scales)
- Weight Plates (somehow attached to form a solid structure, i.e. 6-tens duct taped together)
- Dumbbells (inverted and lifted by the ends)
To illustrate some of these types of Block Weights, aside from just York Blob implements, check out the following video.
My Block Weight Collection (circa Sept. 2009)
As Original-style Fatman Blobs and Next Generation Blobs become harder and harder to find, it has become much more common to see people training their wide open hand pinch with other types of Block Weights, especially Hex Blocks.
Since making the above video, I have continued to expand my Block Weight collection.
I recently expanded my collection once again, adding another half 120-lb dumbbell Hex Block. This one was sent to me by a pro wrestler named PITT from the Carolina region. You have seen PITT before. He has submitted many videos for the Diesel Grip Strength Challenge.
The new Hex Block came in this week. So I immediately attacked it and applied Napalm Theory #1 to it – MISSES ARE JUST WARM-UPS.
Half 120-lb Hex Block Lift
Click to get the = > Free Grip Strength Program
Here’s a funny story – PITT sent this to me in a Flat Rate Box, but he emailed me and told me that just in case the mailer box broke, he first encased the Block in an old car battery box with a note on it, saying “If found, deliver to Jedd Johnson, the guy with the coolest beard in Grip,” or something along those lines.
Sure enough, the only thing I received was the car battery box, the note, and the Block Weight. Had he not put it in the internal box with extra duct tape and the note, I might never have gotten this block weight, so make sure you do something similar if you plan on shipping anything heavy like this in the future.
I plan on continuing to expand my Blob and Block Weight collection. I am on the look-out for my own Original Style Fatman Blob, more Hexes as they come, chunks, and I also really want to start getting more Hex Head Dumbbells to pinch by the head, inverted style. I find some of these to be even tougher to Pinch Lift than some cut-off hex-head block weights.
If you get the opportunity to add Block Weights to your collection, DO IT. This type of training is beneficial for open hand grip strength, regardless of whether it is a York, Hex, or other piece.
Also, if you have any cool Block Weights in your collection, I’d love to see them. Take some pics or upload a video to YouTube and send it to me with a write-up.
All the best in your training,
Jedd
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