Arm wrestling is a popular way to demonstrate your masculinity and find out who is stronger in the company. However, in reality volume and number of muscles play far from the main role in arm wrestling. In order to win a confrontation it is not at all necessary to surpass your opponent in strength and weight - wrestling technique is important here. Do you want to win in arm wrestling no matter what pile of muscles is opposing you? Then these tricks and tricks will come in handy for you.
Correct posture for arm wrestling
To increase your chances of winning, you should pay attention to your position.
Put forward the leg that is paired with the hand that is involved in the fight. With your free palm you should grab the ledge of the table (in professional arm wrestling there is a special pin for this purpose), while making sure that the hand and forearm are as close as possible to a straight line.
Since, according to the rules of professional arm wrestling, it is prohibited to transfer the entire weight of the weight to the elbows - You can only lift one leg off the floor. If you are not having a professional sparring and your opponent looks clearly stronger than you, you can cheat if the opportunity arises - an amateur most likely does not know about this prohibition, and it is unlikely that anyone will look under the table if the hand fight takes place within the framework entertainment program.
Tactical techniques in arm wrestling
If you are not completely confident in your physical superiority over your opponent, you should not put all your strength into knocking down his hand in the very first seconds. In this case it makes sense to resort to wait-and-see tactics, using some techniques to weaken the enemy:
1. The basic rule to remember: the more the arm is bent, the more muscles will be involved in the fight. Therefore, you need to try to straighten your opponent's arm so that he cannot use all his strength.
2. Slowly move your body away from the table, in order to pull the opponent to your side - by forcing the opponent to straighten his arm to the maximum possible limit, you will either ensure that he lifts his elbow off the table (this equates to losing), or his muscles will relax so that it will be much easier to fall over his arm.
3. Try to sharply bend your wrist inward, trying to twist your opponent's wrist. This technique is called a "hook" and is intended weaken the opponent's biceps and launch a counterattack. This maneuver can be done several times to achieve effect.
4.
Intending to pin your opponent's hand to the table, use your body weight when moving - tilt your body with your arm. However, make sure that there is not too much distance between the shoulder and the “lock” - this can greatly weaken your position.
These tips will help you win in arm wrestling, even if your opponent is clearly stronger than you. Anyway, thanks to these techniques you will at least not lose face and you won’t allow yourself to be put down in the blink of an eye. Have a good fight.
Arm wrestling - power wrestling on the hands - becomes everything more popular year from year. There are many reasons for this. Famous films about American arm wrestlers and broadcast world championships in this sport played a role here. But among the masses, arm wrestling was and remains a bloodless way to sort things out. And in order to always be on top in such competitions and win everyone, you need to constantly train.
For special physical training you will need:
Carpal expander
- Shoulder expander
- Horizontal bar and parallel bars
- Dumbbells
- Barbell
Preparatory exercises
Prepare for exercise. To do this, run several laps around the gym or stadium where you practice. Run slowly until you are out of breath. After this, do several sets of pull-ups and dips. Don't be too zealous, because all this is just a warm-up. This way you notify your body that it is being prepared for good.
Take a barbell and place it on your shoulders. Squat with it until you get tired. Choose a weight that makes it difficult for you to do three sets of 1-12 squats each. This exercise is very important because it engages some of the largest muscles in the body, causing a massive surge in testosterone and fundamentally speeding up your metabolism. After completing the third set, rest and fully restore your breathing.
Sit on a bench or chair and hold dumbbells in your hands. Do any voluntary biceps exercises. But in addition to them, do the following movements. Taking a dumbbell with a natural “hammer” grip, first bring it to the shoulder of the same name, and then to the other. Choose a heavier equipment for training; the emphasis in the complex is on mass, and not on the number of repetitions. Like the previous ones These exercises need to be performed 10–12 times in three or four approaches.
Secure one end of the shoulder expander stationary to the floor, then tighten the springs to the limit and bring the other handle to your shoulder. Lower it until the angle between your elbow and shoulder becomes straight. Do three to four sets of 10 to 12 reps on each arm. After this, lower your hand with the expander down and lift it up until your forearms are parallel to the floor. Do this complex the same number of times as the previous one. Regain your breathing and relax your hands.
1. Carry a wrist expander with you everywhere. Squeeze it in your pocket for times when you don't need to do manual work. Achieve squeezing the projectile several thousand times a day.
2. Do not use ordinary rubber expanders, a certified spring. For example, Captain of Crash.
3. During an arm wrestling fight, everything depends on speed and skill. Try to knock down your opponent's hand in the first moments of the fight. Pushing the floor with your foot and pulling yourself as hard as you can with your free hand towards the handle on the table, suddenly throw your body onto your opponent’s hand. At the same time, try to take the lever of his hand, twisting it away from you.
Please note
How would you have not trained you can't win if you don't participate. in competitions. Fight with friends, colleagues, family. And the stronger your opponents are, the faster you will learn to win.
Keywords
Arm wrestling can be seen in almost every third American movie. The cliche ingrained in our minds is simple: two powerful men, sitting at a table, are trying to bend their opponent’s hand towards a candle. But in fact, armwrestling is much more complex: there are tactics, strategy, and intricate rules. Athletes fight standing, not sitting, and there are no candles - there is only the desire to win.
Actually, cinematic cliches are not entirely wrong. After World War II, at the dawn of arm wrestling, everything looked like this. Truckers gathered in bars, drank, and then tested who was stronger. Arm wrestling is an ideal battle for a small enclosed space; it does not require complex equipment or extensive space. In 1952, Bill Soberens, an American journalist, organized the first US armwrestling championship in the Californian city of Petaluma - Gilardi's bar, where the competition took place, exists to this day and is proud of its role as the cradle of armwrestling.
Ten years later, the competition in Petaluma moved from a bar to sports complex and received the status of the World Championship ( official name his was the World’s Wristwrestling Championship, that is, the “wrist wrestling” championship). Since 1969, television broadcasts of the championship began - armwrestling became a full-fledged type of strength competition and found its audience of fans; Today the question is even raised about its inclusion in the Olympic program.
True, from the point of view of American wrestlers, Olympic arm wrestling has political disadvantages. The fact is that thanks to the system of weight categories (we’ll talk about them later), 18 (!) sets of medals are played out at one championship. And almost all the gold “flows” to Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan - the strongest arm wrestlers in the world live in the CIS. And that's a fact. In particular, Roman Filippov, European champion and two-time world champion, told us about arm wrestling, demonstrating techniques and techniques along the way.
The law is the law
The rules of arm wrestling are quite simple - learning them takes a few minutes. Another thing is that it is sometimes quite difficult not to break them in the heat of struggle. On a special arm wrestling table there are only three elements for each of the wrestlers: an armrest, a pillow (on which the winner places the hand of the conquered) and a handle, which must be held with the hand free from wrestling.
Actually, there are two basic rules. First: you should never lift your elbow from the armrest. Second: you should always touch the handle with your free hand. Moreover, it is not necessary to grab it with all your fingers and squeeze it until your joints crunch. Whichever is more convenient for you: some arm wrestlers, in order to provide greater freedom of movement, gently touch the handle with one finger.
There are also several basic rules describing the grappling and grappling process. For example, you cannot help yourself with your shoulder (the deltoid muscles of arm athletes are developed, large, and some bend over during battle so that they push their hand with their shoulder). But in principle, the fight itself is quite free: you can even lift both legs off the floor and hang on the table if this helps you win. The battle itself does not look as neat and beautiful as in the movies: the opponents sometimes crawl entirely under the table, bend over it, lie on their stomachs, and wrap their legs around supports. All this is allowed if the elbow touches the armrest and the free hand touches the handle. Thanks to this freedom, battles look extremely “asymmetrical”: when one slides down, the other, on the contrary, bends forward.
Actually, the tactics of some unscrupulous athletes are based on forcing an opponent to commit a foul, and two fouls is already a technical defeat. For example, they begin not to bend the arm, but to push it away from themselves, thus pushing the opponent off the armrest. Or in front of the judge’s command “Go!” they slightly jerk their hand in the “other’s” direction - it looks as if the opponent made a false start. In such cases, everything depends solely on the professionalism of the judge. There are two referees for one fight - on each side of the table.
It’s interesting that sometimes the most difficult thing in a match is not the fight itself, but setting the starting position. It, unlike the battle itself, is regulated very strictly by the rules. When grabbing hands, the phalanges of the thumbs should be visible, the torsos of the opponents should be in a symmetrical position, and the center line of the table should not be crossed by anything other than a “wrestling” hand. Since so much depends on the starting position, arm wrestlers sometimes spend a very long time looking for an option that is convenient for both.
Someone tries to “steal the wrist,” that is, barely noticeably bend it towards the opponent’s tilt in order to gain a couple of millimeters. Some people just can’t grab onto their opponent’s hand. If they dig for more than a minute, the judge declares a “referee hold” and sets up the opponents himself. In this case, he no longer commands “Ready!” (“Ready!”), and immediately orders: “Go!” (“Forward!”) And the battle begins.
Sometimes the grip is broken during the struggle - by accident or tactically, on purpose. According to the old rules, if during the break the hand of one of the opponents was tilted to the pillow at an angle of more than 45°, he was considered a defeat. Today, it is possible to break a seizure without losses at any stage. After the break, the referee sets up a new grip and ties it with a special tape - now arm wrestlers will not be able to change the position of their hands, even by unclenching their fingers. Some wrestlers find it easier to fight pinned and will deliberately break the hold to force the referee to tie their hands.
Tactics and strategy
In general, all sports, no matter how simple they may look, can be called smart. Everywhere you need to think, calculate, work not only with your hands, but also with your head. Likewise, arm wrestling is not just a matter of applying force. Of course, if there is a significant difference between the opponents, the strongest can defeat the weakest in one move. But at the same time, an arm wrestler-technician will easily “put down” any “jock”-non-professional, even if he is twice as strong. How does this happen?
The arm wrestling technique involves three types of wrestling - horseback, hook and triceps. The first type is most effective when fighting a physically stronger opponent. With this option, the wrestler does not put pressure on the entire arm, but, as it were, turns the opponent’s hand from top to bottom, the opponent’s grip weakens, it becomes more difficult for him to resist - and all that remains is to “press.”
Our consultants
The development and popularization of armwrestling in Russia is carried out by the “Russian Association of Armwrestling and Other Types of Hand Wrestling”, founded in 1990. It trains specialists in the field of armwrestling at the Russian State University of Physical Culture and Sports, or more precisely, the Department of Theory and Methodology of Weightlifting Sports named after. A.S. Medvedev - the specialization “armsport” appeared in 2006. Our consultant Roman Filippov (in blue) heads one of the leading armwrestling schools in Russia - ANO Olympic Youth Sports School; he is an international master of sports, two-time world champion (2004, category up to 85 kg, left and right hands) and European champion (2011, category up to 90 kg, left hand), multiple winner of the World and European Championships, multiple champion of Moscow . Roman Filippov’s partner was his friend and sparring partner Roman Penkin (in red).
Hook wrestling is effective when fighting a weaker opponent - in this case, the wrestler secures the grip, pulling the opponent's hand towards him, and then works with his forearm and shoulder - for strength. Triceps wrestling is rarely used, since it is quite traumatic: with this technique, the wrestler presses on the opponent’s arm with an almost motionless, “clamped” hand, using mainly the triceps.
By the way, a few words about the risk of injury - it is quite high in arm wrestling. Most often, ligaments are stretched and torn, and dislocations occur. But fractures also happen, and in the case of the humerus they are complex and twisted.
Arm wrestling in the USSR
Until the end of the 80s, armwrestling did not have an official status in the USSR - they fought only for training or entertainment. But in 1989, the Federation of Kettlebell Lifting and Strength Show Programs of the USSR, together with the NPO Insport, organized the International Arm Wrestling Tournament USSR - USA - Canada. The best representatives of Soviet weightlifting competed against professional overseas arm wrestlers - and lost exhibition matches one after another, since there was a catastrophic lack of equipment. The only Soviet athlete who won his fight was the super heavyweight Sultan Rakhmanov - with his own weight of 150 kilograms, he had no competitors in strength.
The disastrous performance of our athletes became an incentive. From that moment on, arm wrestling clubs began to form in the Union, and then in Russia, coaches appeared, professional athletes, and in a matter of years the country took a leading position in this sport.
Arm wrestlers rarely fight using just one technique. The result is usually brought by a sharp change in strategy - for example, first work on horseback, and then suddenly, when the opponent is not expecting it, switch to a hook, or vice versa. It is a skillful combination of various tactics, and not blunt force, that decides the outcome of a fight at high-level championships.
It is interesting that tactical elements are thought out even before the battle begins, and the preparation of the fight sometimes plays no less a role in victory than the fight itself. One of the tactical elements is lubrication with magnesium, magnesium salt, to dry the hands. Some arm wrestlers intentionally lubricate only the fingertips, leaving the back of the hand sweaty - this will cause the opponent's grip to “slip”, which plays into the wrestler's hands when fighting on horseback.
There are three main arm wrestling techniques. 1) Wrestling on horseback: the blue athlete tries to bend the hand of the red one from above, while almost lying down on the table.
Finally, the legs are very important. It would seem that in arm wrestling only the upper half of the body works - but it’s not so simple. For example, you can rest your foot against the table stand on the opponent’s side (although if he asks, the wrestler must remove his foot), thereby strengthening the leverage - in this case, the entire torso serves as it. Or you can wrap your legs around the racks on your side, firmly securing yourself to the table. In general, the variety of solutions is quite large - each has its own tactics.
In Russia and the world
As in boxing, in arm wrestling long time there was competition between federations. Once there were three of them, until recently two were functioning: the historical WWC Inc., founded in Petaluma. (World Wristwrestling Championships Incorporated), and WAF (World Armwrestling Federation).
2) Hook wrestling: the grip is strengthened by both opponents, a symmetrical struggle for strength is conducted.
The second was previously considered amateur, but the prestige of its championships grew, and two years ago WAF finally “pulled the blanket” over itself, remaining the only world federation and organizer of the world armwrestling championships. At the last championship, which took place in Brazil, 120 (!) sets of medals were awarded. You shouldn’t be surprised by this figure: there are a lot of categories of arm wrestlers competing at the championship.
The two main groups are women and men of the Senior category (18 years and above), among them a reasonable 36 sets are played. There are 11 weight categories for men, 7 for women, and in each category medals are awarded separately for right- and left-hand wrestling.
3) Triceps wrestling: the blue athlete turned towards the red one, pressing on the latter’s arm with his entire hand from the shoulder.
The remaining 84 sets are played between juniors, disabled people (among the latter there are also juniors and adults), Masters categories (from 40 years old and above) and Grand Masters (from 50 years old and above), and participants of the last two groups can also fight in the main Senior group . If you multiply all this by two (left and right hand), then by two more (women's and men's arm wrestling), and also take into account that each group has several weight categories, it may seem that there are not even enough sets of medals.
The photo shows an arm wrestling table. The athlete places his “working” hand on the armrest (2), holds the handle (3) with his other hand, and tries to tilt the opponent’s hand onto the pillow (1). Cushions and armrests can be rearranged for left or right combat.
By the way, about the fight on different hands. In principle, athletes try to develop both hands harmoniously, but a left-hander still has a slight advantage in wrestling with his left, and a right-hander with his right. Therefore, in the Russian championship they fight according to the double-event system - first on one hand, then on the other. If the score of victories is equal, then the winner is determined by weight: the lighter wrestler - naturally, within his weight category - is declared the winner of the fight. In world championships, medals for wrestling on the left and right hands are awarded separately, and this automatically doubles the number of sets.
As already mentioned, Russia today is one of the leading countries in world arm wrestling, both in women's and men's. However, women perform more consistently and are more likely to achieve success. At the last championship in the main group (senior), Russia took 6 gold medals out of 36 possible. Particularly noteworthy was Irina Makeeva, who won the category up to 80 kg on both her left and right hands.
Only Ukraine took more - seven medals; six went to Kazakhstan. If we talk about the overall standings, then Russia is beyond competition - our athletes won 42 gold out of 120 possible, that is, more than a third of all awards! The closest competitor is Kazakhstan with 13 gold medals. The founders of armwrestling, the Americans, won only in three categories - apparently, that’s why they don’t really want armwrestling to become Olympic form sports...
Learn to arm wrestle like arm wrestling professionals. Learn secret training techniques from the world's best athletes.
Principles of training in arm wrestling
Principle of working angle and amplitude
Arm wrestling is a static sports discipline. During competitions, most muscles do not change their length, thereby fixing parts of the arm in a certain position. They are usually called working angles. Almost all movements in arm wrestling are single-phase in nature and can only be performed in a certain amplitude, called working.
Both of these indicators are individual in nature and largely depend on the structure of the hands, wrestling technique, etc. When you work with free weights, you need to make sure that most of the load falls on the working angles. To achieve this, you should always place the working (bending) part of your arm at a right angle to the load vector.
If during training you can accurately select the weight to work on working angles, then amplitude training may cause some difficulties. This is due to the fact that at the moment of dynamic flexion of the arm, the load largely affects only one point of a given amplitude. This leads to uneven pumping of the target muscle. This problem can be eliminated by special exercise equipment that distributes the load over the entire amplitude.
Let's say, when you bend your hand with dumbbells or a barbell on a bench parallel to the ground, then at the beginning of the movement the maximum load will be only at the beginning of the movement. Then it will begin to decrease and the maximum force will appear in the middle and final phases of the amplitude.
Often, athletes who train their arms only on a horizontal bench have difficulties bending the wrist and keeping it in a bent position. To work out the working amplitude as effectively as possible, you need to divide it into three angles: initial, final and middle. We have just talked about training the initial angle, and now we will focus on the development of the other two.
To get the most out of the middle working angle, you should change the angle of the bench so that at the middle working angle, your hand is parallel to the ground. To train the final working angle, the forearm should be positioned at right angles to the ground. Also, when working on the working amplitude, you can use a static load.
Working direction principle
This principle is based on the fact that the same muscle can have different strengths not only in length, but also in width. For example, the flexor muscles of the hand can bend it in the direction of any finger. Each bundle of muscle fibers that performs these movements can have different strength indicators and be trained separately.
To achieve maximum results, you should strictly specialize in the direction you need. They are called workers and depend on the athlete’s wrestling style.
Having decided on the working direction, it is necessary to position the bendable part of the arm so that the working direction is opposite to the vector of gravity. To do this, you need to expand the body, forearms and hands.
If you specialize in only one work area, your results will quickly begin to increase. At the same time, having one or two more fighting styles in reserve can be very useful.
Principle of priority static stresses
At the moment of a fight, athletes are more dominated by static muscle tension. To increase the effectiveness of training, it is necessary to transfer the ratio of static and dynamic tension to training. This applies equally to free weight exercises and machine work.
It should be noted that it is customary to distinguish two types of static load: active and passive (holding). The hold is most often used during free weight training, while the active one is used at a table.
The principle of micro-temporal influence
This principle is based on the ability of muscles to withstand enormous loads for a short period of time, measured in fractions of a second. The tension of muscle fibers at this moment can reach up to 140 percent of the maximum that is used by the athlete during training. With the help of such loads, muscle strength can rapidly increase, and ligaments and joints will also be strengthened. It is customary to distinguish between two types of loads of this type:
- Passive (shocks).
- Active (jerks).
Active loading means that maximum force must be applied to a fixed point in the shortest possible period of time. To do this, you can perform five or six jerking movements at the command of a friend. It is important to note here that this exercise should be performed by experienced athletes. Also, to reduce the risk of injury, it is necessary to ensure that the point of application of the force has a slight shock absorption.
