Primal Fitness Grip Competition, Manchester UK

Damn right, it's your fault we're in this mess

I wish I was coming since free gym membership sounds ideal. Also I would give you all a good stern kicking...

well if I win one I'll see about passing it on in some form or another. No good to me I live 50 miles away.

Just got back and all I can say is:

Paul Wood wrote:Get practicing your 200m sprints then!

200m my Aunt Fanny!

Results?

Paul won. Simon's either going to email me the rest or post them here, I was too knackered after the farmers to notice what was going on around me!

Hmm, yes that KB walk was a bit further than I had realised

Yeah I now apparently have the strongest grip in machester, I have a certificate that says so!

1. Me
2. James - fit climber, smoked us on the endurance events
3. Aaquil if I'm reading it right (I took pictures of the scoresheets after!)

As Twig says, Simon is sending the full results. I'll write a bit more after tea.

Congratulations Paul, and well done to all who competed.
I'll put the results up on my site when I see them.

I got 4th. I'll give my thoughts tomorrow.

Cheers David. Here's a bit of a rundown of how the events went:

Vulcan Gripper
A bit of a fiddly one for the guys that hadn't tried it before, most had it too far back and too low in the palm to start, but after a bit of coaching from me and Twig nearly everyone got at least a L1 close. Me and Lol both got L10 and just missed out on L11. As 3rd place was in the bag, Twig went for broke with a L11 attempt at the end but was a bit off on the grippers today and ended with L7.

Vbar
We did this last man standing style in the end, which worked really well actually, it was probably better for the guys who hadn't tried it rather than having to guess what to attempt. I was the only one to get 120kg, and did a final lift with 140 for a pr (143 with the bar), which came up about 6" and felt a pretty easy lift, I reckon 150 would have been there today, pretty pleased with that. 2nd went to Alex on 110kg, 3rd James and Kenji on 100kg

Kettlebell Farmers
I was thinking we were talking about laps round the gym, not laps round the block All that 'grip won't be an issue' stuff went out of the window, by the end - it was an issue. I did it in 3:49, which was enough for 3rd, then had to lie down on the concrete for a bit James won it with 3:21.

Wrist roller
5kg, 2 trips each way doesn't sound much, but unsupported it really starts burning on the third trip up. Only 3 of us completed all four, I was 2nd with 1:34, but James did an impressive 48 seconds
Felt sorry for Florian, who put in a massive effort to get within a foot of finishing, but his hands refused to obey further instruction.

Thanks to Simon and Fernando for having us over, I have a months free membership now, so I'd better make use of it!

Kettlebell Farmers:


Lol doing the wrist roller. See how much fun he's having?


My certificate :

Great stuff!

Well done to all and congrats to Paul
Mark

Okay, my take on the proceedings:

Vulcan - went nice, got a level 10 CCS-ish without too much trauma (20mm set my arse). Stalled out on level 11.

1" Vbar - never done this before and I don't think I will ever again. Maxed out at 80Kg but the pain I'm feeling in my fingers afterwards is not nice. Probably my wrapping the palm incorrectly. Think I'd much rather go for the 2".

Kettlebell run - what a joke. Never a test of grip strength, purely a cardio vascular endurance test (although one or two of the Primal crowd were struggling in the grip department with one guy balancing it on his wrist ! ), which Twig and I have little of! I'm next to the heaviest at 275lbs and definitely the oldest at 44. Finished next to last in 7 mins 52 sec I think.

Wrist roller - didn't finish, muscles just too cramped to perform. In hindsight I probably could have finished but just didn't have the patience to grind it out, much like Twig.

Overall a balanced competition testing brute strength and endurance. I suppose when we are continually chasing harder and harder grippers, or higher and higher pinch totals we forget about the endurance work and for some people, such as climbers, that's important. The Primal crew were a good bunch of lads and made us welcome, they were slightly in awe of our strength on the Vulcan but I assured them on a regular basis that in the grip game we are pretty much "bottom feeders".
Despite my feelings on the events I really enjoyed it. Would I go again? Probably not if that's the mix of events.

Cheers, Lol

Well done to Primal Fitness for running this contest!