David vs. Goliath?

This matchup happened fairly recently up in Connecticut. On one side we have Michael Selearis and on the other we have the insanely huge Jerry Cadorette. It doesn't really come accross in the video, but Jerry is a super nice guy. Also, I think I am older than Jerry, which makes me cry a little bit inside.

Here is a quote from Jerry about the match.

"Boy was I really sleeping on that first match! Great job Mike! It was also great to meet you too Jared, I am looking forward to the meets coming up!"

A big thanks has to go out to Jared Vale who filmed the matches and put them up on youtube.

Match 1.


Match 2.


Match 3.

Deadlifts

Sevan Matossian, the guy who runs armwrestling.wordpress.com had a post on October 15th where he issued a little workout challenge. Here was my attempt at the workout he did.

This is an attempt at a 250lb x 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 set of deadlifts in under 20 minutes.


Deadlift from craig stevenson on Vimeo.

ROTN results

For those that dont know, the Ruler Of The Nation tourney took place last weekend. This is the biggest cash tourney in the United States. It looks like this tourney is on its way to becoming the most difficult tournament as well. Almost everyone who's anyone showed up. Here are the results.

ROTN RESULTS
OCTOBER 11 2008
PBR BIG SKY
KANSAS CITY

242+ RIGHT
1 TRAVIS BAGENT
2 MICHAEL TODD
3 NICK ZINNA
4 JOHN SHAW

242+ LEFT
1 TRAVIS BAGENT
2 MICHAEL TODD
3 RYAN CONSTANTINO
4 DON FRITSCHE

242 RIGHT
1 JOHN BRZENK
2 RON BATH
3 MARCIO BARBOZA
4 SCOTT FLEMING

242 LEFT
1 JOHN BRZENK
2 MARCIO BARBOZA
3 RON BATH
4 MIKE SNELLING

198 RIGHT
1 ROB VIGEANT JR
2 CHAD SILVERS
3 ERIC WOLFE
4 MIKE BOWLING

198 LEFT
1 BRYAN JOHNSON
2 CHAD SILVERS
3 SONNY LARSON
4 MIKE BOWLING

165 RIGHT
1 ALLEN FISHER
2 ANDREW COBRA RHODES
3 MATT HARRIS
4 BRANDON DYE

165 LEFT
1 MATT HARRIS
2 PAUL BELLUZ
3 LUKE STANLEY
4 ETHAN FRITSCHE









WOMAN
143 LEFT
1 MARGIE CIACCIO
2 JOETTE PETERSON
3 EMMA CLARK
4

143 RIGHT
1 EMMA CLARK
2 MARGIE CIACCIO
3 TAMARA MITTS
4 JOETTE PETERSON

143+ LEFT
1 DAHLIA MEDZIAUSYTE
2 MARY MCCONNAUGHEY
3 BRANDY STARK
4 DUSTIE FRITSCHE

143+ RIGHT
1 DAHLIA MEDZIAUSYTE
2 BRANDY STARK
3 MARY MCCONNAUGHEY
4 DUSTIE FRITSCHE


ARM TV OPEN
165 LEFT
1 STAN KARAPETYAN
2 MIKE JONES
3 JOSH HANDELAND

165 RIGHT
1 HEATH MCDONALD
2 JOE GONZALES
3 STAN KARAPETYAN

198 LEFT
1 BRANDON REDMOND
2 JOHN GRANT
3 CHRIS HOOD

198 RIGHT
1 BRANDON REDMOND
2 PERRY DAVIS
3 JOHN GRANT

242 LEFT
1 CHRIS HEATH
2 CHRIS HOOD
3 TIM LEWIS

242 RIGHT
1 CHRIS HEATH
2 CHRIS CALLEGARI
3 JOHN GRANT

242+ LEFT
1 TRAVIS BERGGREN
2 DON CHANEY
3 CHRIS HEATH

242+ RIGHT
1 TRAVIS BERGGREN
2 KRIS NELSON
3 TIM TRUSLER

Tournament video

Here is the footage of all of John Byerley matches from the Europa tournament in Texas. He is a fellow amateur, but got a chance to wrestle John Brzenk at the end of the tourney.

Finger pressure training

Here is a sweet video on how to train finger pressure. The guy had a pretty cool custom handle built and uses some kind of stretchy cables. Here is a link to the video.

Armwrestling birthday party

My girlfriend recently attended an armwrestling birthday party. She used to be a writer and wanted to get back into it. She is really interested in any comments you guys might have on her writing. So, for your reading pleasure, here is what she thought of a bunch of crazy armwrestlers.

"Saturday, September 27th marked an important occasion for none other than Randy Stanaway, arm-wrestling champion. It was the day his friends and family gathered to celebrate his 50th birthday with food, drinks, and of course...pulling.

The party was a surprise for Randy, who looked rather confused as he entered his home and was greeted by a crowd of well-wishers. As his closest friends and family welcomed Randy with embraces, well-wishes, and over-the-hill jokes, the pullers in the crowd retreated to the garage to allow Randy some quality time with his loved ones.

As we entered the garage, which was actually more of a home gym than anything, my eyes were immediately drawn to the sheer number of trophies that lined the far wall. A quick count revealed that there were over fifty, all of them tributes to Randy's legacy.

The day was pretty low-key, with different pullers stepping up to the table to try out various techniques and teach each other new tricks. Keith Dowdy, Chris Heath, Ray Barry, and Craig Stevenson (all of different weight classes and expertise levels) took turns pulling against one another. Meanwhile, the other guys would stand around the table offering their own point of view on the match. The wealth of knowledge was incredible; both novice and expert alike could benefit from the comments and feedback offered from the onlookers.

Perhaps some of the most valuable advice came from Steve Stanaway who regaled us with pulling stories from sixties and even demonstrated how the rules of have changed since then…and with good reason. For instance, he demonstrated with Craig Stevenson a move that pullers use when their opponents leave their thumb unprotected. Applying just a small amount of pressure to the thumb nearly renders the opponent helpless. Steve reported that he saw many pullers get serious injuries as a result of this tactic. Nowadays, most competitors know to protect themselves a bit better…and most refs will call a foul on this move to prevent any injuries from happening.

Randy didn't get to join the other pullers until late in the day and was rather unfortunately only able to have his turn at the table for a few moments before he was called away by his guests again. However, even his short stint at the table proved that he deserved every one of the 50 plus trophies lining his wall. He demonstrated, that if anything, pullers only get better with age.

The celebration ended in the early evening, with each of the pullers going their own separate ways. There's no doubt that each man left with at least a little more knowledge and better perspective than he arrived with. "

Everything you ever wanted to know about the wrist

Here is everything you ever wanted to know about the hand and wrist. I had hurt my wrist near the end of August and have spent quite some time researching what I could have done to myself. The following links turned out to be the most helpful.

First up is the basic hand and wrist anatomy guide.

Second is the site I used to diagnose what i had done to myself. This site is really useful for exploring what sort of things can happen to your hand, wrist, elbow, and shoulder.

Last but definitely not least is the grays anatomy guide to the hand and wrist. This thing is super technical but has a bunch of sweet pictures.

Tendon Training

I cant link to it because it is on a forum that you must register for, but here is a very part of a long thread talking about tendon strength. I found this post to be pretty much the conclusion of the thread. Theres a lot of good information in here so read up folks and stay injury free.

"Bodybuilders are know for their muscle strength not tendon, nor are strongmen. Back the statement of tendon lack of blood supply because the way body built. IMO, it takes a lot longer than 6-12 reps to really burn the tendon with ANY exercise. For ex: 1st stage: if you do bicep curl and get tired after 6-12 reps your muscle felt the burn and pumped up but the tendon itself is not yet there at that stage. 2nd stage: immediatedly after the curl pick up a lighter weight (or cable) and try to do wrist curl with your bicep still supporting the resistant (arm still bent 90 degree) wrist curl as fast as you can you will feel the lower bicep tendon burn near the elbow joint. Now when you can't wrist curl any more just hold the resistant isomerticly for more time. The bicep tendon will burn even more a long with the muscle of course. The 1st stage focus on the muscle while 2nd stage goes to the tendon on same group. I like to 2nd stage better I usually do just that. It feel like you are wrist curl while holding your opponent arm at 90 degree. This is one of the methods I use. The burn is right the bicep tendon and inner elbow depends on whther or not you turn or face it directly. If you can not wrist curl the weight the bicep can handle, then that is why you need to curl first if that was the case. Though I can generally wrist curl most of the weight my bicep can hold

Back to the tendon train philosophy and protocols. This is really tricky part. By observing all movements of life, I 've come to conclusion that tendon training can be done with either light weight or heavy weight. Depend on whether or not you use dynamic or isometric style. But it always comes down to one important objective: Making the tendon exhausted before it responds to training.

Light weight training observation: Watch a piano player runs on the keys fast and repeatedly for hours effortlessly. Now if you ever play it at a beginner, you know your fingers get tired quickly. What is in the finger but mostly tendon and ligament? You can have most amazing hand strength but that light movement tire it out in no time. Finger tendons are not there yet. The classical trained piano player in my band can bend nail 1st time he tried it. Same thing will happen to a beginner guitar player. While the pro can hold a difficult chords with easy and a guy with strongest grip can barely make any sound articulatedly. At times fingers cramped up bad. My conclusion: light motions at high speed and super hi-reps will evetually get your tendon too. In AW John B. use a light gripper and just go super fast for 100 of reps everyday to exhaustion work tendon too. A pro dancer who trains for years also get the body tendon powerful to look elegant while dancing. Especially in ballet and ice dancing. Lifting a partner with ease while moving and yet himself never built big. A bodybuilder can also lift a woman in the air but IMO he can never be elegant or graceful just because his tendon lack of the kind of power and coordination. The muscle power can also lift a human but it takes tendon too to make it look easy

This is only my observation thru the years. I will be back with heay weight training for tendon theory and slow motion training for tendon. Remember this is only a theory of mine... boring or not. It's Friday and I am hungry, I am out!"

Is Travis Bagent super human?

This had been floating around for a month or so, but just in case you haven't seen it I am posting it here as well. It is a part of a documentary on people that are "Super Human". It has some cool shots of Travis training as well as some of his matches.

Cleave dean

The guys over at worldofarmwrestling have a sweet profile on Cleave Dean. Just to wet your apetite, Cleave was a pig farmer whose walkin around weight is about 450. He is 6'8 or so with one of the biggest hands in the business. We are talking freakishly huge hand.

Denis Cyplenkov

I have decided to try an compile every piece of decent video about this new guy, Denis Cyplenkov. I find him interesting because he is one of if not the most imposing armwrestler I have ever seen!

Some new footage of Denis has surfaced and by new I mean really old. Here he is looking not nearly as huge being beaten by a guy at least 50 pounds lighter.


He doesn't pull any superstars in this tourney but he does go up against some very solid guys.


Here is Denis practicing with Alexy Voevoda. Alexy hasn't wrestled in a while but he is still one of the top guys in the world. (They disabled embedding for some reason so here is the LINK)

Here he is training with Alexy Voevoda again. This time lefty.(They disabled embedding again so here is the LINK.

The first video I found is of him right after he decided to try armwrestling.



This is him pulling what I believe to be the current #2 guy (left handed) in the world.



Here he is destrorying Alexey Semerenko. You may remember Semerenko as the guy who passed out after a match with John Brzenk.


As near as I can tell, this is all the footage available on youtube. If you can find some better stuff please let me know. You can contact me at craig.stevenson@gmail.com or just leave a comment.