Soon to be Crushing Coconuts and Ripping Phone Books

Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I was quite the fan of AWA Wrestling, Verne Gagne's since-defunct organization. Among the many angles and gimmicks you would see would be feats or claims of strength.

Otto Wanz would take a phone book and rip it in half with his bare hands. I can do that, too, if the phone book is that of a town of no more than 25,000 or so. Or, if it's a big town, it would have to be a progressive town, whose residents no longer use landlines, and whose businesses have switched their advertising bucks from print to the Web.

It was also claimed that Baron Von Raschke's "Claw" hold could crush coconuts. I can squish an Almond Joy candy bar barehanded, even a frozen one (I think), but that's about it.

I posted last month about my quest to bench 315 (I'm at 235 for 10 reps...getting close!), but considering my favorite recreational activities are bowling, golf, slowpitch softball, and shaking Adrian Peterson's hand, I figured it was a good idea to set some strength goals centered around my grip.

The for-pay Web site www.cyperpump.com has a bunch of information, user forums, and of course, products for sale, all around the subject of grip strength. As for the products, they include a training program and industrial-strength hand grips. These are not your run-of-the-mill squishy stress balls, or even WalMart plastic-coated grip springs.

I've long been intrigued by the real manly grips. Imagine, then, how giddy I was when I saw on display several packs of these Popeye-builders at GNC. They sold them in threes, with a retail price of $49.99, not unreasonable compared to internet prices. Better still, they were on sale for $19.99 a pack!

You could buy the "beginner" pack, which was three grips: 50#, 100#, and 150#, the numbers presumably representing the pounds of force required to close each grip. No slouch in the strength department, I of course opted for the "advanced" pack: three grips, with weights of 200#, 250#, and 300#. It ended up costing me only $9.99, either because of an additional discount, or a cashier mix-up. The extra adrenaline of getting the grips at 80 percent off retail list was surely enough to allow me to at least crush the 200# grip.

It wasn't, and don't call me Shirley. Ironically, I needed a very sharp knife to even open the package. I got the 200# grip to move OK, but nowhere near closing it altogether. Humbled, I went back to the GNC a couple days later, and laughed in self-deprication when the clerk said, "I remember you!" I explained that, yeah, I needs to eat me spinach a little more, and work on the beginner set a while before tackling the big-boy grips.

So I bought the beginner set, this time for $19.99 (still a bargain), went home and got the knife out, and prayed to the almighty forearm gods that I could handle the 50# grip. They answered, and I found the 50# grip to be somewhat easier than the typical WalMart grips, and I also succeeded in closing the 100# grip, which is a little tougher than the "WalMart."

As of today, I can almost close the 150# grip with each hand, coming up just short by a couple of millimeters. I hope the training "secrets" I'll pick up from the Cyberpump site will help hasten my progress, and while I have no grand illusions, I would like to think one day I could at least close the 200# grip. That would be significant, and hopefully, beneficial to my hobbies.

Today the Eagan white pages, tomorrow, Duluth.

Three Wheels

I used to be a huge fan of bodybuilding, and I even thought someday I would have a huge, vein-popping physique myself. Oh, I knew I would never be a Mr. Olympia, mainly because I wasn't going to try steroids (and never have). But I figured with hard work, and educating myself, I'd be pretty damn big and cut.

The problem was that while not using steroids was obstacle number one to winning a Sandow (the "Oscar" of bodybuilding, going to the Mr. Olympia winner), having average genetics was equally inhibiting. Sadly, it took me several years to figure that out.

What hooked me in the iron sport was trying to become a power hitter in softball. While I did accomplish that to some degree, I did fall pretty short of my potential, as other life decisions got in the way. I'm still a fan of lifting, and occasionally check out the 'roided-up behemeths at the magazine stand. But I no longer find such size to be desirable, in part because I know the only way it is possible is to commit a felony.

So I've revisited my interest in lifting. Weight loss will have to take a back seat (I've dropped 3.5 pounds in three months...yeah, a real dangerous crash weight-loss, I know), as I pursue a lifting goal I always had my sites on, but have yet to reach. Every time I got close, I would sabotage it by going on hiatus from workouts, start trying to lose weight, focusing on some other interest, or even getting sick and not lifting again right away once I got well.

But no more. My goal: to bench press three wheels, with no straps, lifting shirts, or drugs. Three wheels is slang my friends and I would use for 315 pounds. It means three 45-pound plates on both sides of a 45-pound bar, for a total of 315. My ultimate goal is to actually do that for four repetitions, just to hear the awesome "clanking" sound so many plates transmits. But first things first...

I'm almost there. According to several different sites, my 225 lbs. bench press for 10 repetitions equates to a maximum one-rep press of 298 pounds. (I only did nine reps today, but I didn't go to failure. I had at least one more in me.) The most I ever got to was 305, after which I took a couple weeks off to let my joints recover a little before going after 315. But I didn't keep true to those plans.

Since joining the YMCA again this past March, I've been pretty good about keeping it up. And I think I know what works for me better than I ever did before (but am still trying to learn). I'm also not neglecting other body parts, so that my body doesn't start looking like all man-boobs and little else.

I hope to post more in the near future about how I'm doing it, in part to share with others so that they don't have to waste the time and money I have in the past. It's positively embarrassing to admit how much of both that comes to.

It's also to motivate myself, by posting my progress "out here" permanently. Here's hoping I don't catch a cold or a nagging injury to make me stop my momentum. Or if I do, here's hoping turning those short layoffs into long ones is a thing of the past.