Britain's Most Powerful Hands 2012 my experience

The joys of no car always present themselves as a challenge with these sorts of events. 90% of the time it's not an issue but when you're going the requisite distance needed for Basingstoke from where I live it might have been nice. So, instead, it meant an early start of 4.40am and out and on way to the station with two bananas (I wasn't ready for a bowl of cereal at that time) and my ruck sack by 20 to 6. Still you get thinking time on the train. Apart from running like an old bent over woman from one platform to another with just a few spare minutes for my connection, which then sat there for 3 more (!!) the journey was uneventful. Martin thoughtfully arranged for his good wife Emma to collect me from the station and I'm glad she did. One map I saw made it look no distance at all. It wasn't.

On arrival I saw we'd timed it so that the Fareham mob including Lloyd, Rob etc had turned up at the same time. The venue, a very large tent, was impressive and I eyed up some of the real ales on offer with an eye on a 'after the comp bevvy'. Stouts and Porters - yum. The usual greetings and eying up of equipment and would be opponents took place. I fancy there may have even been a touch of gamesmanship in the way the odd heavy object was moved about easily. A glove laid down in challenge or just the usual big lumps showing off?? I do know we're all as bad when we see said items out of competition - we instantly want to have a go yet, as I have written before, it sometimes good to save your strength for the events themselves. The organizers, with so much to do (weighing, signing in, etc), started a few minutes behind schedule but we were soon underway with the first event. I'll write as per from my own performance perspective rather than a complete over view because, at times, I need to concentrate on my game only.

Adjustable thick bar.
Essentially a non rotating handle on a small set up. There are 4 sizes to choose from and I went for 60mm. A flange on the back means the thumb cannot be locked over the fingers and a loading pin is added with weights to set the challenge. You pull as high as you like but there is a minimum for everyone. The key is, as always, to do enough and save strength for later.

I think I may have mentioned that in training I use essentially zero chalk, if any, and just dry my hands like a mad man against my trousers. I'd been using a 3 x 3 system and worked up to around 107 left handed and 110 or so right. In the last 6-8 sessions (2x a week or so) I'd changed this to working to 130-kilo plus set up with [u]either[/u] hand for multiple singles. I had an idea that not only would I do more because I was competing I might get a little more again because other lads would get chalk on the handle we used. It worked out that half used one size and the other the same as me 60mm. I even checked before hand that the two strongman guys, Rob and Lloyd, could actually get their fingers in. Was I, perhaps, shooting myself in the foot?? Nah. I think I planned to do something like 110, 120 and 130 for my first 3 attempts and that's about what I pulled. At 130kg only Rob Frampton and I were left and we both had a go at 140 (140.2kg exactly - or close to 308.5lbs) with my right hand. Rob missed it and I did not. A new British record, as was the previous 130+, by about 13-kilos. I asked for, while the scores were totted up, a chance to see if I could do the world record (around 330lbs) and a fraction over was loaded but I missed it by 2 inches or so. A first place for me and a nice marker to throw down.

Silver bullet
Ironmind created a challenge involving their already tough grippers in which a stub (the 'bullet') is put between the handles of (for us) a CoC 3 gripper (a challenge in and of itself to close) and the 'insertion' proved tricky for many. Then, with the stub, it also has a small weigh (2.5kg) hanging from it. I got lucky with the insertion but felt I'd taken the edge of a very good time with the efforts on the previous event. Even so my time was, I was told, 2 seconds short of the British record and again enough for 1st place. The scoring system, based on percentages, gave me a good margin here with my 42.23 (winning so 100%) against 2nd place Stew Killicks 29.14 and 69% of my effort. Two events and 2 wins. So far so good. * My effort places me in the top five spot (of any in the world).

Loading medley
In spite of the fact that I have done ok on these events I'm no fan. The person providing the equipment always has an advantage, if only of familiarity, and I simply do not have anything like the range of kit I used to have or had access to. Even though I tied for a 2nd place spot with 170kg Lloyd Renals. Rob Frampton won . I could not match his effort with the baby inch (53kg) over a bar and I just did not budge the 45lb hub lift  but I think I was the only one to manage the heavy 77kg / 169lbs anvil by the horn during the comp (we'd had something like it at the Mighty Mitts event so I had more chance and experience of pulling such an object compared to the other). It was thus and so 2 1sts and a 2nd - onwards

Two hands pinch
Following a break (see mad rush to nearby toilets and consumption of snacks etc... or was that just me ha ha) up next was the two hand pinch. A standard for these events I'll copy and paste the regs later for those needing to know what the heck it is I did so well on (or not - we'll see). I had the mis-fortune to go first as my preferred width was thinnest at 44mm and that's how it came out. I was the ONLY athlete lifting at this width. That meant the only break I'd get was when weights were changed for me. Like a workout only speeded up. I played it carefully a 90-kilo opener. I would stalk the area in front of the crowd keeping my mind set right and then when I saw it was loaded and ref in position march on over,m set myself right and pull. The second 100-kkilos or so was as solid as my first effort and I asked for 105-kilos or so (loaded as 104.95). Another run at it, up she goes and now I am in game mode and shouting at it and showing it my first. I know Rob might pull something good and I've got nothing to measure it again so without knowing that No 3 was already enough I took a stab at 110-kilos but it stayed where it was.

By necessity of the way it is it seemed to take an age for the heaviest lifts to show themselves and I was right in that last man of the rest of the group standing was Rob. His pull of 102.86kg was solid as you could wish for. He had two lifts spare so I suggested he either add exactly 2.5kg to win by a very slim margin or go up another notch which was about 4-kilos more or 2-kilos passed me. He opted for the 2nd. Two tries and it stayed put. Another first for me and one I thought I might need.

Sledgehammer deadlift.
I wont say too much about this. The hammer - easy as you like. But how quick did mere fractions of weight added begin to bite and how? Damn quick. Rob, on all of his efforts (both warm ups and event lifts) bar the very last one looked like he could do it all day. I'd an idea I might be 2nd but Stew Killick (I'd had him 1st) mader 2nd to Robs top spot and I settled for third. At some point, haven taken tow bits at a weight and failed it had occurred to me that I'd STILL be 3rd even if I made it so stopped right there. A moment of common sense.

Frame hold
Now fatigue rose to it';s highest point of the day. All my tricks used to sustain my energy weren't helping as parts started to ache, creak and hurt. I saw Rob doing some stretches, impressive in itself for a big man, and managed to pop outside and do a few of my own. While others pulled the 450lbs (for the 105 and under class) or 700lbs /. 318kg. Using a large steel frame with added weights (quite visual) and a bunch of wood to level out the ground you stand looking out at the crowd. The handles were, for me, around my knees and so further down the 285-kilos I'd been using to train on at Powerhouse. This is an event were any of the strongmen could, on paper, get back so much of whatever margin in the points I might have. We've seen as much as 2 minutes in big strongman comps where the backs of vans on frames had been pulled and held. My best was about 40-seconds and after the day I'd had... probably not that. So I'd fully expected some crazy times and was trying to work out precisely what I might need to do to win by any kind of slim margin. But, it seemed, the effort of all the other events on their hands was throwing a spanner in thew works. Lloyd did a respectable 29.4 seconds which I fancied I might match. Stew 20.2 and Rob 16.4. I went up to Rob and asked what had happened - I'd been convinced it was his to lose. He showed me his hand and he had the beginning of a lump of flesh coming away. Ouch. So up I went. It seemed to take me and age to set my now shoeless (my feet cramped as I removed them) feet into position and get my mind ready. Then the pull - god damn 700lbs is heavy!!!! Immediately it was just a case of hanging on and need and want to take me any distance around the clock face and nearer to the win. H-A-N-G O-N  HANG ON, HANG ON. Then suddenly I was done. A real sense of relief and 'it's over' for me and I am sure for everyone else to. 

I win
Now, as if from no where I found myself wrapping and then bending the remaining hot rolled steel 8mm bars for the crowds entertainment. Quite where the strength had come from lord knows but there it was. In the medley a right angle had sufficed and here i was folding them into a U I took a moment to grab a beer from one of the bars - the first of a few that night. My god it tasted good and I  am fairly sure the first half didn't even hit my taste buds it went down so quick. Back to the front, half pint in tow and the prizes were being awarded. Having paid some attention to what I needed to win before I knew I was ok but not by how much. Stew, who I hadn't noticed putting in what I thought were outstanding efforts, with the exception of the sledgehammer lift, was right there with almost no training in 2nd place. If proof be needed of experience and being a specialist being enough he was it. I was, after nigh on 2 years out of full grip competitions there I was - last man standing. Tom, perhaps in excitement, called me 'a legend' which is very nice but (having enjoyed the moment with a smug grin) did think 'I can never train like I think that way'. I have to go all out and get as close as I can to being a human train wreck in the gym and on the platform so I can earn such accolades.

That was, as that say, that. I did enjoy more than a few pints with Mike McKenzie for company and we both knocked out a good steak dinner before I dribbled my wrecked bod into a very nice hot bath at the hotel after - that I really needed.