Take one look at an experienced Armwrestler, and you will see just how important forearms are to Armwrestling! Forearm and wrist strength is absolutely vital to the Armwrestler for several reasons, the first being leverage. Armwrestling is a leverage sport. You try to obtain leverage with your body position, your hand position, your arm position, and even your foot position.
The leverage gained by superior forearm and wrist strength is perhaps the most important leverage of all. I am no physics major, but I know that the force a lever can exert varies inversely with the distance from where the force is exerted to its fulcrum. In arm wrestling, being able to curl your wrist reduces this distance and therefore increases your force tremendously! If you don't believe me, try Armwrestling someone who curls their wrist while you do not curl your own wrist. Now try again, but this time, curl your wrist as well. It should now be obvious to you how important this leverage is to an Armwrestler.
The wrist is also of tremendous importance to the arm wrestler. Being able to torque your wrist more forcefully than your opponent will result in your gaining better (and higher) hand position. Lever lifts are great for this type of strength. Additionally, this sort of wrist strength is extremely important to creating backpressure. If your wrist strength is not able to match the strength of your forearm and bicep, your wrist will bend unfavorably toward your opponent. This will put your wrist in a weak position, which is quite common in arm wrestling due to weak wrists. Toprolling in this position is not comfortable, to say the least. It can result in slipped grip, which leads to the straps. In rare cases, it can even lead to injury. Most importantly, it is difficult to win if your hand is not high. For this reason and others, developing great wrist strength is very important!
Just in case you are not yet sold as to the importance of forearm strength to arm wrestling, try this experiment. Perform a gruesome forearm workout and, at its immediate conclusion, arm wrestle someone of comparable strength and experience. Now, wait a few days, perform a gruesome workout for any other muscle groups (making sure your forearms are fully recovered), and arm wrestle the same person. Experiment with as many muscle groups as you like; in the end, you will find that forearm fatigue affects the outcome of these matches more than any other muscle group!
EXERCISES
Let's start by getting one thing straight: Wrist curls, by themselves, are NOT sufficient! You must do more than that if you intend to be a good Armwrestler!
Lever Lifts:
For this exercise, you need a lever with a weight on one end, such as a sledge hammer. It has a 2.5 inch thick handle where you grip it, It is the device in the pictures below. It is better than a narrow handle because it better simulates the feel of gripping up with someone and will therefore lead to more functional strength. Don't worry if you do not have this device, however. A sledge hammer will work almost as well, especially if you wrap the handle with tape to make it thicker. The exercise itself is very easy. Lift the weight by pivoting at the wrist rather than moving the arm. Look at the pictures below to see how to perform lever lifts to the front:
The next exercise you should perform is lever lifts to the back rather than the front. Again, keep the arm stationary and only move at the wrist. The exercise is pictured below:
The next exercise you should perform is what I call lying lever lifts. I don't have a very good picture of these, but the basic thing is that you take your lever (probably with a much lighter weight on the end) and perform the exercise like in the pictures below:
Additional exercises you should perform for your forearms are:
Towel Pullups:
To perform this exercise, you will need two small towels. Place each of them over a pullup bar so that they are spaced on the bar a distance about equal to your shoulder width and so that equal portions of each towel hang over each side. Now, grab the part of each towel that hangs over the bar so that your palms face each other and your thumbs would point up if you extended them and perform pullups. Not only will you be strengthening your lats and biceps, but you will also be strengthening your grip as well as your wrists!
Forearm curls:
I am sure you are familiar with these, so I will not go into much detail here. A barbell or dumbbells will work just fine, but the best feel of all is probably the Heavy Handle Dumbbell. Make sure to switch it up on your range of motion. One set, you should go to full extension and full contraction, and then the next set you should add weight and perform only the middle 3/5ths of the movement.
Power Wrist Curls:
This exercise is just like regular wrist curls, except that you perform only the top half of the movement. In other words, you start the movement with a straight wrist and curl all the way up to full contraction. Below is a picture of World Champion Armwrestler Steve Phipps performing this exercise with 360 pounds!
Armwrestling Exercises for the Biceps
The main task of the biceps is to maintain overall arm and body position while the forearms, wrists, and hand work to establish a position from which you can win. Aside from actually holding your arm position on the table, the biceps are remarkably unimportant to almost all moves. This is not to say that they do not play a significant role in winning; rather, the biceps' role is more a supplemental role rather than a primary role (as played by the forearms and hand).
EXERCISES
Most everyone knows how to perform bicep exercises, so I will not waste time and space rehashing it all here. The only exercises that I will mention are the dumbbell hammer curl and partial preacher curls. Note that although both exercises are pictured with traditional dumbbells, both exercises are far more effective if done instead with the Heavy Handle dumbbell. Due to the extra torque the Heavy Handle puts on your arm, the hardest part of this exercise is not curling the weight but rather fighting to keep your wrist straight. This is fantastic for arm wrestlers, because it is EXACTLY THE TYPE OF RESISTANCE ENCOUNTERED IN A TOUGH ARM WRESTLING MATCH!!! By building up this type of strength through training, you will absolutely dominate your opponents!
Most everyone knows how to perform bicep exercises, so I will not waste time and space rehashing it all here. The only exercises that I will mention are the dumbbell hammer curl and partial preacher curls. Note that although both exercises are pictured with traditional dumbbells, both exercises are far more effective if done instead with the Heavy Handle dumbbell. Due to the extra torque the Heavy Handle puts on your arm, the hardest part of this exercise is not curling the weight but rather fighting to keep your wrist straight. This is fantastic for arm wrestlers, because it is EXACTLY THE TYPE OF RESISTANCE ENCOUNTERED IN A TOUGH ARM WRESTLING MATCH!!! By building up this type of strength through training, you will absolutely dominate your opponents!
The first exercise is dumbbell hammer curls, and it is absolutely vital if you want to possess the backpressure necessary to perform a good toproll. In case you don't know how to perform hammer curls, here is how it is done:
You should probably go even a little higher with the dumbbell than the image on the right shows.
Foot Position at the Table
When you walk up to the table, always remember to stagger your feet, with one foot more forward than the other. The foot that should be more forward should ALWAYS be the one on the same side as the arm you are wrestling with. For instance, if you are arm wrestling right-handed, you should position your right foot more forward than your left. Equivalently, if you are arm wrestling left-handed, you should position your left foot more forward than your right.
So how far forward should you put your front foot? This question has many answers. Some people prefer to put it only a few inches under the table, while others put their foot as far under the table on their opponent's side as they can. Still others choose to wrap their entire leg around the table support, and others do things even more unorthodox! A good rule of thumb for a beginner is to position your forward foot under the table so that the middle of your foot is against the support post on your right (assuming you are right-handed). Please see the picture below to understand more.
Here, both pullers have their right foot forward and braced against the leg of the table. This allows them to use their body to the max!
Wrapping the Thumb
The position of the thumb relative to the rest of the fingers is also important in armwrestling. "Wrapping" your thumb is advantageous. It allows you to perform a more effective toproll, and it keeps your opponent guessing as to what move you will do (if you wrap your thumb every time). Additionally, sometimes it allows you to get higher on your opponent's thumb than would otherwise be possible. Look below to see pictures of a "wrapped" versus an "unwrapped" thumb.
In the picture at left, both wrestlers have chosen not to wrap their thumb. You can tell because you can see each man's thumb plainly. In the picture at right, you can see that the wrestler on the right has wrapped his thumb. Notice how his fingers cover his thumb. This is what it means to wrap the thumb. Notice also how you can see the first knuckle in his thumb if you look between his pointer and middle fingers.
Back pressure
Back pressure is simply pulling your opponent's arm toward your body and, therefore, away from his body. By pulling your arm closer to your body, you are able to exert more sidepressure on your opponent's arm. Conversely, if your opponent exerts more back pressure on your arm than you do on his, your arm will be pulled away from your body and you will lose a great deal of your potential sidepressure.
Sidepressure is the sideways force you exert on your opponent's arm when you take him down to the pin pad. You can exert much more sidepressure on your opponent by using both your arm and your body than you can using just your arm. The reason backpressure is so crucial is because the closer your arm is to your body, the more powerfully you are able to use both your arm and body to exert sidepressure on your opponent and win! If your opponent can pull your arm toward him, he has just taken your body out of the match and greatly increased his odds of winning! Look at the pictures below to get an idea of what is good and bad back pressure.,
Back pressure
Back pressure is simply pulling your opponent's arm toward your body and, therefore, away from his body. By pulling your arm closer to your body, you are able to exert more sidepressure on your opponent's arm. Conversely, if your opponent exerts more back pressure on your arm than you do on his, your arm will be pulled away from your body and you will lose a great deal of your potential sidepressure.
Sidepressure is the sideways force you exert on your opponent's arm when you take him down to the pin pad. You can exert much more sidepressure on your opponent by using both your arm and your body than you can using just your arm. The reason backpressure is so crucial is because the closer your arm is to your body, the more powerfully you are able to use both your arm and body to exert sidepressure on your opponent and win! If your opponent can pull your arm toward him, he has just taken your body out of the match and greatly increased his odds of winning! Look at the pictures below to get an idea of what is good and bad back pressure.,
Moving the Arm and Body as a Single Unit
As was stated before, arm wrestling is not solely about the strength of your bicep. Knowing how to use your arm and body as a single unit will pay big dividends against a bigger and stronger opponent who does not know how to make his arm and body one when arm wrestling! The strongest competitor does not always win. Technique can overcome strength!
So how do you move your arm and body as one? First, make sure that your arm and fist stay inside your shoulders at ALL times. Imagine that you are holding your arms straight out in front of your body so that they are perpendicular to your shoulders and parallel to the floor (see picture below). This is the area in which your hand and arm should never leave when arm wrestling! If your arm leaves this area, you lose your body's power and can even risk injury.
Second, make sure that when you place your arm onto the pad that your upper arm is against your body (or as close to it as possible). This will help to limit the ability of your arm to move alone, which is actually good. By limiting your arm's mobility, you are forced to use your entire body to pin your opponent and will be a much better arm wrestler for it! Your body and arm together are much stronger than your arm can ever be alone. See the pictures below.
