[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from Randy Smith on December 22, 2013, 13:32[/b]
Timo,

Your one finger one arm pull up is truly awesome! Once upon a time I was serious rock climber (1970’s to mid 80’s). John Gill was the first person I ever knew of doing this feat. His background was in gymnastics rather than weightlifting. He is now in his 70’s and is a retired college math professor living in Pueblo Colorado. In his day he was probably the most accomplished “boulderer” on the planet. He has a website, http://www.johngill.net , that has some things about competitive rope climbing and some body weight feats that may be of interest to USAWAers, as well as historical aspects of rock climbing and bouldering. I hadn’t thought about John in a long time. Your post prompted me to look him up and see what he’s up to.

Thank you,

Randy

Thanks Randy 🙂

I’ve been emailing some of my youtube OAC links to John Gill. He was replying always 🙂 His website is awesome with those historical bodyweight feats. John has done one arm pull ups on half inch ledge @ 180lbs!! That’s WAY harder than middle finger OAC.

I know few boulderers in Finland and they seems to be cool dudes after all, myself i’ve been bouldering only few times. I would like to do it more awhile focusing for finger deadlifts, i think bouldering gives good workload. Issue with finger deads is tearing skin even with minor workload.

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from rjackson on December 20, 2013, 16:28[/b]
[quote][b]Quote from Timo Lauttamus on December 20, 2013, 10:06[/b]
[quote][b]Quote from rjackson on December 18, 2013, 10:07[/b]
A feat like that one really has to see it to believe it.

Thanks,

i had to watch video few times before i believed it.

Is your full name Ruth Jackson?[/quote]

Yes. RJ is a habit from being in field units (Army). Back then it was not wise to submit documents like letters of recommendation or evaluations or awards or anything signed with a female name. The Germans use to make fun of my soldiers when they found out I was in charge so I would tell my men just don’t tell them.

The only finger feat I can do is 2-finger pull-up with my bodyweight. I could do a chin with 50 lb x 1 rep but using a V-bar. However I cannot even move my body off the ground trying a 1-arm chin or 1 finger. Thus I have a great appreciation for your feats of strength but most importantly because of your adherence to maintaining strict form and technique. [/quote]

Thanks Ruth 🙂

I always try to keep strict form, injury level is lower (even controlled one finger chin up is not even nearly safe).

Two middle fingers chin up is very impressive for female, makes some of males to leave the building 🙂

I have never seen video of female doing one arm chin up, i heard some of female climbers has those skills.

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from dwagman on December 20, 2013, 14:59[/b]
Timo, that’s cool that you know about Wolfgang. Yeah, WAAAAY ahead of his time and his finger and chin strength blows the mind, even today. I met him once in a climbing store in town that one of his buddy’s owned. The saddest thing is that I didn’t even know who he was at the time. My climbing/chinup friend filled me in.

Going a bit off lifting topic, you might be interested to know that one of Wolfgang’s best buddies was Kurt Albert, who grew up in the same town I did. Kurt, unfortunately, is dead, too. He did a tough climb in the area where I grew up and used to climb with my buddy. He got done with the climb and sat down on top of the wall, blacked out, and fell to his death (well, he didn’t die on the spot). At any rate, there’s an old picture of Wolfgang and Kurt doing a one-armed chin together on a chinup bar, facing each other, just hanging there, and smiling. AWESOME!

Just before Kurt died he did a documentary movie. Actually, his death occurred half-way through the movie and they had to complete it without him. That movie came out this year and is called Jäger des Augenblicks. Not sure how good your German is, but if you’re into climbing I recommend you watch it. These guys are on a different level when it comes to finger strength and pullups.

I’m going to send my climbing friend an e-mail now and ask him if he would be able to scan that picture of Wolfgang hanging there with 150 kg. If he can do it and if I get that image, I’ll let you know and share it with you.

Man, now I’m all pumped talking about this stuff…kinda like a teenager who gets a hard-on for no apparent reason…I’ve gotta go and chin now…YEAH!

-Dan

Thanks Dan 🙂

Most of climbers are very humble, possible you can meet them without knowing, things what they’re doing makes them humble.

I’ve seen some pictures of Kurt Albert with Wolfgang.

My German skills are just approx. 10-20 words 🙂 but it’s not issue when watching interesting movie.

Btw, end of your post is epic 🙂

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from dwagman on December 19, 2013, 09:52[/b]
Timo, [b]thanks for the motivation!
[/b]
Because of you, I started doing my one-armed chins by adding weight again. I sort of slacked off on that over the years. Nothing tears me up more than one-armed chins. I have to pay especially close attention to proper training variable manipulations on that one.

So I also started doing finger pull-ups on my finger board; you may recall me talking about that board in one of my blog posts. Anyway, I’m up to adding 40 kg around my waist while chinning with only the first link of my fingers. I’m stoked and can’t wait to see where I’ll hit my limit.

In that same finger board write-up I mentioned my German friend who turned me on to pullups (and rock climbing). He was good friends with Wolfgang Guellich, one of the best climbers ever, who unfortunately died in a car accident. Anyway, Guellich wrote a climbing book in which he also talked about his training. As I recall, there’s a picture in there with him in an exercise physiology lab, hanging off a chin-up bar with only the first link of his middle fingers and 150 kg hanging around his waist. How’s that for motivation?! Of course now I also have deep respect for him seeking out scientists to improve his skills…back then I didn’t even realize there was such a field of study, nor to what extent it can turn you into a strength beast.

Dan

[img]http://www.jopp.us/brainpower2.jpg[/img]

Thanks Dan,

you’re welcome.

I have been using training system as 80/20?

80% of training: one arm assisted variations

20% of training: weighted chins

My best two armed pull up on wooden board (four finger crimp grip):

+20kg on 1/2″ board
+42,5kg on 3/4″ board

Wolfgang Güllich was absolutely way over his time, stunt coordinator of Sly’s movie named Cliffhanger, perhaps most strong handed climber in the history, he’s been biggest inspiration of my finger strength training. I would be more than glad to see that picture of his two middle fingers hang!! I remember when i saw picture of his middle fingers cambus board (3/4″) climb, it was certainly out of my understanding!!

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from rjackson on December 18, 2013, 10:07[/b]
A feat like that one really has to see it to believe it.

Thanks,

i had to watch video few times before i believed it.

Is your full name Ruth Jackson?

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from Travis Willingham on December 15, 2013, 16:16[/b]
That is damn nasty. WOW

Thanks Travis,

pain is just out of tolerance.

[Timo Lauttamus]

Thanks guys!

MFDL goal keeps me training my fingers.

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from dwagman on November 29, 2013, 14:47[/b]
Timo, I wish I’ve had your hook grip experience. For me, the pain is the main issue. I don’t think my hook is limited by strength, but by the pain I experience. But I’m getting used to that…I suppose.

There are to things I’d like to caution you agains. First, you mentioned range of motion (ROM) in an earlier post. Many lifters believe that whenever you can reduce the ROM, that means you’ll be able to lift more. That is simply not true because when it comes to lifting, you have to consider biomechanics, anthropometrics (individual body dimensions, proportions, etc.), the muscles involved, the type of exercise, etc. It’s far too simplistic to think that just because you move the bar a lesser distance with a certain technique, that this automatically will translate into more weight lifted.

The second thing I would like to caution you against, is believing that related lifts will show related gains because the lifting is similar. The exercise science law of specificity is very strong and meaningful. It basically means that if you think you can do barbell strict curls and db concentration curls, then stop training the cc’s but they’ll remain strong because you’re continuing to do bb curls, you’re very, very wrong. Similarly, the 1-armed dl and dl are not similar enough for you to think there will be much of a relationship between them in terms of pulling prowess, training gains, etc. The reasons for this is complex and related to mechanical stresses placed upon the neuromuscular system that are just dissimilar enough to make a big difference between even related exercises.

So, after having said that, and after having watched your video again, my recommendation would be that you stick to this technique and that you focus on properly manipulating your training variables over time so that you can maximize your body’s training gains while not exhausting its recuperative abilities.

Oh, and one more point. In USAWA you only have to lift the barbell to a position above the knees for the 1-armed dl. If that’s the same thing in IAWA, then you don’t have to lift the weight to complete lockout, which might be helpful to you. Personally, I don’t care about that and feel as though I’m cheating if I don’t lock it out.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stray off topic a bit. I need to tell you that I’m HIGHLY impressed with your lifting, your technique, and your approach. Overall, my experience has been that Europeans don’t seek shortcuts in their lifting like Americans do. Kirk Karwoski and I competed together at IPF worlds and my first worlds was also his. So the day before our lifting, we hung out and watched the meet. We just looked at each other with utter disbelief about how deep all of the Europeans squatted. It was incredibly impressive. American powerlifters always seemed to have this mind-set of squatting as high as possible while having it still be legal. The Europeans, however, would friggin’ BURY their squats leaving no doubt about the legality of their depth. Man, that left an impression on me and Kirk both that we incorporated into our competitions, too.

Anyway, you very much remind me of that experience and I’m just so impressed by your detail to technique. KEEP IT UP, TIMO!

-d

Thanks Dan,

after reading your post, i just remembered my bench when i was younger and training for it (bench is most popular in Finland). I used to lift my index fingers 27″ apart with my very long arms, maximum width 32″ was much weaker.

Perhaps, wide leg position is not working with one arm DL, also first four inches from the floor seems to be my issue. Even my hook grip experience started at last year in Glasgow, but my general hand strength is higher than average lifters, seeing lower body strength is only issue.

I think i will keep mixing one arm DLs with two armed, because MFDL is still my biggest challenge.

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from dwagman on November 29, 2013, 14:47[/b]
Timo, I wish I’ve had your hook grip experience. For me, the pain is the main issue. I don’t think my hook is limited by strength, but by the pain I experience. But I’m getting used to that…I suppose.

There are to things I’d like to caution you agains. First, you mentioned range of motion (ROM) in an earlier post. Many lifters believe that whenever you can reduce the ROM, that means you’ll be able to lift more. That is simply not true because when it comes to lifting, you have to consider biomechanics, anthropometrics (individual body dimensions, proportions, etc.), the muscles involved, the type of exercise, etc. It’s far too simplistic to think that just because you move the bar a lesser distance with a certain technique, that this automatically will translate into more weight lifted.

The second thing I would like to caution you against, is believing that related lifts will show related gains because the lifting is similar. The exercise science law of specificity is very strong and meaningful. It basically means that if you think you can do barbell strict curls and db concentration curls, then stop training the cc’s but they’ll remain strong because you’re continuing to do bb curls, you’re very, very wrong. Similarly, the 1-armed dl and dl are not similar enough for you to think there will be much of a relationship between them in terms of pulling prowess, training gains, etc. The reasons for this is complex and related to mechanical stresses placed upon the neuromuscular system that are just dissimilar enough to make a big difference between even related exercises.

So, after having said that, and after having watched your video again, my recommendation would be that you stick to this technique and that you focus on properly manipulating your training variables over time so that you can maximize your body’s training gains while not exhausting its recuperative abilities.

Oh, and one more point. In USAWA you only have to lift the barbell to a position above the knees for the 1-armed dl. If that’s the same thing in IAWA, then you don’t have to lift the weight to complete lockout, which might be helpful to you. Personally, I don’t care about that and feel as though I’m cheating if I don’t lock it out.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stray off topic a bit. I need to tell you that I’m HIGHLY impressed with your lifting, your technique, and your approach. Overall, my experience has been that Europeans don’t seek shortcuts in their lifting like Americans do. Kirk Karwoski and I competed together at IPF worlds and my first worlds was also his. So the day before our lifting, we hung out and watched the meet. We just looked at each other with utter disbelief about how deep all of the Europeans squatted. It was incredibly impressive. American powerlifters always seemed to have this mind-set of squatting as high as possible while having it still be legal. The Europeans, however, would friggin’ BURY their squats leaving no doubt about the legality of their depth. Man, that left an impression on me and Kirk both that we incorporated into our competitions, too.

Anyway, you very much remind me of that experience and I’m just so impressed by your detail to technique. KEEP IT UP, TIMO!

-d

Thanks Dan,

after reading your post, i just remembered my bench when i was younger and training for it (bench is most popular in Finland). I used to lift my index fingers 27″ apart with my very long arms, maximum width 32″ was much weaker.

Perhaps, wide leg position is not working with one arm DL, also first four inches from the floor seems to be my issue. Even my hook grip experience started at last year in Glasgow, but my general hand strength is higher than average lifters, seeing lower body strength is only issue.

I think i will keep mixing one arm DLs with two armed, because MFDL is still my biggest challenge.

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from dwagman on November 29, 2013, 14:47[/b]
Timo, I wish I’ve had your hook grip experience. For me, the pain is the main issue. I don’t think my hook is limited by strength, but by the pain I experience. But I’m getting used to that…I suppose.

There are to things I’d like to caution you agains. First, you mentioned range of motion (ROM) in an earlier post. Many lifters believe that whenever you can reduce the ROM, that means you’ll be able to lift more. That is simply not true because when it comes to lifting, you have to consider biomechanics, anthropometrics (individual body dimensions, proportions, etc.), the muscles involved, the type of exercise, etc. It’s far too simplistic to think that just because you move the bar a lesser distance with a certain technique, that this automatically will translate into more weight lifted.

The second thing I would like to caution you against, is believing that related lifts will show related gains because the lifting is similar. The exercise science law of specificity is very strong and meaningful. It basically means that if you think you can do barbell strict curls and db concentration curls, then stop training the cc’s but they’ll remain strong because you’re continuing to do bb curls, you’re very, very wrong. Similarly, the 1-armed dl and dl are not similar enough for you to think there will be much of a relationship between them in terms of pulling prowess, training gains, etc. The reasons for this is complex and related to mechanical stresses placed upon the neuromuscular system that are just dissimilar enough to make a big difference between even related exercises.

So, after having said that, and after having watched your video again, my recommendation would be that you stick to this technique and that you focus on properly manipulating your training variables over time so that you can maximize your body’s training gains while not exhausting its recuperative abilities.

Oh, and one more point. In USAWA you only have to lift the barbell to a position above the knees for the 1-armed dl. If that’s the same thing in IAWA, then you don’t have to lift the weight to complete lockout, which might be helpful to you. Personally, I don’t care about that and feel as though I’m cheating if I don’t lock it out.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stray off topic a bit. I need to tell you that I’m HIGHLY impressed with your lifting, your technique, and your approach. Overall, my experience has been that Europeans don’t seek shortcuts in their lifting like Americans do. Kirk Karwoski and I competed together at IPF worlds and my first worlds was also his. So the day before our lifting, we hung out and watched the meet. We just looked at each other with utter disbelief about how deep all of the Europeans squatted. It was incredibly impressive. American powerlifters always seemed to have this mind-set of squatting as high as possible while having it still be legal. The Europeans, however, would friggin’ BURY their squats leaving no doubt about the legality of their depth. Man, that left an impression on me and Kirk both that we incorporated into our competitions, too.

Anyway, you very much remind me of that experience and I’m just so impressed by your detail to technique. KEEP IT UP, TIMO!

-d

Thanks Dan,

after reading your post, i just remembered my bench when i was younger and training for it (bench is most popular in Finland). I used to lift my index fingers 27″ apart with my very long arms, maximum width 32″ was much weaker.

Perhaps, wide leg position is not working with one arm DL, also first four inches from the floor seems to be my issue. Even my hook grip experience started at last year in Glasgow, but my general hand strength is higher than average lifters, seeing lower body strength is only issue.

I think i will keep mixing one arm DLs with two armed, because MFDL is still my biggest challenge.

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from dwagman on November 27, 2013, 10:33[/b]
[quote]

what i was seeing on the video i have quite narrow leg position and long range, but somehow wider leg position feels weaker even with shorter range. Don’t know is wider position ultimate way on the long term or should i keep going with my natural technique?

Timo, that was a great video to watch. I’ve been working on my 1-armed dl, too, and hope to go over 400 pounds as well next year. We’ll see…

I think that in order to answer your question, we should first determine what the limiting factor is in you lifting more weight. Is it holding on to the bar and the hook grip or is it the actual amount of weight you attempt to lift. The actual range of motion is less of a concern for various physiological and biomechanical reasons.

If it’s holding on to the bar, then I wouldn’t worry too much about whether your feet are wide or narrow and I’d recommend you do it the way you did in the video. But if holding on to the bar is not the limiting factor, if it’s your strength in lifting the bar off the ground, then perhaps it would be worthwhile to look at your technique. But that would have to be done by considering your specific body levers. Put another way, it would have to consider the length of your torso, arms, thighs, and legs. But before doing that, I would actually look at your training routine. That’s where most athletes mess up the most and that’s the place where you can get the most benefit from. That, therefore, would be my suggestion for a first step.

-d[/quote]

Thanks Dan,

my hook grip has been getting stronger in no time and feeling it was already harder to lift off the floor than hold the bar.

I just wonder is one arm DL getting stronger when two arm DL is rising? perhaps that’s my limiting factor, at the moment my two arm DL is same 200kg as my one arm DL.

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from dwagman on November 27, 2013, 10:33[/b]
[quote]

what i was seeing on the video i have quite narrow leg position and long range, but somehow wider leg position feels weaker even with shorter range. Don’t know is wider position ultimate way on the long term or should i keep going with my natural technique?

Timo, that was a great video to watch. I’ve been working on my 1-armed dl, too, and hope to go over 400 pounds as well next year. We’ll see…

I think that in order to answer your question, we should first determine what the limiting factor is in you lifting more weight. Is it holding on to the bar and the hook grip or is it the actual amount of weight you attempt to lift. The actual range of motion is less of a concern for various physiological and biomechanical reasons.

If it’s holding on to the bar, then I wouldn’t worry too much about whether your feet are wide or narrow and I’d recommend you do it the way you did in the video. But if holding on to the bar is not the limiting factor, if it’s your strength in lifting the bar off the ground, then perhaps it would be worthwhile to look at your technique. But that would have to be done by considering your specific body levers. Put another way, it would have to consider the length of your torso, arms, thighs, and legs. But before doing that, I would actually look at your training routine. That’s where most athletes mess up the most and that’s the place where you can get the most benefit from. That, therefore, would be my suggestion for a first step.

-d[/quote]

Thanks Dan,

my hook grip has been getting stronger in no time and feeling it was already harder to lift off the floor than hold the bar.

I just wonder is one arm DL getting stronger when two arm DL is rising? perhaps that’s my limiting factor, at the moment my two arm DL is same 200kg as my one arm DL.

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from dwagman on November 27, 2013, 10:33[/b]
[quote]

what i was seeing on the video i have quite narrow leg position and long range, but somehow wider leg position feels weaker even with shorter range. Don’t know is wider position ultimate way on the long term or should i keep going with my natural technique?

Timo, that was a great video to watch. I’ve been working on my 1-armed dl, too, and hope to go over 400 pounds as well next year. We’ll see…

I think that in order to answer your question, we should first determine what the limiting factor is in you lifting more weight. Is it holding on to the bar and the hook grip or is it the actual amount of weight you attempt to lift. The actual range of motion is less of a concern for various physiological and biomechanical reasons.

If it’s holding on to the bar, then I wouldn’t worry too much about whether your feet are wide or narrow and I’d recommend you do it the way you did in the video. But if holding on to the bar is not the limiting factor, if it’s your strength in lifting the bar off the ground, then perhaps it would be worthwhile to look at your technique. But that would have to be done by considering your specific body levers. Put another way, it would have to consider the length of your torso, arms, thighs, and legs. But before doing that, I would actually look at your training routine. That’s where most athletes mess up the most and that’s the place where you can get the most benefit from. That, therefore, would be my suggestion for a first step.

-d[/quote]

Thanks Dan,

my hook grip has been getting stronger in no time and feeling it was already harder to lift off the floor than hold the bar.

I just wonder is one arm DL getting stronger when two arm DL is rising? perhaps that’s my limiting factor, at the moment my two arm DL is same 200kg as my one arm DL.

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from chadul79 on November 24, 2013, 08:41[/b]
I can’t find any issues with your technique timo. Looks great!

Thanks Chad,

what i was seeing on the video i have quite narrow leg position and long range, but somehow wider leg position feels weaker even with shorter range. Don’t know is wider position ultimate way on the long term or should i keep going with my natural technique?

[Timo Lauttamus]

[b]Quote from chadul79 on November 24, 2013, 08:41[/b]
I can’t find any issues with your technique timo. Looks great!

Thanks Chad,

what i was seeing on the video i have quite narrow leg position and long range, but somehow wider leg position feels weaker even with shorter range. Don’t know is wider position ultimate way on the long term or should i keep going with my natural technique?

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