If you want to pull at the 2005 Arnold Armwrestling competition, remember that participation is by invitation only and the way to get an invited is to qualify at designated USAA events, the first of which is about six weeks out. On May 15th, you can qualify at the USAA National Pro-Am tournament; on August 7th, you can q ualify at the USA Unified Nationals; and on October 4th, you can qualify at the World Wristwrestling Championships. Check http://www.armwrestling.com/ for details and more official announcements.

Lifting in a small meet, Poland's Szymon Kolecki kicked off the year with a huge 195-kg snatch and a 240-kg clean and jerk, prompting informed speculation that he was on course to break the world record in the clean and jerk in the 105-kg category. Unfortunately, the back problems that have been hampering what would otherwise be a brilliant weightlifting career recurred and Kolecki, at the moment at least, will not start at the upcoming European Weightlifting Championships (Kiev, Ukraine), saving himself, instead, for the Olympic Games this summer in Athens.

Defending Olympic champion, the man who holds all three weightlifting world records in the superheavyweight class - Hossein Rezazadeh - is now a father, and his son, born yesterday, was named in honor of the saint whose name Hossein shouts just before each attempt: Abolfazl. Speaking to reporters in Iran yesterday, Hossein Rezazadeh said, "Today God granted me a healthy child; I'm so glad and think its birth is a good present from God to me in the 8th day of the new year. I hope the birth of my son would inspire me much more to keep creating glories for my country and would empower me for a better preparation for the 2004 Olympics." Abolfazl Rezazadeh weighed four kilos at birth, so maybe he will continue in his father's mighty footsteps.

World's Strongest Man winner Magnus Samuelsson's training DVD just arrived, and you can order it from the IronMind® online store starting today. Meet the man, get Magnus's thoughts on nutrition, see him in the gym as well as training on events. This DVD also includes some competition clips. For guys just interested in the strength side of things, you'll see Magnus do a 260-kg touch and go bench press in a tank top and train on his No. 3 Captains of Crush gripper, among other feats of strength. This is a great DVD, with a lot of content and some pretty inspiring stuff in it, so if you're a strongman competitor or fan, put this on your must-see list.

In what might be "the heaviest six-event contest ever held," the IFSA Battle of Muscle Beach already has entries from some of the strongest men in America. Phil Pfister, Mark Philippi, Odd Haugen, Don Pope, Jon Andersen and Chad Coy have already entered, and both Jesse Marunde and Steve Kirit have indicated that they plan to compete. Scheduled for Muscle Beach, in Venice, California, on May 1, with Bill Kazmaier and Bryan Neese announcing, this promises to be one sizzling strongman contest.

It began with John Brookfield, the first to succeed; then it gathered steam as more guys locked horns with the IronMind® Red Nail™; and finally it burst upwards when Gavin Holle proved that he, too, could do the job. As more guys attack this benchmark in the bending world, IronMind® has been working to help recognize the different legitimate bending styles that are emerging as the field grows - without diluting the spirit of the challenge - so that IronMind® can officially recognize all who succeed. There are several recognized methods for legitimately bending an IronMind® Red Nail™: 1) hands at waist-level, bending the nail downward into a U; 2) hands at chest-level, bending the nail downward into a U; 3) hands at head- or chest-level, bending the nail upward into a U. Other variations are acceptable, so long as: 1) only your hands are touching and bending the nail 2) you are not pushing the nail against any other body part or other object; 3) you are not using any other materials or devices, except for protective hand pads, on the nail; 4) the bend is completed within 1 minute; 5) you are bending an authentic IronMind® Red Nail™ that has not been modified in any way; 6) you bend the nail into a U shape.

Top professional strongman Hugo Girard is taking grip contests to a new level: The World's Strongest Grip Competition will have total prize money of CN$10,000 Girard announced today! Run in conjunction with the IFSA strongman event at the Gatineau Balloon Festival (Gatineau, Quebec, Canada), the contest will include events to test bending, card tearing, pinch gripping and crushing grip. Hugo Girard said today that he is sending details on the proposed events to Randall Strossen (IronMind®) and Richard Sorin (Sorinex) for review and comment before finalizing them, and that based on their past performances, the ten top competitors would be invited. These athletes will have the right of first refusal, and as slots become available, the same process will be applied to determine the final field. Girard emphasized that his aim is make this a fair contest, giving nobody an advantage: "It's not about being set up for someone to win; it's about finding out who is the strongest."

Explaining that the upcoming IFSA Super Series will feature different events in different contests, Colin Bryce, producer and director of the Svend Karlsen training DVD, said, "The lead will change hands throughout the series. We will find out who is the ultimate strength athlete." Bryce said that David Webster, underlining how tough competition was going to be in the Super Series, observed, "It's no so much about winning as surviving."

Continuing to grow, the IFSA Super Series will hit new heights in its 2004 - 2005 season, and the winner will be crowned as the IFSA world champion at the 2005 Arnold Expo. With Ulf Bengtsonn as its prime architect, the IFSA Super Series is not a series of individual contests, but a way to assess who was the top performer, overall, across the prestigious events. The coveted slots for each Super Series event will be filled with the top six strongman competitors, along with some local stars and wild cards. Rumor has it that Americans Karl Gillingham, Mark Philippi, Steve Kirit and Brian Schoonveld are on the short list for the first Super Series event. Prize money is said to be increasing substantially this year, and if that, along with the prestige, were not enough, this is the ticket to an invitation to the 2005 Arnold Strongman contest. For details on the IFSA Super Series, check their official web site.

The 2004 Arnold Strongman contest will air on the Fox Sports Network during the week of April 12th so if you missed it in person or just want to catch it all again, here's your chance. Calling it "one of the best strongman shows ever," strongman television host Colin Bryce said that this is not a watered down competition with a lot of running around, but instead features a lot of static strength. To do well at the Arnold, "You have no option but to be exceptionally strong," Bryce said, and to emphasize the kind of horsepower required for a top performance, he used Svend Karlsen as an example. "Svend weighed about 140 kg in his training DVD, and he weighed about 155 kg at the Arnold." The Arnold Strongman contest will be aired as one program, and check with the Fox Sports Network for scheduling details.

Emphasizing the focus on the well-being of its athletes, IFSA founder and president Douglas Edmunds, Ph.D. laid out the present drug-testing plan for 2004 IFSA events. The current schedule calls for random tests at the following 2004 IFSA competitions: Britain's Strongest Man, Europe's Strongest Man, Canada's Strongest Man, and the IFSA-USA Nationals, as well as at World's Strongest Man. Edmunds reiterated that IFSA already has some resources in place to answer athletes's questions related to the drug-testing program, which is part of a larger IFSA emphasis on the health and safety its strongman competitors.

Kevin Meskews's Southern California IronGrip Challenge over the weekend did more than provide a venue for a bunch of gung-ho grip guys to get together and do what they enjoy most: In a battle between Clayton Edgin and the dragon, the dragon lost. For almost a decade and half, fully closing a No. 3 Captains of Crush® gripper has been the universal standard of a world-class crushing grip, and while many amazing performances have been recorded in battles against this beast, Clayton Edgin's name should be remembered for this weekend's performance. "Before the contest," Edgin said, "we had all talked it over and decided to honor the spirit of the challenge you set forth with regards to the grippers and use a credit card for all max gripper attempts. This did mean that a couple guys could not close the #3 who can usually do it, but that's what happens when you don't train with a shallower set! The #3 that we used was a good stout one and I liked it." When Edgin was done, he had knocked off ten reps, on his way to winning the overall contest - an awesome display of crushing power on this legendary gripper. "I probably could have gotten 5-6 more reps on that #3 with opening the gripper to parallel but there was NO way I was going to try to pass off baby reps in front of Odd Haugen! I had a blast at the contest and look forward to doing more of them. For what it's worth, my best with the #3 is 19 reps, opening it to parallel each time, but those are pretty small reps really." WSM competitor and the defending US National Rolling Thunder® Champion Odd Haugen "was the Head Judge, with some assistance in the COCs from David Erives. The new COC rules were in effect," Meskew explained, "and the Dale Harder Strength tables were used to score the individual events [IronMind® Hub and Rolling Thunder®, along with the Captains of Crush® grippers], with the highest aggregate the winner. The grip folks seem to be a pretty darn close-knit group, everyone pulls for everyone else, something you don't see too often in sports like powerlifting."

In our eyes, Pavel Tsatsouline will always reign as the modern king of kettlebells since it was he who popularized them to the point where you could almost found a country filled with his converts, and as a measure of Pavel's influence, other people have picked up the banner and are taking it in additional directions. And one advocate and practitioner of kettlebell training who caught our attention recently did so because, among other things, he specifically recognized the need for a superior grip in order to get the full benefit of kettlebell training, so he has pursued both, and reaped the benefits not just of each discipline, but also of the added gains coming as excellence in one transferred to the other.

With an eye toward bringing the sport up to new levels in America, IFSA president Douglas Edmunds, Ph.D. said today that he has been working with IFSA-USA president Jim Davis and the one-and-only Bill Kazmaier to develop a new strongman series for the US. Seen as a rolling series that will pit the six elite strongmen against all comers, with best six emerging only to repeat the process in the next city, the final six guys left standing at the end of the series will be Team America, and will go on to major international competition. Right now, Edmunds explained, "the elite get everything and the guys on the fringes get nothing. This will correct that." Also, looking for a program format that will be better suited to TV coverage and building a larger fan base, Edmunds said, "We have tried Grand Prix events, but this approach will build a continuum of interest, rather than just providing a casual glance at the sport."

Everyone who has been asking about and waiting for World's Strongest Man winner Magnus Samuelsson's training DVD won't have to wait much longer because we expect to have them in stock next week. Learn a little more about Magnus, see him train, and get inspired - the results might not take you all the way to winning WSM, but what if they did?

June 5th at Ronny G's in Hamilton, Ontario you can jump in and pull, or just enjoy watching the competition, with arm wrestling for amateurs and professionals; there will also be women's classes if at least five women show up in that weight division. For details, please email Jeff King at jjking@sympatico.ca or give him a call at (905) 543-1156.

A dominant question following the revised language in certification rule number four has centered on either kicking guys off the lists, making them re-certify, or somehow tagging each name to give more detail on how the person was certified. The simple truth is that there are no second-class citizens on our certification lists: If we thought somebody didn't follow the rules, we would not have certified him in the first place, and anyone who has been doing grippers for a while or who has read the book Captains of Crush Grippers: What They Are and How To Close Them knows that the certification rules have evolved over the years, just as they do in any sport. Our unswerving goal is to preserve the spirit, legacy and tradition that makes Captains of Crush® grippers and certification on them so unique. Not everyone knows that the deep set is only a recent phenomenon or that not everyone uses it even now: Some of the most recent and most prodigious performances on our grippers have not used a deep set, and we predict that a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised to see what they can do on a gripper without using a deep set once they give it a serious try. We instituted the one-inch rule a little over a year ago in an attempt to stop the trend toward deeper and deeper sets, but it has not worked the way we had hoped, so we felt that we had no choice but to act decisively to correct this situation. On the other hand, if someone wants to clamp down a gripper, leaving a gap the thickness of a razor blade, and then close it, more power to him. But that's not the way guys started closing our grippers for certification and it's not what we want our certification process to become. Having said that, we understand that rule changes affect the guys who are sweating bullets on these grippers, and there is no denying that these changes can be disruptive. We apologize for this, but we felt that the sooner we acted the better, and we are here to help anyone who wants some suggestions for how to excel within these guidelines.

Hand size has always been a concern to people when it comes to talking about closing our Captains of Crush® grippers, and for good reason: Doesn't it just make sense that you need a big hand to wrap around the gripper and that bigger is better? "Not to worry," we have been telling people for years, because certainly anyone with even average-sized hands should have no problem whatsoever getting his pinky on the handle, with a legal starting position, and this is even true if the fixed handle of the gripper is moved away from the thumb base, toward the bottom of the fingers. If you have really small hands, you might have to be a bit more creative to get a solid starting position, such as taking the initial starting position with your pinky extended, and only wrapping it on the handle as you pull into the range where it will comfortably fit on the handle. Once you have a legal starting position, you can adjust your fingers as you wish, as long as none of the other rules are violated in the process.

When we announced the revised language for the fourth rule for certification on the No. 3 and No. 4 Captains of Crush® grippers, we might have failed to explain a couple of things clearly enough. For starters, some people have asked which dimension of the credit card is being used: the edge (thickness), the long side (length) or the narrow side (width). We are referring to the narrow side (a little over two inches/five centimeters). Similarly, there have been questions about the gripster losing momentum on his official squeeze because there is a concern that we are requiring a cumbersome measurement process that will be both time-consuming and distracting. Actually, you should be able to do this in a flash (sliding the card in and out) and if you want to hold the gripper in your hand unloaded, verify the distance with the card, and then fire away at it without any set, that is fine, too. You can also adjust your grip once you have been given the start signal, as long as there is no contact from the other hand, or the violation of any other rule, in the process.

Ever since IronMind® formally recognized Richard Sorin as officially closing its fearsome No. 3 gripper in 1991, certification on the Captains of Crush® grippers has been a mark of accomplishment and well-earned pride among grip enthusiasts around the world. Over time, rules have been added and clarified, in order to maintain both the letter and the spirit of this challenge. Responding to concerns about both the depth of the set allowed and the relative difficulty of ensuring that a uniform standard is really being met under the one-inch rule, effective tomorrow, the language of Rule 4 will be: 4) The free hand may be used to position the gripper in the gripping hand, but the starting position can be no narrower than the width of a credit/ATM card, and the gripster must show the official that he has an acceptable starting position by using his non-gripping hand to slide the end of a credit/ATM card in between the ends of the handles. Once this is done, the official will give the signal to remove the card and begin the attempt. Any contact between the non-gripping hand and the gripper as the card is being removed will invalidate the attempt, and the non-gripping hand must stay at least a foot from the gripping hand at all times during the squeeze. Similarly, nothing may be in contact with the gripping hand or the gripping arm from the elbow down (for example, the free hand is not allowed to steady the wrist of the gripping hand or hold the spring, etc.). The entire squeeze must be clearly visible to the official: the gripper cannot be closed while blocked from view and then turned and presented as already closed.

Ten competitors will be invited to the premier World's Strongest Grip contest, which will be held in conjunction with the IFSA Gatineau Balloon Strongman Competition in Gatineau, Quebec on September 3 - 5. Organized by World's Strongest Man competitor Hugo Girard, the contest will feature eleven feats of lower arm strength, and each contestant will run through the series of challenges, with the fastest time winning. Prize money has not been settled, but expectations are that it will be substantial. More details will follow as they become available.

Swedish strongman Benny Wennberg began making news in the grip world last year when he started drawing a bead on the No. 4 Captains of Crush® gripper. Since Benny was coming over to the Arnold Expo, he asked if he could try for certification, and he had arranged to meet with IronMind's Randy Strossen for an official attempt. In his enthusiasm to demonstrate his great grip, Benny fully closed a No. 4 Captains of Crush® gripper in front of ace strongmen Odd Haugen and Svend Karlsen before Strossen had arrived in Columbus. Following the established procedure of letting someone close his own Captains of Crush® No. 4 gripper that had passed a visual inspection for it authenticity, Benny still had to have his effort validated by performing on a new No. 4 Captains of Crush® gripper opened on the spot, with the idea that he had to come within millimeters, not centimeters, of closing the new gripper, to prove that there was nothing substandard about his own gripper. On Saturday, Strossen opened a new No. 4 Captains of Crush® gripper in front of Benny Wennberg, with Wade Gillingham also watching. Unfortunately, Benny couldn't get the handles within the required range, so he was not eligible for certification. Strossen said that he fully believed both that Wennberg's gripper was authentic and that he had fully closed it, but that it would not be fair to make an exception, and he apologized to Wennberg for having to ask him to take another shot at getting certified. Wennberg, proving that he has a strong heart as well as strong hands, replied, "It's good that the rules are as tough as it is so that no one can question anyone that has done this CoC#4. You don't have to apology Randy, if I had a stronger grip I would have closed it also on Saturday but my grip was bad of all the massaging and stuff, I don't have the strength (yet) to close it whenever I want to, I must rest a week or two between." You're entitled to the rest, Benny, and you can bet that we will be cheering for you to make it official in the very near future.)

If you have been waiting for it to arrive, delay no longer because we just got the Svend Karlsen training DVD and expect to sell out the first shipment very quickly. If you would like to buy one, go to the IronMind® online store and click on the Books/DVDs/Posters link, or just click here. Viking Power!

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made an already very special awards ceremony at the Arnold Expo weightlifting competition today even more special, and he summed up his feelings toward the sport by saying, "This is the highlight for me." Describing how for many years he wanted bring Olympic-style weightlifting to the Arnold Expo, the California governor presented awards to Olympic gold medalists Leonid Zhabotinsky, Tommy Kono, Issac Berger and Chuck Vinci. Schwarzenegger left no doubt of his deep roots in the sport when he turned to Tommy Kono and said, "This was my inspiration," describing how he had admired Kono for being a world champion weightlifter who also had a world-class physique. "I wanted to be like him," Schwarzenegger said. Following the awards ceremony, Cheryl Haworth and Shane Hamman, who were members of the 2000 USA Olympic weightlifting team, presented Arnold with a formal invitation to be the honorary team captain of the 2004 USA Olympic weightlifting team, which will be competing in Athens later this year.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Kicking things off with some top arm wrestling, the Arnold Expo had plenty going on today for just about everyone interested in strength. The Columbus Weightlifting Club is doing a tremendous job showcasing Olympic lifting, and tomorrow Shane Hamman and Cheryl Haworth will hoist some heavy weights. In the strongman contest, Zydrunas Savickas won the Apollon Wheels today and Mark Philippi won the Hummer deadlift. Wade Gillingham has had hundreds of people try to match him at the GNC Pro Performance Grip Gauntlet, but so far nobody has been able to, although a professional football player who said he'd never seen any of these things before, lifted the Rolling Thunder and the Blob, but couldn't quite put away the No. 3 Captains of Crush gripper.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Two-time Olympic gold medallist Leonid Zhabotinksy arrived in Columbus, Ohio last night, and will be part of a special ceremony honoring Olympic champions in weightlifting tomorrow afternoon. Welcomed by Arnold Expo weightlifting competition director Megan Tornstrom, along with Mike Ramsey and Randall Strossen, the former Soviet star Leonid Zhabotinksky and his son Ruslan explained how happy they were to be part of the Arnold Expo, and that they were coming as goodwill ambassadors, using the great sport of weightlifting to build bonds between countries, and they hoped mayor Mike Coleman of Columbus would accept their offer to make their home, Zaporozhye, Ukraine, and Columbus, Ohio sister cities. They also said that they hope that with the support of the International Weightlifting Federation they will be able to host a special superheavyweight competition in their hometown next year. Zhabotinsky will be honored tomorrow afternoon along with Tommy Kono, Issac Berger and Chuck Vinci, all of whom won Olympic gold medals in weightlifting for the USA when it was a world power in the sport. This ceremony will be in the weightlifting competition hall at the Arnold Expo, so if you are in Columbus, Ohio tomorrow, be sure to come by and see some of the legendary names in the sport.

If you are ready to get certified for closing a No. 3 or No. 4 Captains of Crush® gripper and would like to use one of our official judges/witnesses at the Arnold, please be sure to contact us before the end of day tomorrow, if you haven't already. The Arnold will be a great place to grind those handles on your target gripper, and be prepared to get an extra jolt of power from taking your best shot in front of one of the over-the-top officials we'll have waiting for you: John Brookfield (raising the bar on kettlebell performances at the Cardiobells booth with Dave Bellomo), Wade Gillingham (demonstrating grip excellence and running the GNC Pro Performance Grip Gauntlet at the GNC booth), or Karl Gillingham (resting up for the '04 WSM contest and swapping training secrets with Ed Coan at the Xtreme Formulations booth). So if you still need to, please be sure to call us at (530) 265-6725 or email us at sales@ironmind.com , and if you need to print out a copy of the official rules/witness form, you can find it here.

After years of just saying no, John Brookfield has come out with a series of videos/DVDs demonstrating his special talents, and the latest one, just released, captures some of John's top performances. Benders around the world know that John's stature transcends even his spectacular performances, so benders should run to get John's tape/DVD called "The Art of Steel Bending," which covers everything from nails to scroll work. "Kettlebell Mania" is just that (and what you will see John and Dave Bellomo demonstrating at the Arnold Expo later this week). Just out, "The Best of John Brookfield," features such gems as John tearing 100 decks of cards in a little over two minutes (yes, you read that right), breaking chisels, and tearing tennis balls. For details and to order, please check John's website.

Kalle Lane Wins Rolling Thunder® Event in Sweden Swedish strongman Kalle Lane won the Rolling Thunder® contest this weekend, in what was a double victory for the Swedish strongman since he had actually tied for first place with Hakan Petschler in stone lifting earlier that day. Lane's winning lift of 110 kg was followed by Mats Corneliusson, who lifted 100 kg.