N. Vitkevich, Secretary General of the World Armlifting Association, Master of Sports of Russia in Powerlifting, World Armlifting Champion, European champion in bench press

Keywords: strength sport, armlifting, grip strength.

Introduction.

Why despite the ubiquitous respect to strength and strong men, are stadiums full at football matches, while the stands at the contests of strongmen are empty? Surely, this is partly a consequence of deliberate propaganda. Unfortunately, due to a number of ideological and political reasons, many countries use sport as an effective mechanism which helps foster gregarious and brute instincts. But this is only partly true ... Strength sports themselves are the reason for the lack of spectator interest in many ways. Now let's see why the main types of weight lifting hold laymen off.

1. Weightlifting - technically very complicated sport. So it is mastered only by a few individuals. Competitions are boring and incomprehensible for a layman, although they are included in the Olympic program. The advantage is that those who have mastered weightlifting become unique athletes, possessing fantastic weight lifting abilities.

2. Kettlebell lifting - monotonous, boring, tedious and uninteresting both for the audience and participants, though, can be very useful for the development of many essential qualities.

3. Powerlifting - usually regarded by many people as a sect of fanatics, performing obscure manipulations with big weights and complex equipment. Even the most fanatical athletes are interested only in their own performances, and watch video records of their performances after. Competitions are very long-lasting, monotonous, difficult to organize and conduct and not interesting for the less educated audience. The advantage is that weightlifting is the core of basic training and muscle gain in any sport.

4. Bodybuilding – is associated with an array of problems, accusations and suspicions related with it which are associated with the use of pharmacology. This sport is far from the classical understanding of strength and functionality. In addition, sad to say, but it really can foster not the best of the human personal qualities, that is why it was prohibited in the USSR. A quarter of a century after the abolition of all prohibitions, we can say the following. There is no other sport with such a mass involvement of its followers -  elite athletes - in prostitution (including homosexual), pornographic magazines and movies, striptease and erotic shows, online sex services as well as different types of criminal activity. On the other hand, a huge store of knowledge was provided by bodybuilding for all kinds of sports, for example, in the field of nutrition and recovery [1].

5. Strongman - the most successful in terms of the audience interest kind of weight training by now. Each representative is the living embodiment of heroic strength. Unfortunately, it will never be a mass sport due to the fact that not more than two or three dozens of people can be ever found in any country who are able to become real strongmen. In addition, it has quite natural and sustainable reputation of an extremely traumatic sport.

How to break the deadlock? Of course, fans regularly try to change chosen sport in order to make it “healthier” and increase its attractiveness. And sometimes what used to be popular in the past gains a new life. There are two such “hits” of recent years among the most promising - crossfit and armlifting. According to the ironic remark of absolute world record holder in the grip strength Alexey Tyukalov, until recently it was difficult to assume that the Americans would begin to organize competitions in warm-up, fitness and circuit training. It was also difficult to predict that the old circus sideshow like bending iron rods and horseshoes would develop into an entire subculture which is aimed at the improvement of the strength of hands and fingers. In addition to the origin and evolution, these “hits” have the following similarities: they are both the bridge to other sports and, in particular, to combat sports (armlifting is a pass to armwrestling, crossfit to MMA); they are also interesting for the representatives of many other sports (mountaineers, wrestlers, boxers and etc).

  How to reform the existing strength sports and what to consider while creating new ones? A sport can be popular only under certain basic conditions.

1. The competitions should be entertaining and varied.

2. The principles of summarizing the scores should be clear and transparent.

3. The competitions should also be brief and dynamic.

4. There should be an element of personal confrontation between some of the athletes.

5. The sport should provide the development of various useful for everyday life abilities and qualities.

6. The sport should be available both from the point of view of costs needed for the organization of competitions and for the creation of training conditions, including the purchase of equipment, and from the perspective of genetic requirements.

7. The negative aspects such as the likelihood of injury should be kept to a minimum.

8. Everyone should be given the opportunity to compete with opponents of comparable size, age and gender. 

9. There should be a natural way to achieve high results.

  Considering all of the above, armlifting has all chances to become the most promising strength sport. The competitions are very spectacular and every member of the audience sees clearly who lifted the weight without any “incomplete squats”, “athleticism coefficients” and “proportions”. Even a major tournament with a large number of participants can be held quickly that significantly reduces the costs both for organizers and participants. The finale of each type of competition in grip strength is a duel between the strongest athletes. The results of training are demanded and applicable in everyday life and in a variety of sports as the strong grip is needed everywhere. The equipment is simple, the amount of “weights” is much smaller than in powerlifting. The one can engage almost in any room, starting with one's own apartment. The risk of injury tends to zero. No age restrictions. High results can be achieved only by sustained and fanatic training, as the use of steroids to improve the strength of tendons can cause a lot of problems. Therefore, doping scandals and the subsequent loss of reputation cannot happen in this sport.

  What can armlifting give to other strength sports, considering a period of WAA existence from 2010 to 2013? First of all, it is an opportunity to add some dynamics during competitions. Traditionally, the weights can be changed in different ways:

- it can be gradually increased. An athlete makes an attempt when the weight reaches the specified value ​​specified number of times;

- each athlete performs the first attempt with the maximum weight he is able to manage, then - the second attempt and so on;

- these approaches can be used and combined depending on a variety of different conditions and considerations. 

  The questions like how great these weights should be, who should define them and what should be the minimum step of weight increase are behind the scope for now.

  We tried and keep on trying different alternatives while conducting the competitions in armlifting, but we can say with certainty the following:

1. The additions to initial weight should be significant. What kills the entertainment during weightlifting competitions is when they add 1 kg for each attempt and sometimes even 0.5 kg. If you feel strong, lift 10 kg heavier weight than that of your opponent, or at least 5 kg heavier, in some particularly difficult and extreme cases add 2.5 kg (if the weight is huge and close to the record), but don't fool around if you are unable to lift the weight - 100 gr is not an advantage.

2. The time of platform and apparatus preparation for each attempt should be reduced to a minimum - for continuous action. Consequently, the weights should be fully standardized.

3. If we want to make the strength sports interesting and attractive for the media, television and video broadcasters (and therefore attractive for partners and sponsors), the interests of athletes should be largely subordinated to the interests of viewers which are now recognized as a priority.

4. Incomprehensible subtleties such as “tactical combat” (which, to tell the truth, is often a farce with all these sudden changes of declared weight and mutual weight-related accusations) should be minimized, as it won't help to the weak and is needless for the strong.

  In view of these points many major competitions were conducted, a new classification of World Armlifting Association was prepared including the notes about RT handle and special AA grip. The requirement to fit (for example, on A-1) in a short interval of live broadcast, led to a decision of increasing the step weight and deprive the athletes of the opportunity to declare the weight on their own. But the entertainment, the dynamics and most importantly the results of the strongest armlifters due to these measures only increased. It is clear that to persuade people who are accustomed to the old system to try something new is difficult, but sometimes necessary. In 2011, Gene Rychlak attended the first World Armlifting Championship held within the framework of “Zolotoy tigr” in Yekaterinburg, and then at his suggestion the Americans tried to apply the same principle to the competition in press. It seems advisable to go further and try to reform the competitions of independent powerlifting federations on the model of armlifting, that is, to conduct the competition in the following way. The standard weights on the platform are constantly increasing: 100, 110, 120 ... .200, 210, 220 ... 500 kg and etc., an athlete has, for example, 4 or 5 attempts  instead of 3, but if he fails to handle the weight he loses the right to perform next attempts and is eliminated from the competition. Everyone can calculate how much time is left before the initial weight. The warm-up is much easier for the athletes of equal strength. There is less work for the assistants and most importantly - all the strongest perform in the very end. For the most mass weights several platforms can be used and only one for the end. And the schedule should be drawn according to weights instead of categories and groups.

Conclusion. The data given in the paper are polemical and even rather provocative, presented without proper detailed justification and elaboration. Nevertheless, the researchers assume the analysis is relevant and necessary not only to promote armlifting, but also to search for the ways of development of traditional and well-known sports.

References

1. Mikhaylyuk, T.V. Main phases and cycles in the training of bodybuilder / T.V. Mikhaylyuk, A.A. Peredel'sky // Teoriya i praktika prikladnykh i ekstremal'nykh vidov sporta. –2012. – № 2 (24). – P. 69–71. (In Russian)

Corresponding author: filosofia@sportedu.ru