Towel over knuckles- epsy and others

[alikhan]

Hello Guyz,
I am new to the board, and am from Pakistan. Due to this tendon injury to the inside of elbow i cant hook at the moment. I was thinking to develop my toproll and post during this time. The exercise, that mr. epsy mentioned in the previou thread seems great to develop the wrist as well as bicep for the post (talking about towel over knuckles). Since i cant train these movements with much force on the table (due to the injury), so i am thinking to develop my strength in the gym. I want to know (esp. epsy) what shopuld be a good weight to aim for in this movement. I tried the mopvement and it was a killer on the wrist.. (my wrist was bending back )... I want to know what u guyz are doing on this movement? how many reps seem best to develop the strength.?
Regards,
Ali Khan
BTW: ryan, thanks for the wonderful forum.

[Curtis "Smash" Klashinsky]

alikhan said:

Hello Guyz,
I am new to the board, and am from Pakistan. Due to this tendon injury to the inside of elbow i cant hook at the moment. I was thinking to develop my toproll and post during this time. The exercise, that mr. epsy mentioned in the previou thread seems great to develop the wrist as well as bicep for the post (talking about towel over knuckles). Since i cant train these movements with much force on the table (due to the injury), so i am thinking to develop my strength in the gym. I want to know (esp. epsy) what shopuld be a good weight to aim for in this movement. I tried the mopvement and it was a killer on the wrist.. (my wrist was bending back )... I want to know what u guyz are doing on this movement? how many reps seem best to develop the strength.?
Regards,
Ali Khan
BTW: ryan, thanks for the wonderful forum.

Welcome to the Forum

How serious is your injury?
Are you sure you should be training while having an injury in place that is bad enough for you not to be able to hook?
If you continue to train your arms when they are injured then you won't give them a chance to heal.
If you were to take some time off and let them heal and then start out light and work you way up in weight then it would help your body out and in turn you would get better results.

I'm not sure about Espey and I'm just a little guy compared to him but I get up to 45 Lbs for 8 reps with good form in Towel over knuckle rolls. I start light to get nice and warmed up and as far as that exercise goes this is how mine turns out:

First Set: 25-30 reps with 10 Lbs
Second Set: 25 reps with 15 lbs
Third Set: 20 Reps with 20 Lbs
Fourth set: 15 reps with 30 Lbs
Fifth set 8 reps with 40-45 Lbs.

Then I continue on with other exercises..

[Mr. Espey]

Welcome to the board!

I am currently not doing this movement but others that are similar. You don't need much weight and to develop the tendons a higher rep range is better.

[alikhan]

Thanks Curtis and Espey (sorry espey for the typo in your name)

@curtis,
Actually while training hooking around a year back (8th september) i popped up something in my arm. Heard a pop sound literally, and i had to quit from teh second round of the tournament that was scheduled around 3 weeks later. I couldnt hook (and couldnt armwrestle ) for around 6 months, i didnt do ANY sort of armwrestling. But in May this year there was this first ever armwrestling tourney in my own city. Although i never wanted to participate (due to the injur and no-armwrestling), but it was kinda 'thrusted' on me. It went smooth. Matches went fast without aggravating the injury (and that was a shock to me.... i wasnt expecting that i would even be able to armwrestle.) I started back after that; practiced some hooks (i discovered that toproll hurt the region as well, so i just practiced the drag hook style, the one which would hurt the least). Then we had the city tournament on September 09. Since it was the second tournament and i wanted to see how my injury was, i budged in. However during one match i aggravted the injury again. Recently i tried doing light toprolls and they dont seem to hurt that much. Os i was thinking that rather than loosing all the power i should work on other moves (Mark Harrison suggested me on MSN) which dont hurt. I have noticed that complete rest after few weeks doesnt improve the thing much. It stays the same.

@espey
Thankyou espey. By high reps you mean 8-12 reps / or more than 12. I was doing them for 2-3 reps , lolz. I want to gain strength in the wrist and tendons, but i am not concerned about tyhe endurance at the moment. Thankyou all.

[Mr. Espey]

I was thinking in the 20 rep range...

[austinslater]

are you guys doing a regular hammer curl with towel over the knuckles? This is the version I prefer but I cant remember what Ryan and others are doing, if its just a wrist movement or what I described above. Looks like I need to up the reps as well.

On the orginal question, I agree with Harrison. Work on what doesnt hurt and bring up your weaknesses.

[Mr. Espey]

I am not doing these currently... right now I am doing regular hammer curls and working my wrist with brach rack and wrist hammer.

[austinslater]

Ryan,

When you were using them it was with a full hammer curl, but because of the towel being over the knuckles it hits the wrist hard as well correct?

Ive been using the brach rack as well. It took me awhile to start liking it but it seems to work pretty well. Probably still prefer the towel but both definitely work. . .

[Mr. Espey]

I was doing them on a pulley and it was not full range. it hits the hand & wrist but only static strength... your hand & wrist stay stationary.

[austinslater]

Sorry to keep bugging you but Im alittle slow. Was it basicly a partial range of motion hammer curl motion with the hand and wrist staying locked? Sooner or later Ill figure it out.