While Technically Speaking, It Is Impossible To Armwrestle Yourself, There Are Methods To Train At Home By Matching Your Strength
While turning both arms towards each other to armwrestle yourself is not possible, there are ways to bring a match inside your home with the right training spirit!
Items You Need To Have To Armwrestle Yourself
I would be remiss if I didn’t present a few items you will need to begin training for strength and technique at home:
- Ropes
- Armwrestling table (expensive but worth it)
- Free weights
- Dumbbells
- Armwrestling pulley system for your table
1st Method: Static Holds with Weights
Armwrestling is a lot of muscular endurance. In the top-ranked armwrestling athletes, you will find that the pros like Artyom Morozov and Devon Larratt have superhuman levels of muscular bicep endurance.
So how do you build it?
This requires a little trial and error plus a bit of patience. You need to slowly work your way up with dumbbells to find out what your max static hold is for 30 seconds. When you are working towards a max static hold for 30 seconds, you need to pace yourself, incrementally move up, and take your time figuring out this number. You do not want to injure yourself.
You can hold a dumbbell over the edge of a table or the side of a preacher bench, whichever tool you have on hand. The trick here is to go for max time and strength to copy an armwrestling match. Armwrestling matches seldom go longer than 30 seconds. You need to figure out how to extend your muscular endurance, especially with your hooking technique. This is how you start.
The Movement
You want to hold your arm at a 90-110-degree angle over the bench with the heaviest weight you can handle for 30 seconds. You will hold the weight in a neutral grip, which means it looks like you are performing a hammer curl. You will hold that for 30 seconds. You should form beads of sweat on your face—that’s how you know you are getting close to the feel of a real armwrestling match.
Once you find your one rep (set) 30 seconds max, perform this movement for five sets with 3-5 minutes of rest between each 30-second hold. Also, ensure to alternate arms to stay balanced. A one-arm pumpkin training method can give you wicked back pain!
2nd Method: ArmWrestling Pulley System
You can try building a pulley system for your table, although I don’t recommend it as it can be flimsy and dangerous. You will want a piece of armwrestling equipment specially designed for pulling cables at a table. Amazon and third-party platforms sell pulley systems and cable machines to help you get this armwrestling pulley system in your home.
Here, we will focus on the quintessential armwrestling technique: The Toproll. The toproll is an open-handed, outside armwrestling technique that if executed quickly and correctly, will help you almost instantaneously win a match. Winning a match faster means preserving your strength for a complete set in a competition!
The Movement
With your armwrestling pulley system set up at your armwrestling table, you again will need to find the heaviest weight you can work with for 3-5 reps. This will take time and patience—you must warm-up slowly and work up to heavier weights.
You will grip the handle and load the weights on the pulley system; with your elbow fully planted on the pad, you will pull towards your body and rotate your grip from neutral to pronated as you pull the weight as hard as you can toward your body.
Remember, when working with weights this heavy, it is critical to take your time between sets and focus on the movement.
Training At Home Is Possible
Armwrestling yourself can become more feasible with these two methods for armwrestling training at home. You need to develop your static holds and find a pulley system for the toproll technique. These two, foundational tools can help you work your way up to a real tournament!