02/21/08: The use of wraps while bending: While I totally advocate the use of hand pads while bending any kind of steel, the reason I'm starting this topic today is lately I have been noticing the overuse of hand pads where guys are bending steel with these huge padded handles on the ends. This does not constitute a legitimate bend at all!! The whole point of bending steel is being able to go past that voice, that governor, that tells you to stop due to the extreme pain it is causing you. Take Dennis Rogers for instance. The man only uses a couple a pieces of tissue paper to bend solid steel wrenches!! Awesome indeed!! Bending with the ironmind hand pads is OK but in my opinion one should strive to lessen the padding as you progress in your bending until you can bend the same item with just a couple of small pieces of thin leather. 3" X 3" maximum. Once you can do this you can consider that piece of steel killed! Then and only then should you progress to a bigger piece of steel! All the best, Scott McElroy Iron Claw Master Practitioner 04/22/08: We have a new Master Practitioner on the board: Spencer Horn Performed an incredible hand to hand transfer of a 45ld. weight plate being lifted by the hub! This is a fantastic feat That took a lot of sweat , blood and tears to master. My hat is off to him and he is an individual that most surely deserves to carry our Iron Claw Strength Feats Master Practitioner's Challenge Coin! Fantastic job Spencer!! 08/27/08: Just my two cents on legitimately closing heavy duty hand grippers…I get asked at least once a week if I advocate the use of a person pre-setting a gripper before they close it. Pre-setting a gripper is when you use your alternate hand to aid you in the closing by pressing the handles closer together so that the closing hands fingers can wrap further around the handles giving you much more leverage. My answer to this question is no, I do not. If you have to pre-set the gripper in order to close it, then you cannot close it!! Many say that their hands are too small to grab the handles securely enough so they have to use a pre-set. I ask these people this; can you close the Trainer gripper using a no set close? They say, yes I can. Then I say; that if you can close a Trainer gripper using a no set close, then your hands are large enough to sufficiently grip the handles of a larger gripper. My point is this; if you can close a lighter gripper with a no set close and cannot with a heavier gripper then you do not yet have the strength to close that gripper. Most people that can close a #3 Captains of Crush hand gripper using a parallel set close cannot close a #2.5 Captains of Crush hand gripper using a table, no set close. This should tell you something because there is about 50lbs. of difference between these two grippers. Here is a great analogy. Let’s say that you are in a competition to see who can clean/jerk the heaviest dumbbell with one hand. Should you be allowed to use both hands to clean the dumbbell first and then switch to one hand for the jerk? The answer is absolutely not. Training with and closing heavy duty hand grippers have become such a sub culture that the pure essence of the concept of this kind of training is being removed. The pure essence is this. When you can pick that gripper up off a table with the same hand that you are going to close it with and then slam it shut, all the while never touching it with your alternate hand, then and only then do you own that gripper. All the best, Scott McElroy Iron Claw Master Practitioner 08/27/08: How does one train progressively with hand grippers when there is such a big difference in the levels of resistance between each gripper? This is a question that plagues many! What is truly the right way to train with heavy duty hand grippers. My thoughts are this. Since there is such a big difference in the resistance levels between each hand gripper, regardless of which brand you buy, people have had to come up with different methods of training to compensate for this. Some of these methods are forced negatives, over closes, timed holds, and strap holds. Every grip guru has his own method that he teaches that will enable a person to compensate for these differences in resistance and gradually progress to a heavier gripper. The following is what has given me the greatest results of all and believe me I’ve tried just about everything! You need to get yourself a modified hand gripper and you can do that right here! Modified hand gripper These are grippers that have been modified by extending the handles with washers. The longer the handles are the greater the leverage, hence less resistance. For instance, extending the handles of a #3 COC hand gripper by one inch will turn that gripper into approximately a #2 COC hand gripper. As you progress you are just removing one washer from each handle at a time giving you a much better progression! You will be amazed at how much faster you will progress through each gripper training with these. 02/05/09: I'm very proud to say that Iron Claw Master Practitioner and Hall of Fame Inductee, Stephanie McElroy, graduated from the Tulare/Kings Counties Police Academy placing in the top two of her class. She did this at the age of 40!! She was going up against men and woman half her age!! Just goes to show you what you can accomplish when you have a trained mind and body. Congratulations Stephanie! You are an elite warrior whom we all can learn from!! 07-19-10: Well my friends, It has been an aweful long time since I have written on this board. A lot has happened in the last year and I could not keep up with this blog. I am pleased to say that we are back up and running full force. There are many different training concepts that we will be covereing in the weeks to come. Not just grip training but full body conditioning as well.   When I first wrote the eBook, Iron Claw Strength Feats, I did it in mind for individuals that were wanting a place to start on the long road to professionaly performing Old Time Circus Strongman Feats. The book has been a great success!! If done consistantally and correctly, it can enable an individual to performing master level strength feats within a years time. Unfortunetley, not everyone wants to perform strength feats in order to attain an Iron Claw grip. The beautiful thing here is that you do not have to.    Since we will not be performing strength feats to attain overall conditioning, we will have to work the rest of our body in different ways to obtain back, core, leg, shoulder and arm strength that will be used a long side our grip strength. My six alltime favorite ways to accompllish this is a special system integrating Pull ups, Kettlebells, Pushups, other specific body weight exercises, Yoga and Plyometrics, mixed with specific, hard core grip training routines. The results will turn you into a hardened combat athlete.  Stay tuned for more!!