Arnold Sports Festival 2019 - Armlifting - Rolling Thunder Event

Written by Dani and Andrew Livelsberger

Photography by Andrew Livelsberger

Julia Williams

Background:
A new event for this year, armlifting is a sport where grip strength is paramount.  Athletes need to lift increasingly heavier weights, but the difficulty is ramped up from a traditional weight or power lifting event due to the larger sizes of the grippable areas.

The images in this thread are from the event names Rolling Thunder.  The athlete must lift the weight straight up from the handle and be standing straight up to the judges satisfaction.

The event was hosted by TheGripGuys.

Autumn Cote
40 kilos (88 lbs)

Impression:
Armlifting is very new to me.    Much like years ago, outside of the Arnold Sports Festival, I knew nothing of MAS Wrestling.  It being listed on the roster as a new event for this year, I had to do my research.  I checked it out on YouTube and I knew that it was something we should experience first hand.

I knew nothing at all of it, had no idea that it even existed.  So, we made out way to the Consourse stage to cover it.

We know that lifting heavy weights is a task in and of itself.  With armlifting, the difficulty is increased by having the gripping handle much larger in diameter than you would usually find.  This requires the participants to develop their grip strength in order to even be able to lift the weight from the ground.

These are not trivial weights either.  In the first few lifts, the athletes were putting up 40-60 kilos (88-132 lbs) in weight.

Having discovered this great sport, we will definitely have to cover it more in the future.  If you've never heard of armlifting before, give it a try and check it out for yourself.