Some of the Best Exercises for Steel Bending

Dear Friend,

I’ll be the first to tell you that I am not a steel bender. Nope, I’m just not interested in doing it. I never have been and I doubt I will be in the future.

I am, however, in awe of those who bend steel at a high level. It is an awesome thing see someone bend huge horseshoes or red nails by the dozen. The intensity that these individuals possess can be downright frightening.

It’s pretty obvious that in order to become really good at steel bending, you are going to have to bend a lot of steel. That’s pretty much a given but did you know that apart from steel bending itself, there are a number of exercises and training techniques you can do with just common equipment that will improve your bending?

That’s exactly what Pat Povilaitis and Dennis Rogers covered on the second and third discs of our recent telephone seminar interview series.

For example, it should be pretty evident that you are going to need some pretty mean mitts of you want to be a steel bender.

Having a strong crusher grip is critical and so is building super strong wrists. As far as training the crush grip, some of the best methods are using hand grippers or even a plate loaded grip machine. For building wrist strength, Dennis Rogers likes to use an unusual type of wrist curl that he devised to simulate the uneven leverage that can often happen when trying to bend a tough piece of steel.

Training with sledge hammers is also a great way to build wrist strength I don’t know whether Slim “The Hammer Man” uses sledge hammers as a compliment to his bending One thing is for sure, nobody has wrists stronger than ol’ Slim and he’s not too bad at steel bending. (That might be the understatement of the year!)

One thing that Pat brought up (and Dennis whole-heartedly agreed with) is how important abdominal and core strength can be to bending success. It doesn’t seem like it but if you have a weakness, the steel will find it. This means…a balanced approach. You gotta have strong legs, a strong trunk, strong arms strong hands and strong wrists. A deficiently in any of these areas will be like driving around with the parking brake on…you won't go as far or as fast as you want.

BUT...it doesnt take all that much to fix the problem and get “back in the game.”

Now, even if you are like me and have no interest in ever bending steel, all the development behind a top steel bender can be extremely valuable purely in terems of training knowledge. Again, it is the concepts that lead to this development that are important to understand. The application is up to you…

Train hard,

John Wood signature

John Wood

P.S. The “Early Bird” Special for the Live and Uncut Dennis Rogers and Pat Povilaitis Training Seminar 3-CD set ends at Midnight on Monday April 25th. After that deadline, the price will increase. Swing into action and check it out here.