Following on from their videos in which they took on traditional strongman exercises and classic feats of strength, for their latest challenge YouTube’s Buff Dudes (a.k.a. bodybuilding brothers Brandon and Hudson White) try out a series of old-school grip strength tests from 1946.
First up is the phone book tear, which is well-known and requires very little explanation. The first challenge the Buff Dudes face is actually finding a physical phone directory in 2022, but when it comes to actually ripping it in half, Brandon manages it in 41 seconds.
“That was a little tougher than I thought, actually,” he says. “It was honestly harder to find this damn thing than it was to tear it.”
The next challenge is similar in nature: tearing a deck of cards in half. “I’m really extra nervous on this one,” says Hudson. “Like a lot of these things, it’s not just the muscle, there’s technique as well. Of course you need grip strength, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s also in the way that you manoeuver the object in order to get that correct tear.”
Despite injuring his hand in an off-camera attempt prior to filming the challenge, Hudson succeeds in ripping the entire deck in half in just 21 seconds.
The third event requires Brandon to lift a chair by one of the front legs, keeping it level the entire time. He tries the most difficult method first, gripping the leg at the very bottom, but fails here and so moves his grip further up, before finally switching to one of the back legs.
“This is an awesome exercise you can do right at home to get your grip strength up,” he says. “Specifically, what you’re going to be doing is building your extensor muscles, the brachioradialis, which is going to really have to contract to level out that wrist and help pick it straight up there.”
Other tests really put some stress on the Dudes’ digits, including bending bottle caps and breaking matchsticks between their fingers, and a set of fingertip pushups. These are followed by an isometric hold where Hudson hangs a 10-pound kettlebell on a broomstick and must keep it balanced horizontally with one arm, starting out with it close to the body and then moving it further out along the pole, where it will take more effort. “That weight adds up really fast,” he says.
The final event involves hanging onto the side of an open door with one hand and leaning back, keeping yourself from falling through grip alone. “That definitely takes some endurance and strength right there,” says Brandon, comparing it to a plate pinch exercise. “It’s definitely going to build up and develop that grip strength.”
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