- What's up? It's Chris Heria.
I'm in San Diego right now with Brandon William
and we're linking up to train with Brandon's friend,
Allen Fisher.
- Yeah, Allen is a 26 time world champion arm wrestler.
He's a legend in the world of arm wrestling.
I'm excited for you to meet him, bro.
- My name is Allen Fisher. Here in San Diego.
I'm a professional arm wrestler
for the past 44 years now.
I started arm wrestling because of my friends.
They pretty much paid my way
to go to compete at a tournament.
If you wanna be an arm wrestler
and you wanna be a good arm wrestler, it takes commitment.
I think Chris knows all about what that means.
Diet is the number one thing.
Here I am, almost 67 and diet plays a major role
in my body and every which way.
There's competitions throughout the United States,
Canada, Europe, Asia, you could meet everywhere.
It's really huge right now.
The WAL, the World Armwrestling League,
they'll be making their comeback this year.
And then you got the East versus West.
These are big competitions.
Wanna get into arm wrestling?
Find people to arm wrestle and don't beat 'em up.
You know, really just challenge each other and it'll grow.
For arm wrestling, would have to be forearm, bicep,
pec, shoulders, back, lat, legs,
everything is actually involved.
The wrist, hand is probably the most important
for arm wrestling, is how much strength you've got
doing your hurling ins like that.
I heard about Chris through my friend Brandon Williams,
and then I started watching his YouTube channel
and finding out more about him,
which is really exciting for me
and what an honor it is for me to actually meet him.
What kinda condition is he in for our sport?
It's gonna be interesting to see what he thinks
about what we do.
I'm gonna put Chris through something
and we're gonna see if he can handle it.
Even as great athlete as he is,
it's gonna be challenging for him.
- Allen. Good to see you. - Great to see you, Brandon.
Wow, look at this. - This is Chris.
- Allen, it's an honor to meet you, man.
- I'm honored my friend. Wow, this is huge.
- That's a crazy grip you got right there, brother.
- Oh, you're gonna find out today.
- I actually saw your video with Brandon.
I saw how hard you guys train and I'm really excited.
This is my first time ever trying arm wrestling.
So it's an honor to be training with a pro.
Hoping that you can show me some tips,
some techniques and put me on my way.
- So what you're seeing is you wanna take Brandon out?
- I mean, we can try that definitely in the video.
I know his level has gone up.
The first time we arm wrestled was a lot different
than the second time we arm wrestled.
- [Brandon] I lost right away.
- He really has improved.
We gotta run you through some tests
and see where your strengths are.
'Cause you're in calisthenics,
you'd probably do better than him.
- Oh, 100%, Because he can do one arm pull-ups.
He's doing crazy explosive- - Whoa.
- How did you get into arm wrestling?
- You know, my friends forced me
to actually go to a tournament.
When I went to this tournament
I knew when I grabbed that guy's hand
God designed me to be an arm wrestling champion
and that's been what, 44 years this year.
Grab my hand. I'm gonna close my eyes.
I can tell your wrist is backwards.
I can tell you these two fingers have more tension
than all the others, your thumb, you're not even using it.
- Yep. - I also tell you
that your elbow is away from your body.
- Is arm wrestling dangerous?
Because I mean, I've seen some videos of people
just easily snapping their arms.
Even some of my friends, like they'll try it with each other
and then the next day they'll feel injured
or actually get some pretty serious injuries
like breaking their arms.
- That's mainly conditioning.
The one about people feeling pain
and not wanting to go back to arm wrestling
'cause they didn't condition themselves
or they weren't pulling in a natural position.
People get in what we call a broken arm position
when the shoulder goes inside the hand and the forearm
and then it takes about 15 pounds of pressure
to snap the humerus.
- What would you say are the most common injuries
when it comes to arm wrestling?
- [Allen] Common injuries is broken arm, blown tendons.
- How would you avoid those injuries?
- Learning how to pull with muscle.
There's torquing and tweaking and getting out of position
and that's where people get hurt.
You wanna avoid all those things, right?
- So stay in perfect form.
Which is very like calisthenics too.
- Yes.
So every person who ever comes here,
we put 'em on this little thing right here
so I could figure out who you are as a person
and I know where you're gonna go with arm wrestling
based on that exercise.
- So it's like, are you more of like an aggressor
or are you more like a counter?
Are you more of like a thinker?
- This guy's got it down already, right?
- [Chris] Allen took me through a series of tests
he uses to learn where a person's strength
and fast switch reflexes are at,
based on their fitness level and genetics.
- Faster, faster. Good.
Get that mind in there.
(upbeat music)
Faster.
- [Chris] Like testing how fast I can blink,
to false grip pulling techniques.
These series of tests tells Allen what are my strengths
when it comes to arm wrestling
and what I should be focusing on.
- You made it look easy. So basics to arm wrestling.
Where do you put your feet? What's this peg for?
What about your elbow?
Number one thing is grab onto the peg at all the time.
You can't let go. 'Cause if you do, they'll foul you.
As far as your feet, put this foot in front of this foot
and this one back.
I'm gonna set my elbow inside my ribcage.
That prevents the broken arm.
You look at your hand, it's center chest,
shoulders in the back here, arm and your hand.
Now you wanna just stay natural. See where your palm is?
That's where you're gonna pull, right?
- So palm towards your face.
- Bicep, forearm, shoulders, pec.
Now you're not using your pec. There you go.
Now you just kicked it in.
- Huh, so you activate all of those muscle groups
at the same time?
- Exactly. Now, he's pretty strong.
See what I'm doing? I'm just closing this gap.
- Opening and closing.
- There you go. That's good.
You're just warming up. Calm down.
Beautiful, beautiful, keep going to your own chest. Nice.
That's what I call the work. And my palm is here.
I'm at a 30 degree angle and what I do is I pull.
Like I can be right here and do the same thing.
See that? Drop out, drop in, up, out.
Do you feel it pulling off your forearm and bicep?
- Yep. - Now come back up
to 30 degrees and do the same thing.
- I remember training with Allen.
My arm would just be dead after a few pulls.
- I'd be surprised I could pull 20 pounds after that.
- Well, the good thing is you're engaging a lot of stuff
that you normally don't do, even in calisthenics.
- And you're definitely reaching a point of hypertrophy,
which you don't always hit.
When you're just normally training,
you may not lift that heavy or that intense, you know?
Whether as this you're constantly in that stage of failure.
- There you go.
- See? He's good at pronating.
Hit your own face. How's that?
There you go. This is what I call a Z.
From here to here, this is a Z.
If you can separate the Z, open the Z up,
he doesn't even stand a chance.
So opening and closing movement
is super important for our sport
'cause you want control everywhere on a table
and not just one spot.
- Hold on. - There you go.
Up here He wants to pin you so bad.
- I'm gonna put some force back.
(Brandon groans)
- [Allen] Nice.
- Man!
- Look at that.
- [Brandon] I don't even have one of those.
- That was excellent, man.
- That was pretty solid. - Yeah, that was pretty solid.
I really think that for the average person,
it's gonna be hard to beat somebody
that's been consistently training like this.
So I really appreciate that, man.
- Oh yeah
- You set us up for success for sure.
- Yes, thank you, Allen. - Yeah, absolutely, guys.
- [Chris] All right, so the three main techniques I learned.
One, perfect form, have a staggered stance
and don't let the shoulder go inside of the hand
and the forearm.
That's how you break your arm.
- And then it takes about 15 pounds pressure
to snap the humerus.
- [Chris] Two, engage and utilize all four muscle groups.
The bicep, forearm, shoulder and chest. Not just the bicep.
The more muscle groups recruited,
the more strength or force can be applied.
And three, make sure you're pulling to your face
or opposing shoulder.
The goal is to break their Z formation.
- If you can separate the Z, open the Z up,
he doesn't even stand a chance.
- Is there any special secret technique,
secret move that like not a lot of people know,
or not a lot of people have maybe even seen before,
that maybe you can just show me?
- Yeah. Let's show you a real secret.
I don't let a lot of people see it.
In the past 40 years, people haven't seen it,
so come on over here.
So this machine was actually developed by a 14-year-old kid.
It didn't have any of this stuff on it. I've redesigned it.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna set you up for this
for what we call your subscapularis.
You're gonna come up underneath this thing
and pick it up from your bicep
and you're just gonna bring it up here like this
using forearm, bicep,
and a little bit of turning with your body.
You feel the tension?
Take this all the way down here without moving your body.
Easy, easy, nice and slow. Go.
Okay, yeah, there you go.
- Bam. Oh, I'ma use that.
- I'm gonna crank it up twice
just so you can feel how it is.
Good job. Wow, that's impressive, excellent work.
- It's all you. Wow.
- That's good, you're done. Chris?
- That's it. (hand smack)
- I can't believe you did that.
So many arm wrestlers that I train can't do that.
(Brandon groans) Come on.
- You got that, Brandon.
You got it, you got it. Keep going.
- Yo, there's no way.
- Let's go. You've got this.
- Come on. Come on.
- You got this. - Nice!
- There you go. - That's not easy.
That's crazy. Wow.
- [Chris] At this point we have been training
for two hours straight and my arms were starting to feel it.
But before I was ready to finally arm wrestle,
I wanted to know what the best three exercises
I and the viewers watching can use to train on our own.
- It drops, you catch up.
- [Chris] And the first exercise Allen recommended
is what he calls bouncing,
which he says helps strengthen explosiveness
at the start of an arm wrestling match.
- So you wanna keep it like this.
There you go. Keep your wrist in.
(metal clanging) (upbeat music)
- [Chris] The next exercise he recommended
requires a resistance band.
- Move away and pronate 'cause that builds that muscle.
- You arm wrestle the band
with a combination of supinating and pronating grips.
- Supinates into it.
- [Chris] Al says this simulates the movement and technique
you would use in an actual match.
- Exactly. Now do pronated, good.
Right over your knuckles. There you go.
Keep your wrist up. Look how his arm is like getting huge.
You can see his tendons are kicked in.
So all of these different angles and positions
are important when you're training,
just like when you do calisthenics.
- [Chris] The third exercise he recommended
was a really slow pull-up with the false grip.
Preferably with twisting handles
to engage more muscles in your forearm.
- [Brandon] Three Mississippi. Four Mississippi.
Five. - Okay, come on down.
We're gonna give you 10 seconds. You're just way too strong.
You got tremendous tendon strength.
I can tell just by looking at your wrist.
- Seven, eight, nine and 10.
- [Allen] Good job.
- Chris, you're doing 21.
- [Allen] Saw you shaking. This is good.
- [Brandon] 17. 18.
- That's totally impressive. Totally impressive.
- 22 Mississippi.
- You see he's shaking? Why do you shake?
- We're really used to doing this.
Like we'll pass by that range of motion
for a fraction of a second. - Right.
- Whereas now, we're holding a range of motion
for a couple of seconds, it's a lot more difficult.
- [Allen] Absolutely.
- You're gonna be strengthening
all these different ranges of motion.
No one's gonna be able to pull your arm after that.
- [Allen] There you go.
- Let's see if I could beat Chris. I don't know.
Well, he felt very strong when we were pulling earlier
but he might be fatigued enough
that I can take him, we'll see.
- Go!
(metal creaking)
- Stop. I know what you're doing.
Oh yeah.
(dramatic music)
- Awesome. He's doing the King's Move on you.
- He is, huh.
(Allen laughs)
(Brandon groans)
- Whoa. Good job.
- Wow. Yo, that was awesome.
I felt like I almost had you at one point
but then you just picked it back up.
Oh my gosh. Wow.
- Dude, you got a lot stronger and a lot better.
I can tell you've been definitely training.
And I can tell because of that training,
the technique definitely worked.
- I wanna get stronger too.
One day I have to beat Chris, like legitimately.
- Oh, you definitely will, bro.
Keep training like that for sure.
Allen Fisher, you are a legend, bro.
I appreciate you so much.
Definitely gonna be using the techniques
that you've taught us today.
- Come on, get it in there.
- Woo. - Hey.
- (indistinct) work out right here.
- We're gonna bring you down to Miami
and we're definitely gonna continue this training,
make another really cool video.
Guys, et us know down in the common section below
and we'll definitely make it happen.
And Allen, how can we find you and your training online?
- ArmWrestlingTraining.com,
or if you're on Instagram, PullingPopeye.
- There you have it.
Allen, thanks again for being on the channel.
Go ahead and check out his links,
follow him from more training
and I'll see you in the next video.
Mad love, peace out.
Today was a lot of fun. I learned a lot of new things.
And I'm really proud of Brandon, of how much he's progressed
over the months and how much stronger he's gotten.
Sticking to the arm wrestling training
for the last four months really paid off.
And big thanks to Brandon
for introducing me to Allen Fisher.
If you haven't already, head over to Brandon's channel
and check out the videos he's done with Allen.
And make sure to subscribe while you're there,
he's right about to hit 1 million subscribers.
Thanks for watching.
If you enjoyed that collab and watching me try arm wrestling
for the first time, check out this collab I did
with Danell Leyva, an Olympic gymnast
that works at the Cirque du Soleil in Vegas.
He takes us behind the scenes of the show
and has me try the trapeze over 30 feet in the air
for the first time.