Feats of strength

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Please improve this article if you can. (December 2007)

Feats of Strength are acts strongmen exhibit to showcase their great strength. They often require immense hand and finger strength, as well as core musculature. Modern feats of strength are usually performed strongman competitions, fitness exhibitions, evangelical presentations, circuses or festivals and even on television programming.

'List of some of the most well known Feats of Strength performed :'

  • Ripping a phone-book in half
  • Tearing a deck of playing cards in half
  • Bending nails, bolts or bars of steel by hand
  • Lifting large weights overhead (From people to huge dumbbells like the Inch Bell 172lbs)
  • Holding back pulling horses, motorcycles, even airplanes have been held from takeoff
  • Rolling up frying pan
  • Ripping License Plates in half
  • Breaking chains
  • Breaking wooden baseball bats
  • Driving a nail through a board by hand
  • Closing super heavy-duty hand grippers
  • Bending horseshoes
  • Bending or breaking hand tools (wrenches,screwdrivers,steel hammers, crowbars ect...)
  • Pulling apart regulation handcuffs or shackles
  • Picking up massive weights with one finger usually through an attached steel ring
  • Stone lifting(comes from the ancient tradition of lifting manhood stones in some cultures)
  • Hand balancing
  • Levering heavy sledgehammers by the handle to the nose or wavering from the ground
  • Bursting soda or beer cans by squeezing them with one's hands
  • Biting through nails, spikes or chain (old time feat of strength rarely performed made famous by legendary strongman Joseph L. Greenstein aka: The Mighty Atom)

All feats of strength of course require a high level of functional strength to perform but some require a certain degree of technique or they can be nearly impossible no matter what level of power one can generate.

Criss Angel performs feats of strength as part of his television show Mindfreak, although it is not clear how much of his performance is actual strength and how much due to prestidigitation. Olympic weight lifters perform movements which require great skill as well as incredible strength, and spend many years perfecting their lifts, (particularly the snatch) before heavier weights are attempted. Powerlifters, on the other hand, perform lifts which consist of pure strength with very little body movement or skill compared to Olympic weightlifting. The deadlift, for example, is a powerlifting movement which consists almost entirely of pure strength.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

http://www.strongmanfeats.com ( How-To's and many Feats of Strength video clips from strongmen and strongwomen performers from around the world )

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