Got a great question from Felipe the other day that I wanted to tackle, concerning progressions in nail bending.
First of all congratulations Logan for having such a great website your one of the strong men I follow because you have such great information and knowledge. I will be buying the advanced bridging course some time with in a month from now, your lock out was crazy bro, good stuff. I wanted to ask you a question on bending, I bought the ironmind nails level one and two, white and green and I love them. They got to easy and I ordered the yellow nails, I can’t even bend them at all there to strong. what other nails do you recommend that is harder than the green nail and easier than the yellow nail so I can bridge the gap. How should I address the situation?
Thanks Logan hope to hear from you.
The white, green, yellow, blue and red nails
I like Ironmind’s products. They have some of the best quality training goods out there. In fact, just last night on our Super Human Training Coaching call, Bud Jeffries was talking about how they have the best barbells out there.
However, I don’t know what they were thinking with the Bag of Nails. The jump from a white nail to a green nail is small. The same goes for the yellow to the blue. But the jump from the green to the yellow or the blue to red is HUGE.
And to be honest, I don’t think any amount of working on the green nails is really going to help you get to a yellow. You need to look outside of Ironmind to make these jumps.
There is a lot of detail that goes into this and different ways you can approach it. You can buy lengths of steel and cut them to size. Get 1/4” cold rolled steel and cut it to lengths with a pair of bolt cutters. This way you can make your own progression cutting off 1/2” at a time.
Or for where you’re at Felipe, it may be easiest to pickup 40D nails at the hardware store and work with those. But again with these, the jump from a 40D to a 60D (about the equivalent of a blue nail) is big.
For complete details on progressions with bending check out Diesel’s Nail Bending eBook. It is the definitive resource on this subject.
Actually one of my friends is looking at making a brain dead simple progression for bending, where the jumps are tiny all the way through. Going from one nail to the next is easy but there are many progressions to go from the easiest nails to past the Red nail.
Its still in development, but this is something I’d love to see made available, as I too have been stopped in making these big jumps. I know that the more progressive you can make something the easier it is.
Is this something you’d be interested in? (I’m asking everyone, including Felipe) Comment below.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Comments
very good subject.
and great suggestions on how to bridge from the IM green to yellow.
for i am in this same situation.
was not aware or even thought about this huge gap issue.
will have to go out and get some 1/4″crs asap.
thanks for the suggestion.
I bent my first white and green nails last night! Was fairly easy, but the yellow barely moved. I have lots of work to do to get to that level. It is fun though.
@Justin Matthews and @JOHN: : Congrates on getting the white and greens. I still have my first of those nails I ever bent (actually they’re in the picture above). Keep working at it and you’ll get those yellows.
-Logan
Jedd has a progression list in the Diesel Nailbending ebook that lists some intermediate levels of nails or stock to get from one level to the other. It’s probably not as detailed as what your friend is working on, but it has way more listed than the ironmind colored nails.
The ebook, by the way, is great…it has exercises for working the forearm muscles to get ready to bend, different bending techniques, and loads of other helpful stuff. I’m looking forward to getting into bending!
@Todd: I think that book is a must for anyone interested in bending. And the progressions are good, but my friend’s system promises to be way, way more progressive.
-Logan
Logan, great article. I’ve been working on a progression Adam gave me. After the blue nail, it goes 7″ G5 bolt (if you can find this irregular size), 6″ G5, 5.5″ G5, then jump up to the 7″ G8 bolts. Then start cutting them down again once they’re easy. So far it has worked well for me. I’m about to start on the grade 8s.
One other note: I have gigantic hands, so anything shorter than 6″ is really difficult for me. So if you’ve got big hands and bending really short stock seems unnaturally difficult, don’t feel too bad.
@Josh Hanagarne: That sounds good Josh if you can find the right size bolts. And for some reason the 5.5″ Grade 5’s I have are visually thicker then 6″ bolts. As you can imagine they’re much tougher and have stopped me thus far. I need to go bolt shopping again…
Agree completely on the hand size. 5″ are just no fun.
I most definitely am interested Logan. Thanks for answering my question and keep informing us on your friends project when can we see a release date?
Hey guys, thanks for the props on the Bending eBook. My progression list in the book covers many types of steel you can look for to bridge some of the gaps.
If your problem is the kink, I put up some information about improving the kink on the Diesel site a few weeks back. It is on like the third page back right now.
Also, in the ebook, I cover some other ways to advance on nails and bolts by tinkering with them a little bit.
Sometimes, it’s just mental to break through our current plateaus, but I’m with @Logan that the jumps in the Bag O’ Nails are a bit fierce.
Thanks and all the best with your bending, guys.
-Jedd-
@Jedd: Thanks for stopping by Jedd. Your props are well deserved.
Those tips you gave were definitely helpful. Anyone who hasn’t seen them here’s the link:
https://www.dieselcrew.com/how-to-improve-strength-for-bending-steel-nails-bolt/
I haven’t started bending as of yet, but will in the near future. This is very useful information for someone not accustomed to bending steel. Thanks for the heads up on your friend’s upcoming ebook, and for doing what you do.
@Tim: Sorry if that wasn’t clear but my friends not writing a ebook but creating a set of nails that allows full progression from weak as a kitten to world class strength. Like the bag of nails but much better. Good luck when you get started!
Good post Logan,
Some of the grip work is tough because of the big jumps and there is no real way to make small progressions. I like the cold roll steel idea then you can just make it a little longer to increase the leverage.
Testing protocol + smooth jumps through the bars.
Some things which need to dispelled
A 5″ bar bend is not a progression back to 7″ stock, in fact the hand position of the short stuff is very different. I can crush the piss out of 3/8 Cold rolled at 7″, Still have not bent a mag bastard (5″X5/16 )because I bend in single leathers and there is no room on the bar for my hands once i get past the kink
Reverse bending is it’s own style, mastery of one does not transfer. I used to advise people to start reverse, this was flawed thinging. The styles are not even close.
DO bending is all about finding leverage, padding makes a big difference. DU and reverse requires much more wrist strength. DU and RV is the higher chance of injury, but DO is more dangerous. People pad up the bars and blow out their pecs.
ATG
@Adam Glass: I think you meant ‘Testing protocol = smooth jumps through the bars’. I was interested to read on your blog how reverse bending only tests well every once in awhile. Yesterday, due to testing, I worked reverse bending on my weaker side as well as DO style.
Read it somewhere, don’t know if it is in the bag of nails self but tape the white nails to the green to progress further.
whats up with you girls in America in the uk we bend 4″ and 6″ nails with barehands, i think the 6″ is the same as youre 60 penny, And i mean good hard nails not youre cheap rubish, i have bent dozens one after the other so the ends almost touch.Iwould say the extra length makes the bigger nails easyer..thanks nick
Hi Logan,
Did your friend ever release the bending program you refer to above?
Cheers,
Grant
No, it never happened.