Is Armwrestling Technique or Strength?

It's one of the most searched questions about the sport: is armwrestling about technique or strength? The honest answer is both, and the line between them is blurrier than people think. Here's how Coach Ray and Jedi see it.

Against beginners, technique wins

When two untrained people pull, technique decides a lot. Most beginners push sideways with a weak wrist. Someone who knows to pull instead of push, take a high grip and attack the fingers with a toproll can beat a much stronger person. That's why our beginner tips work.

At high level, it's strength in the right positions

Between experienced armwrestlers, everyone knows the techniques. What decides the match is how strong you are in the specific position the match ends up in. As Jedi puts it before one of his own matches, "at the end of the day it's a strength sport."

But it isn't the strength you build in a normal gym. A huge bench press or big biceps don't automatically help. Armwrestling strength is in the hand, the wrist, the forearm rotation (pronation) and the elbow flexors, and in being able to hold those positions while someone fights you.

Your arm is a chain

Jedi explains it with the idea of a chain: "Your arm is like a chain. It's as strong as its weakest link." If your wrist is strong but you keep losing your elbow angle, biceps and elbow flexors are your priority. If you always lose your wrist, it's your hand. Getting stronger means finding the link that breaks first.

That's also where technique and strength meet. Sometimes you are not weak at all, you are just attacking where your opponent is strongest. Jedi: "Maybe I should try to catch you like this, and then I'm not losing my wrist." Choosing the right position is technique. Being strong enough to win in it is strength.

The hardest part to train: the hand

Ask Ray and Jedi which single thing matters most and both say the same: hand control. It isn't one movement but a combination of grip, pronation, supination and moving the wrist up and down. "If you have a solid hand, you can work on everything else." With a good hand you put your opponent in a bad position and don't need as much raw arm strength. Without it, you have to make up for it with huge side pressure or a hold.

How to use this

• New to armwrestling? Learn the basic techniques first, and pull with people at your level. Technique will win you a lot of matches early on.
• Training a while? Film your matches and look at where you lose. Jedi says the worst thing you can do is delete the videos of your losses: that's where you learn the most.
• Train what the table asks for: hand, wrist, pronation and elbow flexors first. See the muscles used in armwrestling.