NEWS
There’s no doubt Arm Wrestling has gone on in some form or another for thousands of years and is popular across the world. A test of strength of one person’s arm against another it consists of two people who stand at or sit down at a table and then grip each others hand whilst placing their elbows on the table.
Their goal is then to pin their opponent's arm onto the surface (or touch pad) of the table. As well as being a test of strength, it takes a great deal of skill to be a competitive arm wrestler as well as psychological strength.
There are various Arm Wrestling bodies and federations across the world by the main one is the who oversee the Arm Wrestling World Championships amongst other things and whose rules we refer to in this article.
However, whilst not completely standardized across the world. Arm Wrestling rules are very similar amongst different authorities and federations and often differ only on the smaller, less important details. The actual mechanics of an Arm Wrestling match are essentially the same the world over.
The object of arm wrestling is to beat your opponent by pinning their hand onto the table touchpad. This is done by a combination of strength and technique. Despite armwrestling being primarily a strength sport, it can be highly psychological, with players ‘psyching themselves up’ into peak mental condition as well as often trying to intimidate their opponents or put them off their game.
In the World Arm Wrestling Championships, competitors, as well as trying to win their own individual matches are attempting to score points for the country’s team in the competition’s team championship.
Because their is a correlation between physical strength and size, competitors compete with each other in weight classifications to ensure that matches and competitions are fair. Players are also required to dress appropriately, with them wearing short sleeve or sleeveless shirts and sports pants with little or no advertising. No jeans are allowed to be worn and neither are any kind of arm, elbow or wrist support.
For official World Arm Wrestling Tournaments, the tables should have the following features and conform to the WAF rules. Tables essentially consist of:
The type of arm wrestling table used is different depending upon whether the arm wrestling is to be done standing up or sat down. For sit down competition, the tabletop should be 28” from the floor. For stand up matches, the table top should be 40” from the floor. All the other dimensions are the same, which are that the table top should be 36” long and 26” wide.
Legs should be a minimum of 28” inside leg and a minimum of 18” leg to leg. Elbow pads should be set 2” from the edge and should be 7” x 7” and 2” thick made from high quality and thick foam. Touch pads should be 10” long by 4” high and should be on an angle, 5" out from the inside corner of the elbow pad to the inside corner of the pad.
Hand pegs should be placed halfway at 13” on the edge of each table and chairs too should be a regulation size of 18” square and 18” from the ground. A line should also be placed across the centre of the table to distinguish the two halves of the table and should be painted or taped onto the table.
In individual matches, scoring is very simple in that it is a straightforward win/lose format over one round. However, at the World Armwrestling Championships, there is a team championship in which points are awarded for each individual competitor's performance in their category and are joined with those of their country’s team. Therefore, in each weight class, the following points are awarded:
In individual matches, the winner of the match is the competitor who pins their opponent’s arm onto the touch pad. In the Word Arm Wrestling Championships each match is just one round long but in other Arm Wrestling competitions under different federations, rules and regulations, matches may be fought on a ‘best of three’, ‘best of five’ or an alternative basis.
In the team competition in the World Armwrestling Championships, the winning team is the team who has earned the most points from their members performance in their respective individual events. This is often the case for other types of arm wrestling championships and competitions.
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