"I reached the arm circumference of 50 cm naturally," interview and training with Václav Kotrba, who competes in armwrestling!

Recently I visited my old friend Vasek Kotrba, who competes in armwrestling, or "arm wrestling". Venca always had the biggest arms in our gym and incredible grip strength, so it was clear to me even then that this sport was perfect for him. Over the years he has managed to collect a lot of medals and experience, so I thought some of you might be interested in what such "leverage training" looks like. I decided to try training with Venka and make a little report about it.

What can I tell you, for two days I couldn't stretch my arms from this workout as they were strained from various unusual exercises I'm not used to.... We trained in his own gym, so most of the various attachments and gadgets were made by him. At the beginning I would like to mention that a lot of guys from the wrestling circuit come to Venca to compare their strength and his posts where he trains with gigantic weight arms are liked by Larry Wheels himself, so I hope you will enjoy my insight into the wrestling rambunctiousness.

Zobrazit příspěvek na Instagramu

Příspěvek sdílený Vaclav Kotrba (@venca_kotrba)

I asked Vasek a few questions straight away:

When did you start with leverage and when did you start focusing on armwrestling exercises?

I included armwrestling in my training around 2012 and 2 years later I went to my first competition where I won the amateur category, the same result I achieved six months later at the national championships and then I started competing in the men's up to 75kg category.

What category do you compete in, or how is it determined, by weight?

The categories are determined by weight, plus there is a junior/ek and masters category, when I started there was still an amateur category, which was for newcomers to the sport who have been competing for less than a year. I compete in the men's category up to 85kg.

What are your best achievements in armwrestling so far?

I don't count the amateur category from the beginning of competing because it's incomparable to the men's category. It's more just about trying it out and knowing roughly what to do. In the men's category I managed to win 2 bronze medals at the national championships, which I don't really consider a success, my goal is to win the national championships in my category, but unfortunately I haven't managed to do it yet, we'll see at the next competitions.

I am currently preparing for the Czech championships on June 11, where I would probably race only with my left hand, because my right hand is injured and I probably won't be able to heal it before the competition.

We're working out at your gym now, did you do all the lever and overall workout tweaks yourself? You've got the log, the different pros, etc. That's why I'm asking.

Other than the positioning bench and axes, I think I made everything myself.

I've always found only and only bigger weights for medium to higher reps (6-20) Biceps training 2x a week, once in a separate arm workout (biceps. triceps, forearms) in the second workout which is a bit lighter then combine if possible with chest workout, never combine back + biceps workout if you are purely after biceps growth, it overloads ligaments and tendons and can cause injury on sets to failure which I highly recommend.

Here's an example of such a simple biceps workout first and then tweaks directly on the lever. I have always filmed the execution of the exercise so you can visualize it, since from the written name of the exercise, I myself as a layman did not understand it at all.

For each exercise the progression was the same, first we warmed up with a lighter weight with more reps and then each set we would add weight and subtract reps until we got to a very heavy weight that we put at least five times.

The workout looked like this:

Biceps on Scott. bench with one-hand dumbbell 61 kg

Bottom (armwrestling technique) on the top pulley

Biceps with ez barbell in sitting 110kg

Wrist knock with one hand 112kg

Wrist wrap with 60mm grip 80kg