INCIDENT REPORT 0002: The Bender Bar Fights Back! PROGRESS: 12 out of 100.
12/29/2025
Day before New Year’s Eve.
Running my three-day split—Monday, Wednesday, Friday—I decided to start the New Year the only way Bender’s Club allows: under load.
Coming off a clean two-day rest window (Saturday to Sunday), I felt solid locking in the first bend. Bend one carried a little strain, nothing unexpected. Everything tracked smoothly through bend eleven.
That’s when the equipment reminded me it has opinions.
The handles on the 100kg / 220lb Bender Bar—also called the Power Twister—do a poor job managing sweat. Traction degrades fast. On the close of bend eleven, the bar slipped and sprang back violently.
I rolled the impact. Habit. Years of mitigating incoming force make that reflex automatic. Still, it raised a simple question: why tolerate preventable risk? Chalk will be added. Proactivity beats stitches.
That said, it will take more than 220 pounds of amplified force ripping through the air at my face to stop me.
So, out of pure spite—and to remind the bar who answers to whom—I immediately broke my previous personal record and locked in bend twelve.
Take that!
-Kevin Wikse, Industrial Strength Bastardry.
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