Masskruagstemma, a beer-holding endurance test

OK, so I've been challenged to compete in the Masskruagstemma at a Starkbierfest in a month's time.



Anyone with experience in this care to tell me what to expect? 11kg as described in the link above, or about 2 kg of glass and beer? Do you have to hold it to the side, or can you hold it to the front? What"s better? Can you shift between the two?



From what I've read, you're out when the Krug sinks lower than your shoulder, right? What the best position to hold your elbow in? Off to the gym with me...

You don't have to hold it to the side, but you will be able to hold it longer if you do. I don't know if locking your elbow is good advice or not, sorry.

Hold it with your hand upside down (thumb down) if it is allowed. Oh yeah, and practice practice practice.

Do you have to hold the Krug by the handle? I've got pretty big hands, and I find it easier to hold the glass itself...

I don't know if it makes a difference... but I'd try to not use the handle. It seems to me, doing so means the glass is closer to your body, so it's less of a strain (albeit just slightly)

Do you mean with your hand between handle and glass? I think that is a recognized technique.

Exactly. Looking more closely at the first photo, I think the two people at the back are holding it like that.

I realise that one month is really not enough time, but what is the best exercise for improving your stemmen-powers?
- holding an object of the correct weight in that position for as long as possible.
- trying to hold heavier objects, or pushing against something fixed (still isometric, but working towards being able to push harder).
- cable pull, dumb-bell raises, or similar.

Take something twice as heavy, but with the same grip. Put it down to your side and raise it up: 30° to 120° to 90° and hold it for 20sec. back down to 30° and up to 120° then to 90° and hold and repeat 5 times. Rest 1min. Repeat increasing holding time for an additional 20sec. for every repetition of 5. Do this until you can't any more. Repeat every second day and stop three days before the contest. In between, stretch that arm out and apply warmth and massage.

Fill a Maßkrug with screws or coins or something heavy and train with that.

I won a competition like this before at a football Christmas party one year. I would not recommend locking your elbow, keep the beer as close to your body as you can without breaking whatever rules they lay out at the start of the competition. Try to keep as much of the weight on your leg/back muscles as you can, so bend your legs and change your stance occassionally to transfer the strain from your arm to your back and legs. Don't forget to breathe deep and try the whole mind over matter thing. If I could beat 6 footballers, you can easily win this with a bit of concentration and effort.

Good luck!

I should also mention that your last two practices will be 3 and 4 days before the event, so two in a row and you could even use the day 3 before the event to actually do what you would do in the contest and really push yourself. Even if your arm drops, get it back up there and push harder and practice concentrating on the mug and keep it lifted with your mind too.

Thanks for the tips. Hopefully the competition takes place early in the evening - don"t want to have had too many Mass of Starkbier!

If you want to win, do not drink anything but water/OJ/Gatorade before the competition and zilch in the hour before. Sorry.

Good luck with it, I did this competion during Oktoberfest the trash talking gets funny as everyone pretends not to be strugling. In fact might chalenge a few people tomorrow if there selling gunna be selling Mass in V-markt.

Well, I didn't win. Managed about 4 minutes, after which the Mass moved inexorably downwards, despite my telling it to do otherwise. As an excuse I offer that I didn't train very much, and the big meal just beforehand also didn't help.

It was all pretty casual, with rules being laid out, then pretty much ignored (particularly the arm-must-be-straight rule).

The winner managed about 7 minutes. He had a very strange posture, with his back arched, leaning back a long way, and his left arm pushing against the small of his back. His right arm (with the Mass) was twisted so far that the weight was more on his biceps.