Devon Larratt trains beginner for first arm wrestling tournament in 24 hours
Devon Larratt’s 24-hour beginner experiment showed which armwrestling habits can be taught fast, and which still demand years at the table.
The MSN video published last week put Devon Larratt into a 24-hour crash course with a first-time tournament entrant, and the exercise showed exactly where armwrestling can be taught quickly and where it cannot. Cast as the world’s strongest arm wrestler, Larratt used the short window to test whether a beginner could absorb enough to survive a real bracket.
What came through fastest was the sport’s technical spine. In armwrestling, position, hand control, pronation, leverage and setup matter as much as muscle, and the World Armwrestling Federation’s rules framework, revised through December 2022, reflects that reality. A new competitor can learn how to protect the hand, keep the wrist alive and understand the table better in a single day. What cannot be compressed into 24 hours is the connective tissue, tendon conditioning and competitive composure needed to hold those positions when an opponent fights back with full force.
That contrast is why the video works. It does not pretend a beginner can become elite overnight. It shows that a great coach can make a novice safer, more efficient and harder to break. The most believable gains in a day come from reading the setup, understanding when to climb inside the hand, and knowing when to abandon a bad angle before the arm is exposed.
Larratt’s own record gives that coaching authority weight. Born April 24, 1975, in Victoria, British Columbia, and a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, he won Ontario provincial titles in both left and right arm in 1999 and added Canadian national titles in the 100 kg class that same year. At the 1999 world championships in Tokyo, he finished third in the left 100 kg division. Canadian federation records list him as a multiple-time WAF medalist, including four bronze medals from 1999 and 2000.
His public image has only widened the audience around the sport. A Canadian military feature described him as a retired Special Forces soldier speaking about resilience and mindset, reinforcing the sense that Larratt is as much teacher as competitor. His name now sits alongside John Brzenk, widely described as the greatest armwrestler of all time and a man with more than 500 titles, and Levan Saginashvili, who beat Larratt in an East vs West superheavyweight title match on April 20, 2024.
The beginner experiment landed because it separated the myth from the reality. A day with Devon Larratt can teach position, hand control, table IQ and safety. It cannot fast-track strength, tendon durability or the calm needed when a live match starts pulling everything apart.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
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