One of the greatest overall strength feats is the bending of a horseshoe. There are several styles that can be used in the performance of this feat, my personal favorite is the "push - pull" on the side of the leg. I feel that this is a more difficult technique and requires greater wrist and hand strength to be successful. I also like to perform a variation I came up with that does not use any bracing against other body parts, doing the bending while only making contact between my hands & wrists and the horseshoe. More on my un-braced horseshoe bends at another time.
There are several designs that can be made from the twisting of a horseshoe. One of the classic strongman designs was to bend the shoe to 180 degree's which will make an "S" shape. "The Mighty Atom" Joseph Greenstein, would make the "W" pattern in his shows. This was done by continuing past the 180 mark and bringing the "legs" of the shoe back around, thus resulting the pattern of an "W".
"The Human Vise" Pat Povilaitis created a design known as "The Horseshoe Heart". He has accomplished this by bending the horseshoe the entire way around and continuing on until the heels of the shoe are lined up in front of each other. This has become the standard design which is imitated by strongmen all over the world - myself included, as I have received instruction from this Master Strongman.
I mentioned in the previous post that I have some unique feats, this carries into the horseshoe design also. Looking to have something different in the realm of horseshoe bending, I began to do my own original design. I call this the "paper-clip". I continue to crush the shoe all the way down until the "legs" are parallel with the twist. Pictured is a 3/8" thick by 1" wide #5 steel horseshoe that I "paper-clipped". It is shown with a quarter for scale.
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