Owen Laib — President of Ohio State’s armwrestling club — works with a club member on his technique during table time at Scott House. Credits: Hana El Nemr | Lantern Reporter
An Ohio State organization is turning a common childhood pastime into an on-campus sport, offering students a fun, supportive space to build strength and learn the art of arm wrestling.
Armwrestlers at The Ohio State University was founded by Owen Laib, the club’s president and a third-year in chemistry, in August 2024. As arm wrestling continues to gain widespread popularity, the group aims to “cultivate interest in a safe and fun manner,” according to its Student Activities webpage.
Laib said he was inspired to start the organization after discovering his own interest in the sport during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was inside consuming a lot of media, and that’s kind of where I found arm wrestling,” Laib said. “I had known about arm wrestling; everybody arm wrestles as an elementary school game. Seeing it online, I found out that it’s actually a sport, and there’s techniques and full workouts that go into it.”
During his freshman year, Laib said he began going to meetings for an off-campus arm wrestling club, which prompted him to realize Ohio State didn’t have one of its own. This exposure to the arm wrestling community ultimately drove Laib to start ATOSU.
“I started going to an arm wrestling club off campus called the ‘Last Arm Benders,’” Laib said. “I decided I wanted to stay in the sport, but I wanted my friends there. I wanted a whole community, so I decided I should start the arm wrestling club here.”
The fear of injury is often exaggerated in the online arm wrestling community, Laib said. As a result, he said the student organization aims to dispel such concerns by promoting and teaching safe arm wrestling techniques.
“When you are online and you look at arm wrestling, you’ll see comments all about how they saw some guy breaking his arm [while] arm wrestling,” Laib said. “That honestly scared me, but going to the practices, you learn that arm breaks are just about 99.9% of the time avoidable.”
Because of this concern, Laib said safety is a top priority for the organization, permitting newcomers to enjoy the sport without putting themselves at risk.
“First and foremost, we want to teach the members how to not injure themselves,” Laib said. “Arm wrestling is a bit of an unnatural movement, and just like any exercise, there’s technique to it. There are people who come in and go into dangerous positions, so we first start off by teaching them how to know not to break their arm.”
Laib said once the safety fundamentals are taught, the organization emphasizes hands-on experience, with the core of each practice allowing individuals to refine their skills.
“The main focus of all of our practices is table time, which is just getting two people on an arm wrestling table,” Laib said. “Here, we mostly focus on technique, seeing how to get the most advantage in your position and how to adjust.”
ATOSU treasurer Eduardo Guerrero, a third-year in business marketing, said the club’s atmosphere is built on mutual support and collaboration, encouraging members to grow together on and off the table.
“We’re not technique or workout gatekeepers here,” Guerrero said. “If we’re not on the table, we’ll ask each other things like, ‘Bro, what did you do differently?’ or ‘What have you been doing to train this movement?’ We are constantly learning from one another.”
Club member Zach Frager, a second-year in math, said because the organization is still young, it only has three arm wrestling tables for people to practice on. However, he said limited resources have given the club a distinct opportunity to create a sense of camaraderie that empowers everyone — whether seasoned or new — to improve.
“We only have three tables, so you can only have six people arm wrestling at a time, but the kind of culture that gets created from that is amazing,” Frager said. “It becomes a room full of a lot of people helping each other out. Everybody here just wants people to get stronger and better, so it’s really nice for newcomers.”
Laib said at arm wrestling practices, members quickly learn that everybody has the chance to win and lose, dispelling any presumptions of dominance and fostering a spirit of humility within the club.
“Once you come here, you realize everybody beats everybody,” Laib said. “Everybody is coming into this practice, staying, getting tired and then eventually getting beaten. You can’t come here and think, ‘Gosh, I’m going to destroy everybody every single time. No one’s going to be able to touch me.’ I promise, that feeling will get beaten out of you.”
Guerrero said the group’s attention isn’t solely on competition but rather on developing collective strength, as each defeat is seen as an opportunity to learn, push further and draw inspiration from others’ progress.
“I don’t know many activities where you feel excited for someone when they beat you,” Guerrero said. “It’s really a show of the club making us stronger in practices, but also [motivating us] to become stronger outside of when we’re on the table.”
Frager said the club highlights arm wrestling’s singular ability to draw attention, as the energy of just a few participants can quickly inspire others to join in.
“It’s so easy to get crowd attraction with arm wrestling because it only takes two people to create a crowd of easily 30 more,” Frager said. “Kind of drawing on what [Laib] was saying about recess — some kids are shyer than others, but all it takes is two class clowns to give other kids the courage to have some fun.”
Laib said the organization meets Thursdays at 7 p.m. in the second-floor common room of Scott House — located at 160 W. Woodruff Ave. When the weather is warmer, ATOSU meets around the clock tower by Connecting Grounds, which is situated at 160 W. Woodruff Ave.
For more information about the club and its upcoming events, visit its Instagram page.
