An arm-wrestling match actually begins a few minutes before the referee shouts, “Go!” with a process akin to a very technical, very adversarial handshake. Both arm wrestlers, also called “pullers,” stand with their elbows pressing into pads on a table as the referee arranges and rearranges their palms and fingers, barking reprimands when, say, one puller’s shoulders are not squared or the other’s elbow leaves the pad. The position of the hand is crucial: If one competitor’s webbing (the space between the thumb and index finger) is positioned higher than the other’s, it could confer an advantage.

At a match in front of about 100 spectators in Istanbul in November, two pullers’ right hands are clasped in the middle of a table. As a referee kneads their fingers into place and forces their wrists straight, their nonfighting arms are tense. Their left hands grab at metal pegs on either side of the table. One of the wrestlers, his white hair cut squarely around his face, breathes heavily in and out. His left shoulder is tensed and raised to his ear, and the two prominent veins winding up his arms are already bulging like ranges on a topographic map. His name is John Brzenk, and he is a 59-year-old American—“universally known and recognized as the greatest arm wrestler of all time,” one commentator says as he approaches the table—who has been pulling for more than four decades.