How did you achieve your competitive eating technique?

How did you achieve your competitive eating technique?

Arnie "Chowhound" Chapman (Competitive Eater) gives expert video advice on: What is your competitive eating strategy?; Why does your competitive eating strategy work best?; What technique do you use during competitive eating? and more...

I achieved it because, I had won a pickle in Glen Cove in 1999, they used to do an annual pickle eating contest. So I knew I was pretty good with pickles, these were very large ones and then I had heard about a pickle contest occurring in the city and I said to myself, "You know, I won this other contest, I might be pretty good." And then I played around with the pickles a little bit, I kind of perfected it. So knowing that I was good in pickles I prepared myself and all the things that I've said in terms of what you should do as far as familiarizing yourself, developing yourself and your strategy, I didn't eat a million pickles, but I did take, every couple of days I would take a couple of pickles and I would do one minute runs and more importantly I wasn't so much developing my capacity to eat pickles, I knew I had this capacity, what I was figuring out was what do I do? At one point I was putting in one at a time and I said, "Hey man, maybe if I put in two at a time I can get them in quicker", and I did that. But also I realized too that if you put two in at a time you also have to break them down really quick and hard. So from just kind of playing around and getting ready for a contest I started to figure out this technique.