I mentioned on my product pages recently that I'm training with the new Bigsteel Iron Indian clubs.  I really like these clubs for leveraging because they are slightly shorter than a sledgehammer handle and thus I can fit two clubs overhead without them hitting together.  The handle is thicker than a sledgehammer and feels comfortable in the hand for leveraging.  Of course, a sledgehammer handle could be cut shorter, but it wouldn't be quite the same as the Iron Indian club, which I think looks rather cool above the head.  The picture was really impromptu, I wasn't planning on doing a max effort workout this day, so the weight is not my best.  

     The base weight of these clubs with nothing added  is 11-pounds, and I poured about 2-pounds of pennies out of the club in my right hand and poured them in the left, for

Iron Indian Club leverage lift

 15-pounds right, 13-pounds left.  With the handle shorter the torque is not nearly as high as sledgehammers of this weight, but it's still a good workout nevertheless.  

     Of course, these clubs are rather versatile, what follows is a basic rundown of my club swinging/leveraging workout, I'm planning another article for later. 

The Indian Club Swinging Workout

     My workout consists of  various club swinging exercises for reps and endurance.  I warm-up with 10 Mills per hand using my 10-pound plastic baseball bat filled with sand (See my Secret World of Indian Clubs article).  Although I now own four different clubs (and two antique wooden 3-pound wooden Indian clubs) I still can find room in my workout for this homemade equipment and I highly recommend making one.  I then use the lighter of the two Iron Indian clubs followed by either the 15-pound clubbell or 17-pound Iron Indian Club, also for 10-reps.  I then perform the "bullwhip" also with each club for 10-reps.  To imagine the bullwhip, just envision swing the club as you would a bullwhip.  Both the Mill and the Bullwhip are very well shown and described in Scott Sonnon's clubbell book and video (Available Here).

     Once the preliminary warm-ups are over I then use either the 15-pound clubbell or 17-pound Iron Indian club for very high reps.  If I plan to do a long set with the 25-pound clubbells then I'll only do the 15-pound clubbell, otherwise, I'll do the 17-pound Iron Indian club.  I've been doing around 120-reps with each hand, usually with sets of 15-20 and then switch to the other hand.  This runs non-stop for around 10-minutes, usually less.  Although the Iron Indian club filled with pennies is only 2-pounds more than the 15-pound clubbell, it is harder to swing than the than you would expect with only 2-pounds more because of its longer length.

     Now all the above really warms up the wrists, and taxes the hands quite a bit.  Still, the wrists are not over-worked so usually after the long 10-minute set I'll do some leverage lifts.  I warm-up with a 6-pound sledgehammer, but it's really becoming quite a joke to lever.  I can't believe there was a time I could not lever such a light implement, but it's true. I then do the 10-pound sledgehammers, but on the workout when this picture was taken I jumped right into the double lever.  With the 15-pound and 13-pound weight I had pretty good control so I relaxed with the globes over my head to really get a good stretch and workout for both my wrist and hands. I usually do about 5 levers with my hands out in front at about chest high, but I haven't got a good picture yet.  Workouts in which pictures are taken always seem harder, since I had to do this about 5 times to get a good picture.  I swing the clubs into the overhead position, sometimes lifting them first to the "torch" position before positioning them for the overhead lever.  I should point out too that the reason I have the second club is because the manufacturer of the clubs was kind enough to supply a second club for free when he decided on his own that the first club was not up to his standards.  You can expect the same high customer service if you buy one of these clubs. 

     I finish up my club swinging/leveraging workout with the 25-pound clubbells.  While I worked up to a 90-rep set of Mills on these clubs, doing about 12-reps per hand and then switch, I found that I jumped in too quickly with this many reps and had to cut back.  After a few weeks off I started out humbly with only 15-reps total, with sets of 5 per hand.  Working my way back up to only 28-reps, with sets of 7.  I'll work back up to 90-reps, hopefully with better form and control compared to before.  Eventually, I'm shooting for 140-reps in 10-minutes.  Rest assured that performing this many reps with a 25-pound club is both an aerobic as well as an anaerobic challenge. 

     So there's a sample workout with swinging and leveraging, using the versatile implements, clubbells and Iron Indian clubs.

	Clubbells

Other sites of interest:

Clubbells-An Ancient Tool for the Modern Athlete.

Five Secret Tibetan Rejuvenation Rites- Downloadable eBook reveals easy-to-do exercises that will give you more energy and help you feel.

Critical Bench- Increase your Bench Press.

Copyright September 2004.

Teva.com