Super Fitness Secrets - 5 Great Reasons to Train With Sandbags
Are you making use of this fantastic workout tool? Ever wanted a massive weight set but don't want to fork out the cash? Bored with body weight exercises and need a challenge? Then read on and discover 5 great ways sandbags will transform your training.
Sandbags are a great general purpose tool for building functional strength without wasting time traveling to the gym.
Finding body weight exercises a bit too easy? You can burn the unsightly blubber from your body simply by adding a sandbag to many standard exercises.
Throw a heavy sandbag over one shoulder and bang out a set of lunges, squats or vertical leaps for a killer fat burning, metabolism boosting workout.
My favorite drill? Grab a medium heavy sandbag and hug it to your chest.
Do as many full squats as you can in 20 seconds then have a quick ten second rest.
Repeat 8 times, shooting for 100 reps inside 4 minutes start to finish.
When you can do 100, make your bag heavier! Sandbags also work your grip much more than smoothly shaped barbells, dumbbells or machines can do.
At first you might find this decreases the amount of weight you're used to handling, but with practice you'll end up not only leaner and stronger, but with a killer grip to boot.
After all, outside the gym where do you ever need to lift things without gripping them too? Sandbags work all the stabilizer muscles that you typically won't hit in the gym.
Try this drill complex- leave your sandbag on the ground in front of your toes.
Squat down and grab it, then stand up with the bag at arms length, like a dead lift.
Then curl the bag like a bicep curl to your chest and press overhead.
With the bag overhead, do another squat and stand back up, then lower the bag under control and back to the start.
You're combining 3 moves into a complex so start with a lighter weight than you might think.
Notice the next day how your abs feel even though we didn't do any specific ab work.
The odd shape and shifting load of a sandbag means it's never quite the same rep twice.
You stimulate the muscles slightly differently with every rep as the weight shifts when you move it - and as progressive resistance is the driver of muscular growth, your system never quite gets used to it.
Sandbags are really cheap and easy to make - you can build a seriously challenging weights set for about under ten pounds using canvas bags and cheap play sand from any DIY shop.
Want to make you own? Get heavy duty plastic bags and fill with play sand until they weigh about 2k each.
Wrap them in heavy duty adhesive tape so they're sealed and won't leak.
Find a nice sized canvas or heavy duty nylon sack and load it up.
Voila! I made one with even less work - I bought a large bag of play sand from a DIY shop for around £3 and simply jammed it into a tough canvas tool bag I acquired on eBay for about £5.
This works well as there's thick canvas handles on the bag.
It's a very cheap training tool and you can easily make a few different sizes for different purposes.
Sandbags are a great general purpose tool for building functional strength without wasting time traveling to the gym.
Finding body weight exercises a bit too easy? You can burn the unsightly blubber from your body simply by adding a sandbag to many standard exercises.
Throw a heavy sandbag over one shoulder and bang out a set of lunges, squats or vertical leaps for a killer fat burning, metabolism boosting workout.
My favorite drill? Grab a medium heavy sandbag and hug it to your chest.
Do as many full squats as you can in 20 seconds then have a quick ten second rest.
Repeat 8 times, shooting for 100 reps inside 4 minutes start to finish.
When you can do 100, make your bag heavier! Sandbags also work your grip much more than smoothly shaped barbells, dumbbells or machines can do.
At first you might find this decreases the amount of weight you're used to handling, but with practice you'll end up not only leaner and stronger, but with a killer grip to boot.
After all, outside the gym where do you ever need to lift things without gripping them too? Sandbags work all the stabilizer muscles that you typically won't hit in the gym.
Try this drill complex- leave your sandbag on the ground in front of your toes.
Squat down and grab it, then stand up with the bag at arms length, like a dead lift.
Then curl the bag like a bicep curl to your chest and press overhead.
With the bag overhead, do another squat and stand back up, then lower the bag under control and back to the start.
You're combining 3 moves into a complex so start with a lighter weight than you might think.
Notice the next day how your abs feel even though we didn't do any specific ab work.
The odd shape and shifting load of a sandbag means it's never quite the same rep twice.
You stimulate the muscles slightly differently with every rep as the weight shifts when you move it - and as progressive resistance is the driver of muscular growth, your system never quite gets used to it.
Sandbags are really cheap and easy to make - you can build a seriously challenging weights set for about under ten pounds using canvas bags and cheap play sand from any DIY shop.
Want to make you own? Get heavy duty plastic bags and fill with play sand until they weigh about 2k each.
Wrap them in heavy duty adhesive tape so they're sealed and won't leak.
Find a nice sized canvas or heavy duty nylon sack and load it up.
Voila! I made one with even less work - I bought a large bag of play sand from a DIY shop for around £3 and simply jammed it into a tough canvas tool bag I acquired on eBay for about £5.
This works well as there's thick canvas handles on the bag.
It's a very cheap training tool and you can easily make a few different sizes for different purposes.
