Training with sandbags

Last week, I wrote about the difficulty of training outside in winter and how the weather and the long nights make finding the motivation challenging.  I’ve decided to persevere, though, and try to spend at least one workout per week using sandbags.

Why sandbags?

• Sandbags are a good training tool for forcing your body to translate the strength you have built using a barbell into the real world: they are irregular in shape and difficult to pick up.
• Sandbags make you contract your core muscles forcefully to stabilise the weight in a way that seems much more effective than conventional barbell exercises.  I think this is because you can get away with using your lower back more on barbell movements, whereas with sandbags it seems harder to cheat.
• Sandbag training is fun.  There is more to think about.  You try one grip, shift a bit, look for a better grip, lift it, put it down again, lift it again, stagger across the way and dump it down. 
• Sandbags are cheap and easy to make (as I show in my article on how to build a cheap sandbag).

My sandbag programme

To make things interesting, I’m going to have two sandbag exercises (partly because I have two sandbags and partly because I am like the idea of a push and a pull).

Sandbag lifting (and carrying)

Quite simply, I lift the sandbag up and carry it across the garden before dropping it down again.  I use a small platform so that I don’t round my lower back too much.  I do allow a small amount of rounding, though, because of the depth of the squat and the fact that I have to come over the object (you’ll see from the photos what I mean).

I treat this as if it were an Atlas stone lift (not that I’ve ever lifted an Atlas stone before, I’m just imagining).  There is quite a lot of upper back involvement to pull the weight towards you as you stand up.

The real strain, though, happens in the abdominals.  I never feel my abs as acutely as when doing a sandbag lift.  The pressure feels like I’ve swallowed a beach ball and then started pumping it up.

I’ve started with a 60kg (135lb) sandbag and I’m hoping to work my way up to 100kg over the next couple of months.  I’m doing about 5 walks each workout of 15ft.

Sorry that I start out facing the right and end up facing left.  I did photos from both directions but these were the only ones that came out.  The weather was really bad and my cameraman (er… camerawoman) kept going inside at key moments.

Sandbag loading

I first saw sandbag loading at Gym Junkies and it captured my imagination.  The sandbag starts on the ground and I clean it to my chest before pressing it onto the shed roof (carefully).  If I slip and the shed shakes, I get shouted at…

You use a slightly smaller sandbag than for lifting and carrying.  I’m using just 40kg (90lbs).  I feel like I could put this up quite quickly but I want to groove form more on this exercise as it feels a bit wooden at the moment.  Great fun, though!  I’ll probably ease up to 50kg (110lbs) slowly and see how it feels.

Try not to hit your feet when you drop it like I did.  The next photo in the series has me hopping about swearing…

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