OT: My Gym

[orangeblobman]

I posted this here because it can get some hot burn in the early days, I know I have inconvenienced the mods a little, but I hope not too much, so that they may merge it with the fitness thread later.

This is my gym:


This is me overhead pressing the sand bag. Note that this is a strict overhead press, my legs do not move, it's all upper body. The trick in overhead pressing is to squeeze your ass as hard as possible:
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Now, you can do a lot with a sandbag, the above video is just one example. What are some variations? To make it more difficult, I can maybe clean it before every overhead rep, instead of just one clean and 5 overhead presses. This will build the explosive strength but also develop the most useful kinetic chain for sports, from the feet to the top of the lift, this is a strong functional consideration. Think about when you grab a rebound and you need to go back up strong with some fools on your back, you get that And1 if you're sandbagging.

Generally, anything you can do with a barbell, you can do with a sandbag, plus some! They're the most versatile training tool in the world. They say the best things are free and this is as close to free as possible.

They're also adjustable. You see me here with 85, maybe 90 pounds, next month, I hope to upload a video of me doing 100 or 110 lbs, maybe I'll put more sand in, or maybe I'll put some weight plates in there with the sand. You can do anything.

This is training for the average Joe, so that you can gain some functional strength and live a better life, though I'm sure even serious athletes can benefit greatly from sandbag training.

Remember, STRENGTH IS MANDATORY, TRAINING IS NOT OPTIONAL.

[iSaYughh]

All that heavy iron (and cat liter) must'v overflowed into your bloodstream eventually.....




And caused a total 180 on Carmelo Anthony, Dolan, etcetc

edit -- sandbags are awesome, and you never find them in gyms; nice get-up!

[knickerbocka176]

the thing with that is it gets boring. Me personally i love doing 4-5 different workouts with different machines, barbells, or dumbbells. Not saying it is a bad thing, you can get a hell of a workout with a duffel bag and some kitty litter, its cheaper and more convenient then going to the gym. Keep workin man.

[NYk_Reloaded718]

[orangeblobman]

There is some truth to this where, if you will train for strength, your outlook gradually changes and becomes more positive and loving toward the World.

I think if everyone trained for strength, we would have world peace, until maybe all the strong people wanted to fight each other.

I've used barbells exclusively for the last year, I got my start on Starting Strength last year, built my power rack which I think I shared here in the fitness thread, but now I have to take the rack apart (the woman wants the living room back) so I will use the sandbags over the winter until I find a new home for the rack.

I think sandbags are fun as hell because you can do so many things with them, anything with them, though I'm sure eventually I will miss my barbells. It's good to change it up a little with the things you lift. To be honest, I'm a little tired of loading the bar and handling the weights, so this is probably the best thing for me, to change the pace.

The sandbag will make me even better at barbells when I come back because it will hit all the secret muscles.

The next step is to integrate some circuits maybe once a week so that I will have beast-balls endurance for Winter Rec League.

Also what's cool about the sandbag is that you can take it to the park or the mountain if you want to work in some different scenery, it's also a traveling gym. You can run with the ****, ****, man.

[orangeblobman]

Another thing about the bag is that it's awesome for grip strength because it's so awkward to handle. You see me at the end of the fourth repetition, I am adjusting my grip. Really that was the weak point on this lift. I can lift more weight over my head but the grip on the bag is what gives out first.

[Crazy⑧s]

We'll let this one get some burn, OBM....

Site's a bit dead as we count down the last month of no Knicks...

When it picks up again, I'll put this in the Hangout Forum.

In the meantime, don't break your back lifting your sac.

[orangeblobman]

Hahahaha, thanks man, and no way!

This brings us to the reason why I think sandbags are an advanced tool, after you have some comfort with barbells.

Barbell lifting allows you to lift a symmetrically loaded object and to focus on your form, on your mechanics.

But once you have mastered the mechanics of the big lifts with the barbell (deadlift, squat, press), then it is safe to move all other objects, regardless of how awkward or cumbersome they may be.

I actually commented to my father-in-law this past weekend that, because of the things I learned lifting barbells, I am now able to approach everyday objects and lift them safely.

I really have to again recommend Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength as THE BIBLE on lifting form and mechanics.

And yea, season can't come soon enough, I haven't been this amped about a Knicks season since they first hired MDA. I just wanna see this product on the hardwoods already.

[orangeblobman]

Granted, I see no reason why a beginner trainee can't learn proper lifting mechanics starting out with a sandbag, it's just that barbells, with their symmetry, create a much more conducive environment for the development of this fundamental understanding.

[CoolClyde]

leave it to OBM to start a thread that has nothing to do with the Knicks,
but a self-absorbed blobness fitness factor. SMH.

[KingStarbury3]

Hahahaha, thanks man, and no way!

This brings us to the reason why I think sandbags are an advanced tool, after you have some comfort with barbells.

Barbell lifting allows you to lift a symmetrically loaded object and to focus on your form, on your mechanics.

But once you have mastered the mechanics of the big lifts with the barbell (deadlift, squat, press), then it is safe to move all other objects, regardless of how awkward or cumbersome they may be.

I actually commented to my father-in-law this past weekend that, because of the things I learned lifting barbells, I am now able to approach everyday objects and lift them safely.

I really have to again recommend Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength as THE BIBLE on lifting form and mechanics.

And yea, season can't come soon enough, I haven't been this amped about a Knicks season since they first hired MDA. I just wanna see this product on the hardwoods already.

[21 Shump Street]

Meanwhile in Australia.

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[metrocard]

I like the work out, but form is not pretty. Don't sacrifice your technique/form.

Bad advice to give to people. Barbells, Kettlebells, Sandbags are all different pieces of equipment and exercise tools. They have different grips, levers, and angles of pull and the level of center of gravity are different for each. They are so many factors to consider the difference between. You can do similar exercises, but the physiological differences are massively different.

Strength isn't the only thing you should train for, you don't want to be a walking hard on. Plus strength is so vague, what do you mean...maximal strength or muscular endurance? Both have their importance.

Improve your flexibility, balance, breathing, stamina, agility, and speed. Those fitness components have as much importance as strength.

Mods, can you please move this thread to the offtopic forum?

[orangeblobman]

What about the form is not good?

[orangeblobman]

Improve your flexibility, balance, breathing, stamina, agility, and speed. Those fitness components have as much importance as strength.

Sandbags are a great tool to hit all those components. It's all in how you use it. For endurance you will maybe use a lighter weight and do a series of exercises without stopping, so you will form a circuit. For raw strength, you will load even more weight and maybe do only 1 to 5 repetitions. It depends what you want to hit.

While barbells, sandbags, dumbells are all different and require some mechanical adjustment, the fundamentals of all lifting are pretty much the same. The thing about the sandbag, the greatest advantage, is that its an awkward object, so naturally you have to adapt your lift to the object, and this is what blasts you out of your comfort zone. We need to be able to pick all sorts of things up in real-life, so this translates well.

Nothing I said in any post here is bad advice.

Strength is relative. Everyone should try to increase their strength. To say that is not to say that things like endurance are thrown to the side of the highway.

I think a majority of people walking around today can benefit from strength training. People are weak. You always want to be gaining strength because, as Rippetoe tells us, "strong people are just more useful."

Also, the form on the press is very good, in my estimation. If there is something specific you think I can improve, please let me know what you see. My back is straight on the lift from the ground and I lock out elbows at the top. My head moves under the weight at the top position, as is the proper form for an overhead press. The press starts from the chest, as it should, and I do not use any legs, making it strictly an upper-body lift.

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To elaborate on strength being relative,

As long as you're gaining strength, that's what is important.

My 85 pound overhead press won't win me any StrongMan competitions, but I'll tell you that I couldn't imagine doing that with the same sandbag just a very short time ago.

And next year I'll look back and say "wow, that 85 was heavy to me but now it is a warm-up weight"

And that's how it goes.

As long as you're getting stronger, you're doing it right, it doesn't really matter what the poundages are.

It's about YOU, about each person gaining strength and health.