Strongman Saturday means sandbag suffering. Decided to try some sandbag to shoulder and burpees today. Did 1 sandbag to shoulder followed by 10 burpees and repeated this 10 times.
Getting the bag up to the shoulder was bloody hard. Got a few good ones but also missed a few. @T3hPwnisher and @Koestrizer if you are bored and have time to watch would love a critique and simple tips. The first 2 reps I struggle but from the third it gets better .
How heavy is that bag?
Oh you’re lowering with control! I’ve only dropped it, much to weak to carefully set it down. Then again if I’d done that, I wouldn’t be buying new bags at the moment as mine is now ruptured from all the drops!
The bag is 80kg (176lbs) Not quite body weight I am around 88 (194 lbs). I try not to just drop it, mostly because I don’t want it to split and put sand every where LOL.
So my opinion is you start from too high. Looking at the “clean” about 22.00.
You miss place your hand on the first attempt. And the bag is horizontal. Great idea to put it down. You’d struggle to get that bag up.
The 2nd pick up is good. You lap the bag and start low with your knees at 90 degrees, then stand up a bit, then stand up a touch more and when you go to clean - you’re knees are much less bent. Maybe 60 degrees. This gives you two issues.
Less distance to get power through the bag.
You hips are also above the bag at the start of the clean.
Because you need to use momentum to get the bag on the shoulder, the lack of time you have to power through the bag is an issue. You want to maximise the amount of time your legs get to accelerate through the bag. This is not true for all momentum exercises (push press). But for cleans it is.
Also because you straighten you knees but don’t keep the bag high the hips go over the bag. This means that when you extend the hips - it provides no real upward momentum. When you clean a stone, sand bag, log, keg you try and keep it high and tight to the chest. To make sure when you push the hips under it provides a nice upward thrust. Otherwise the hip extension just pushes it forward.
Mate awesome response, thank you for taking the time to watch and write this out. I could feel exactly what you were saying about no upward drive on the reps where it got stuck on the chest. Some really good stuff for me to work on here. I am sure that work it will improve.
Glad to help. To be fair I scan watched it stopping each time I saw you picking up the bag…
Yeah I think if you got your hips under the bag a bit more it would give it that bit more push. And as I say - that’s all about keeping the bag (or any other strong man object) high on the chest and doing the clean in one motion from the bottom.
I also think if you’d have not been doing the burpees you;d have been fine. You 1/2 stood up as your leg were killing I dare say. So remove that element and you’ve got the strength.
Lol yer adding the burpees really makes everything harder
Funny enough, I’ve never actually shouldered a sandbag before to be able to speak to it: only a stone. But hell: bad technique burns more calories! Haha. Good on you to get after it dude.
Thanks pwn this post made me laugh big time. Looks like with my bad technique I will getting a whole load stronger and burning some blubber.
Got in a little recovery burpee session today. 100 x 1 pump burpees with a 1 squat chaser. Just moved at a consistent pace and got them done unbroken in around 14 mins. Got some blood moving and felt better for it.
A candidate for my next log title
Agreed!
For a heavy/ big sandbag that would be advantageous actually. I always have them horizontally in my lap and turn them while thrusting them up. Unless I misunderstand something?
@carlbm basically covered everything, including my main points: Getting deeper into the squat to gain more momentum and thrusting the bag upwards.
But a lot of it also comes down to a) brutality (just not a highly technical move) and b) the sandbag itself (size and if it’s packed tightly).
4:58 is an example of what I consider decent ‘technique’ from myself with a loosely packed and kinda heavy sandbag for example. Not a beautiful lift unless you’re REALLY powerful. I quite dig it actually.
Thanks @Koestrizer. Looking at your video it seems you just brute force the thing up. I guess I just need to get stronger which is really the only reason we do this stuff anyway.
Pretty much. There is some technique to it but strength is what it comes down to
I am actually pretty glad to hear that. Getting stronger or just being more brutish is something I can do. If there was any complicated technique involved I would struggle. LOL
Starting a new strength block today. Week 1 always feels a little easier but gives an opportunity for quality reps and sets me up for what is to come. Adding Bulgarians to this block which I am already scared about, the doms from these is always horrible and I haven’t done the since I was including all the burpee work.
We have inlaws (outlaws) staying at the moment which is certainly making home life a little more stressful than normal. This is going to effect the next 4 weeks training both in terms of mentally and also needing to move training days around to fit in with family activities that I cant get out of.
I have kept the weights the same as the last training block to counter for this and to give me the best chance of still being productive.
Monday 7th March - week 1
Squats
Bar x 10
70 x 5
90 x 3
110 x 3
130 x 2
140 x 4 x 3 sets (308 lbs) RPE 7, 7, 8
Hit some good depth but a little slow out of the hole.
Bulgarians
60 x 6 x 3 sets
Felt good to do these again is a sick kind of way. I bet it won’t feel good tomorrow.
DB bench press
37.5 x 8 x 4 sets
Chest is still sore from the burpee challenge with 550 push ups in it. These still moved well enough.
Pull ups
Max x 3 sets
Reps - 11, 8, 7
Chest and lats still pretty sore.
Pretty happy with how tonight went. Squats weren’t as good as I would have liked but they weren’t awful. It was good for my mental health to be out of the house.
This too will help lol. For stuff like bag cleans I found front squat / Z squats helps. You’d don;t have to do them as your main move. But a few tagged onto your work outs will help snap the hips back under your shoulders quickly.
Squats from tonight
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CazLKGelm4o/?utm_medium=copy_link
Burpees tonight. Decided to do a 30 min session focusing on pacing. Did 2 pump burpees with a 1
Squat chaser. Ended up with 162 in 30 mins.