Exercise is great for everyone ESPECIALLY for those of us getting older. Club training or Clubwork is an excellent way for anyone to train, but for us older folks 35+ who want to remain active for our whole lives, clubwork is the crux of fitness. Swinging it at 51. Growing Old Isn't For Sissies Repair, rehab, and keep those shoulders, elbows, and wrists moving. All clubwork exercises translate through the legs without isolation exercises. Restore or maintain your Range Of Motion - ROM in all of your joints. Add muscle to your frame to prevent age related atrophy. If you are over the age of 40 and want to regain freedom or hang on to it for life, inquire at www.adexclub.com for more information
Keeping The Shoulders MobileAdex Adjustable Exercise Club Unloaded
An easy way to begin club training is with an Adex Adjustable Exercise Club. Adex Clubs offer the versatility of owning a complete set of clubs without the high price tag and shipping costs of individual standard clubs. The biggest mistake when making initial club purchases is getting an incorrect weight, one that is too heavy or will be outgrown in a rapid time. Adex Clubs are always the right weight because they adjust quickly and safely by hand. www.adexclubs.com
Without huge fanfare, club training will undoubtedly increase your grip strength. This is a given, but as with many good things, this sometimes does not come without pain. Hanging on to a club and maintaining control of it is not an easy task especially on the elbow. Here are some tips to help alleviate some of the medial or lateral epicondilitis that can occur from club training.
Forefinger Middle Finger Grip
Pinky Ring Finger Grip
Begin with your hand grip. Grab your club with one hand and swing it into a clean. Notice to see if you have a relaxed grip or if you're squeezing the living hell out of that club. IF you are doing the latter, try lightening the super crushing force you are summoning up to keep that club welded to your hand. Just relax your hand, hold the club firmly, not crushing, but with enough force to just keep it in the hand. You'll feel the handle pressure more on the meat of the palm rather than throughout the fingers and depending on the direction of the swing, the grip force should change from the index and middle finger to the pinky and ring finger. This is very counter intuitive but will save many lost training days not to mention some annoying pain. Practice holding the club as lightly as you can to develop a feel for when the grip needs to be increased or decreased without letting go. This will allow the club to do it's work providing a pulling or traction throughout swinging movements. The club's weight should feel as if it were drawing through the hand, not prying from it.
Ball Grip
Another area of interest is the knob. To grip or not to grip is a good question. The knob is there to provide a secure stopping point should the grip slip and fail. It is also purposely used in more intricate movements especially forward and reverse wrist rolls and and with experienced club swingers in movements such as a mill or stiff arm swings. The pinky and ring finger may want to gravitate to residing on the knob during mills and other exercises which may feel insecure, but the newly learned, lighter pressure style of holding the club will keep it from flying out of your hands. Also, getting used to a knob causing friction in your palm may prove to be displeasing at first then slowly go unnoticed as more reps are done.
Behind the head exercises such as shield casts or Gamma casts place the elbow in an unfriendly position IF not executed properly. Remember to let the club's weight pull down the arm while the club is traveling behind the head. If you try and hold the club higher, that force is pulling upward through the elbow's soft tissues and creates tension where the area should be more relaxed. This will lead to very sensitive elbows and again it isn't good form. Let the club pull the hand downward and don't resist by pulling from the elbow. Which brings us to straight elbows whenever the club is extended out in front, overhead, or to the sides. Having a slight bend in the elbow creates unwanted stress on it's ligaments and tendons.
Swing safely my friends and let me know how you're progressing or ask any questions.
Club training is synonymous with shoulder exercise. Just about every club training movement has some degree of shoulder activity involved. If you are interested in packing some muscle on to your delts or increasing your OHP (over head pressing) strength, here are some great club training shoulder exercises.
If you are new to club training, please watch the videos on my website to get the basics down and avoid possible injury.
CLUB 2-HAND OVERHEAD PRESS EXERCISE
Begin with the club held in both hands front, elbows bent 90 degrees and press the club straight up toward the ceiling. Keep it steady by imagining a cup of water balanced on top of the club.
As you press upward wring your hands outward which keeps your elbow tissue safe. Return to starting position while wringing your hands inward. This same move can be done with one hand, but instead of starting on your body’s centerline, begin with the elbow married to your side, club held upright straight in front. Don’t forget to rotate your hand and club outward as it travels upward, and reverse on the way down.
CLUB 45 DEGREE OVERHEAD PRESS EXERCISE
The next is a variation of the overhead press, but instead of pushing the club straight up, make the club travel up and away from your body at a 45 degree angle. Some trainers refer to this as the torch press or angle press. The knob of the club should end up about eye level and the arms are fully extended at an angle up and away from the body. Remember to wring the handle. This also can be done with one hand.
CLUB SHOULDER THREAD EXERCISE
Getting away from the pressing moves, let’s add some strength/mobility to the shoulder exercises. Begin by picking the club from the floor, left hand next to the knob, right hand is under, clean it up to ready position, right elbow married to your side, left arm forearm crossing the abs.
Your two arms should form a square, the club is the corner when you look down. Raise the head or muzzle of the club up and dump it over your right shoulder, ending behind your back. Your elbows should be above your head. The right elbow should be pointing fairly forward while the left is pointing toward the left. Move the club behind your back toward the left and draw it back over your left shoulder into the opposite position that you began in. Return the club to your right side by passing it in front maintaining its upright position. This is an excellent move for building a thick powerful shoulder girdle and directly develops the rotator cuff muscles Supraspinatus, Infraspinatus, Teres Minor, and the Sub-scapularus, easy to remember by SITS. Anatomy lesson – check.
INVERTED CLUB LATERAL RAISE EXERCISE
A shoulder exercise for those who want a bit more deltoid shape is lateral raises with the club held upside-down. Simply grip the knob or the handle and raise the club laterally for medial deltoids, raise to the front for front delts, or bend forward at the waist 45 degrees, drawing the elbows up and to the rear to hit the posterior delts.
CLUB MILL EXERCISE
The last exercise is a complex and challenging movement for the club training enthusiast. The mill is a shoulder exercise designed to develop strength and coordination. It is similar to throwing a football or cracking a whip. The easiest way to teach this drill is to practice throwing a football but never letting it go. Throw the ball like you were throwing a bomb, but don’t let it go, instead let it return in a downward arc back naturally to the cocked shoulder position. Once you have that down, practice forceful elbow adduction to the body’s centerline. This will cause momentum when using a club and give it a ‘wag’ when performing a mill to help propel it forward and over the shoulder. Once you feel confident, practice more but using a T-ball bat. These are excellent for learning club training patterns. Get in a good hundred on each arm before using a club with any weight. Form is important here, and mills done with a light weight are excellent for joint conditioning and rehab. Mills performed heavier will be a great addition to your shoulder exercises.
During my first few years of regular weight training, I read articles on heavy lifting and the authors would emphasize on the little things. Most of these concepts fell upon deaf ears with me. There was no time for nuances, training was about moving bigger weights and get stronger - period. Time would prove how wrong that thinking was.
Fast forward to the present and my love affair with club training. Getting involved with the unconventional fitness scene has netted me some new friends with different ideas. One in particular is Chip Conrad of Bodytribe Fitness. Chip wrote an article that had an impact on me in a way where now the moment of movement is a greater sum than the total reps. It opened up the idea to study the exercise as it is being performed. The little things have now proved to be important.
Given that the club is a ballistic tool used in multi-planar exercises, little things can make a huge difference. Take the inside mill for example. The mill is probably the first 'flashy' exercise that club enthusiasts want to learn. It is a complex circle whose arc is performed both in front of and behind the body. Needless to say that performing the mill takes a fair amount of skill, and when the club weight is increased, that skill needs to be sharpened.
The nuance or trick that Chip's article had prompted me to learn was the importance of the position and movement of my elbow. It may not sound like much, but it was the same as someone discovering the perfect foot position for them to squat in. The club weight was able to be increased and form didn't suffer making a good environment for gains.
A video describing this and other clubwork techniques that will help take your club training to the next level will be available soon. Until then, keep swinging my friends.
Swinging it at 51. Growing Old Isn't For Sissies Repair, rehab, and keep those shoulders, elbows, and wrists moving. All clubwork exercises translate through the legs without isolation exercises. Restore or maintain your Range Of Motion - ROM in all of your joints. Add muscle to your frame to prevent age related atrophy. If you are over the age of 40 and want to regain freedom or hang on to it for life, inquire at www.adexclub.com for more information
Keeping The Shoulders Mobile
Adex Adjustable Exercise Club Unloaded
