Sand baggit for strength

Sandbag training is a staple training tool for the military, martial artists, the sandbag has long been recognised as a serious tool for the elite and their regimes. They are an inexpensive tool that is incredibly versatile and can offer the benefits of unstable training with a challenging load. It’s an incredible portable way to train.

— Monmi is a freelance personal trainer and group exercise instructor

SANDBAG SHOULDERING SQUAT: The Sandbag Shouldering Squat is a complex, full body coordination movement.

• Step 1: Set the sandbag in between your legs, parallel to your feet. Grab the sandbag by the sides (not the handles). Seek to keep a neutral spine prior to lifting the weight off the ground.
• Step 2: Keeping a tight core, explosively pull the sandbag off the ground towards one shoulder. At the same time, drop your hips towards the ground in a squatting motion.
• Step 3: Ideally, the sandbag should land on your shoulder at the same time you reach the bottom of the squat.
• Step 4: From here, you can either begin dropping the sandbag towards the ground as you raise your hips, or to make it more difficult, lock out at the top of the squat prior to dropping the sandbag toward the ground.

Benefits

• Sandbags help build stability: The nature of sandbag training is such that you’ll have to work hard to control the constantly-shifting centre of mass. This builds strength and stability and has performance benefits for anyone who needs to be able to control awkward objects in their life, work or sport.
• It can be done anywhere and is affordable.
• It is tough if you’re looking for a challenging workout that will build strength and conditioning.
• Sandbag training is great for sports performance-It is perfectly suited for unconventional drills like load carries, sprints, drags and throws — all excellent for anyone who wants to improve their sports performance.
• It is great for core training.
• It gives greater grip strength. Everyone can benefit from greater grip strength and it also helps in curing carpal tunnel and arthritis problems.
• It helps burn an immense amount of calories and is the key to great abs, burning body fat and getting stronger.
• It is a lot of fun. There are so many sandbag exercises that one can never get bored of them. The combinations and options are really limitless.