Full Body Workouts How to Use a Steel Club During Your Next Workout Go Clubbing, Get Fit By Laura Williams, MSEd, ASCM-CEP Laura Williams, MSEd, ASCM-CEP LinkedIn Laura Williams is a fitness expert and advocate with certifications from the American Council on Exercise and the American College of Sports Medicine. Learn about our editorial process Updated on October 21, 2020 Reviewed Verywell Fit articles are reviewed by nutrition and exercise professionals. Reviewers confirm the content is thorough and accurate, reflecting the latest evidence-based research. Content is reviewed before publication and upon substantial updates. Learn more. by Heather Black, CPT Reviewed by Heather Black, CPT Heather Black, CPT is a NASM-certified personal trainer and owner of Heather Black Fitness & Nutrition where she offers remote and in-person training and nutrition coaching. Learn about our Review Board Print "Primal fitness" has gained popularity in gyms across the country. Those who participate in primal workouts say that they train like our ancestors did, with movments that involve caveman-inspired activites such as lifting, carrying, crawling, pushing, pulling, throwing, running, jumping, and climbing. To accommodate this fitness trend, more companies are developing strength equipment that feels more like old-school weapons than weights. Onnit, Weckmethod, and others have created tools such as steel maces, steel clubs, kettlebells, sandbags, steel bells, battle ropes, and more. Onit Academy Using a Steel Club for Exercise If you're familiar with kettlebells or steel maces, you can use their general properties as a reference point for the steel club. The difference is that, while kettlebells are short and compact, and maces are long and narrow, clubs fall somewhere in between. Clubs are a piece of fitness equipment with an unbalanced distribution of weight—less weight at the narrower end, with progressively more weight along the club's shaft as it widens toward the end. This makes the club an excellent tool for practically any type of training—strength, balance, rotational power, and even rehab. The uneven distribution of weight requires greater muscle engagement during training, and the size and shape make the clubs appropriate for swinging, pulling, and pressing exercises. Health Benefits While there is plenty of evidence promoting the health benefits of strength training, there is very limited peer-reviewed science specifically looking at the benefits of training with a steel club. There is one short published report, however, about training with Indian clubs. The workout involved swinging clubs shaped just like the steel clubs used today. Authors of the article, published in the American Journal of Public Health, wrote that Indian club training was a popular form of physical exercise after the Civil War. It was promoted for its ability to promote physical fitness for mental and moral improvement. Those who practiced Indian club training believed that proper physical exercise built bodily strength, character, and righteousness. Those attributes are not necessarily promoted in gyms that use steel clubs today, but the report's authors also point to the fact that swinging clubs "exercised all the muscles in a balanced fashion and combined all ranges of motion"—a health benefit that can be gained by those who train with the clubs in modern gyms. Experts at Onnit also point to the fact that steel club training helps build grip strength, improves rotational and core strength, and allows you to train with less weight. Perhaps most importantly, steel club training can be fun. For those who have become bored with traditional weight training, this new type of training can be a welcome alternative. What's a Steel Club Workout Like? John Wolf is the Director of Fitness Education at Onnit. Before he begins a workout with a new client, he takes time to have them warm up and teaches proper club technique. Using any new piece of equipment incorrectly can lead to unnecessary injury, so it's important to analyze movement patterns and point out any habits that could be problematic. As you move into the workout, you're likely to start with a basic movement, such as the 2-hand front swing, and progressively add to or change the movement as it is mastered. For example, the front swing might become the 2-hand clean. And from there, you might add a 2-hand shouldered squat. To these movements, you might add bodyweight exercises. John's 10-minute steel club AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) is a challenging workout, even for fitness pros. It involves as many successive rounds as possible of just three exercises over the course of 10 minutes: 10 Flag press lunges8 Frog pushups10 Front-swings to squats Buying and Using a Steel Club You can purchase your own club for use at home for prices ranging from $40 to $120, depending on the weight of the club you purchase. If you do buy your own, keep in mind that it is always smart to work with a fitness professional or someone experienced with steel club training to master your form before diving into a full routine. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Get exercise tips to make your workouts less work and more fun. Sign Up You're in! Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. What are your concerns? Other Inaccurate Hard to Understand Submit 2 Sources Verywell Fit uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Fee E, Brown TM. The Indian club exercise. Am J Public Health. 2003;93(5):723. doi:10.2105/ajph.93.5.723 Hyson, Shawn. The steel club: Benefits and uses. Onnit Academy. September 15, 2020