Other/Mixed Steel Club Program Minimum

[Jacob DeRossett]

I've been dabbling with steel club training for a little over a year now. I've only done one serious program and that was from Mark Wildman:

Two hand club shield cast
Two hand club inside circle
Two hand club outside circle
5x5 + 1 set each session until you get to 20x5

I did this program as my recovery day while I was doing "simple strength for difficult times." and it worked well, pretty boring and hard to count but good.

Since then I've achieved timed simple and gotten my SFG l, so I haven't had time to train with the club. Now the question I've been wondering is. "If we were to decide on a program minimum for club what would it be?"

I've looked into Mark Wildman extensively and glanced at coach vaughn, TacFit and Alberto Gallazzi. Mark WildMan explains that the Mill and Reverse mill are the goal to single arm club training, which makes sense, but are those the only two things that should be trained with the club when they are achieved? Also, his methods do not coincide with StrongFirst principles exactly. I understand that you wouldn't use steel clubs to get StrongFirst, but if we were to apply StrongFirst principles to the club, what would that look like? Or is that even worth attempting? Again I'm novice in this world but I'm largely not satisfied with the approaches I've studied, they aren't "simple" enough for me.

I've been mulling this over for a few weeks and need some help deciphering, if we can piece something together on here I will gladly do the testing on myself!

 

[Stefan Olsson]

Cant help you with your question, but Mark Wildman is a great dude! Love his youtube channel!

 

[Steve W.]

Now the question I've been wondering is. "If we were to decide on a program minimum for club what would it be?"

I do a lot of clubbell training, but I've never thought about it in terms of a "program minimum." My most used drills and the ones I do the highest volume of are 1-hand mills, reverse mills, and shield casts, and I often do only those three in a session. So if I were to design a program minimum, those would probably be the drills I would focus on, especially as a supplement to other training.

Since I also do a lot of mace swinging, mainly consecutive or alternating 360s ("alternating 360" is what I call a "10-2" where you bring the mace to a stable center position between reps, ) and a mace 360 is basically a clubbell shield cast, I don't do any 2-hand shield casts with clubs. I also don't do any 2-handed club exercises with a weight I can handle with one hand. So, I only do 2-handed drills with 35s and 45s. So if I were not doing any mace swinging, I would do some heavy 2-handed shield casts with clubs. Having the arms together in that swinging behind the back position opens up the chest, shoulders and upper back in a way that 1-arm shield casts don't.

I often do pretty high volume sessions. For instance, here's one session I did over a couple of hours on a weekend while watching sports on TV (I'm left-handed, so I usually start with my right hand):

2-Arm Inside/Outside Pendulum (After looking up some Mark Wildman videos, this is what he calls an inside/outside circle, but I believe Scott Sonnon called these pendulums so that's the name I use -- Mark Wildman uses the name pendulum for a different exercise that reverses direction at the end of the downswing, which actually makes more sense as a "pendulum.")
45lbs x 5 reps x 12 sets (60 reps)
*Alternating directions each set and grips every two sets

2-Arm Mill/Reverse Mill
35lbs x 5/5 x 10 sets (100 reps)
*5/5 = 5 reps in each direction, alternating grips each sets

1-Arm Mill
25lbs x 2(10R/10L) x 10 sets (400 reps)
*2(10R/10L) = 4 continuous sets, switching arms on the fly every 10 reps

1-Arm Reverse Mill
20lbs x 2(10R/10L) x 10 sets (400 reps)

Now that's obviously not a high frequency "program minimum" type of session.

Here's how I might scale it down to something that is simple, doesn't take too long, and isn't hard to recover from (once acclimated):
1-Arm Mill
10 x 10 (alternating hands each set)

1-Arm Reverse Mill
10 x 10 (alternating hands each set)

1-Arm Shield Cast
10 x 10 (alternating hands each set)

The idea is to make each set relatively easy to recover from, so you can keep moving briskly from set to set without burning yourself out. In my experience rest can be much shorter than with a similar volume of KB ballistics for the same perceived level of effort. Grip fatigue/forearm pump will tend to be your limiting factor so alternating hands each set gives each hand a little more recovery.

For each rep, I really strive to swing with maximum velocity and build up as much momentum as I can from rep to rep. By really trying to accelerate the downswing on the mills and reverse mills, you can build up some serious velocity. But it's a good idea not to emphasize velocity until you are really comfortable with the drills.

Progression is just swinging faster, and then moving up in club weight. Although even after you get very comfortable with 25lbs for 1-arm club drills, jumping up to 35lbs is a huge jump, which I have never made (the Rmax CST clubs I have don't come in 30lbs).

Mark WildMan explains that the Mill and Reverse mill are the goal to single arm club training, which makes sense, but are those the only two things that should be trained with the club when they are achieved?

I've glanced at a few Mark Wildman videos, but I mainly learned the clubbell drills from Scott Sonnon's materials back in the day. I agree that 1-arm mills, reverse mills, and shield casts are the biggest bang for the buck clubbell exercises, although there are lots of others that I enjoy and practice regularly (one cool thing about clubs is that there are lots of ways to play with them). It's especially cool if he is promoting the 1-arm reverse mill because I think it's a great drill and my impression is that it's not widely practiced (although I have limited knowledge of what other people may be doing out there). However, I wouldn't call them a "goal" to club swinging. I think of them as basic drills, not advanced skills that need some extensive progression to "achieve."

 

[the hansenator]

I think i remember Sonnon saying or writing that swipes are a good choice if you're only going to do one exercise. But I suppose it depends on what else you're doing and what you intend for the club training.

 

[Steve W.]

I think i remember Sonnon saying or writing that swipes are a good choice if you're only going to do one exercise. But I suppose it depends on what else you're doing and what you intend for the club training.

Swipes are fine, but overlap an awful lot with hinge-based KB ballistics. So for someone who is already doing KB swings, snatches, double cleans, and so forth, they would move far down my priority list.

With swipes, both hands are also working every set, so grip fatigue and forearm pump will limit the volume and density you can do compared to one arm drills where you have more programming leeway to manage grip fatigue.

 

[Jacob DeRossett]

I do a lot of clubbell training, but I've never thought about it in terms of a "program minimum." My most used drills and the ones I do the highest volume of are 1-hand mills, reverse mills, and shield casts, and I often do only those three in a session. So if I were to design a program minimum, those would probably be the drills I would focus on, especially as a supplement to other training.

Since I also do a lot of mace swinging, mainly consecutive or alternating 360s ("alternating 360" is what I call a "10-2" where you bring the mace to a stable center position between reps, ) and a mace 360 is basically a clubbell shield cast, I don't do any 2-hand shield casts with clubs. I also don't do any 2-handed club exercises with a weight I can handle with one hand. So, I only do 2-handed drills with 35s and 45s. So if I were not doing any mace swinging, I would do some heavy 2-handed shield casts with clubs. Having the arms together in that swinging behind the back position opens up the chest, shoulders and upper back in a way that 1-arm shield casts don't.

I often do pretty high volume sessions. For instance, here's one session I did over a couple of hours on a weekend while watching sports on TV (I'm left-handed, so I usually start with my right hand):

2-Arm Inside/Outside Pendulum (what Mark Wildman calls an inside/outside circle)
45lbs x 5 reps x 12 sets (60 reps)
*Alternating directions each set and grips every two sets

2-Arm Mill/Reverse Mill
35lbs x 5/5 x 10 sets (100 reps)
*5/5 = 5 reps in each direction, alternating grips each sets

1-Arm Mill
25lbs x 2(10R/10L) x 10 sets (400 reps)
*2(10R/10L) = 4 continuous sets, switching arms on the fly every 10 reps

1-Arm Reverse Mill
20lbs x 2(10R/10L) x 10 sets (400 reps)

Now that's obviously not a high frequency "program minimum" type of session.

Here's how I might scale it down to something that is simple, doesn't take too long, and isn't hard to recover from (once acclimated):
1-Arm Mill
10 x 10 (alternating hands each set)

1-Arm Reverse Mill
10 x 10 (alternating hands each set)

1-Arm Shield Cast
10 x 10 (alternating hands each set)

The idea is to make each set relatively easy to recover from, so you can keep moving briskly from set to set without burning yourself out. In my experience rest can be much shorter than with a similar volume of KB ballistics for the same perceived level of effort. Grip fatigue/forearm pump will tend to be your limiting factor so alternating hands each set gives each hand a little more recovery.

For each rep, I really strive to swing with maximum velocity and build up as much momentum as I can from rep to rep. By really trying to accelerate the downswing on the mills and reverse mills, you can build up some serious velocity. But it's a good idea not to emphasize velocity until you are really comfortable with the drills.

Progression is just swinging faster, and then moving up in club weight. Although even after you get very comfortable with 25lbs for 1-arm club drills, jumping up to 35lbs is a huge jump, which I have never made (the Rmax CST clubs I have don't come in 30lbs).



I've glanced at a few Mark Wildman videos, but I mainly learned the clubbell drills from Scott Sonnon's materials back in the day. I agree that 1-arm mills, reverse mills, and shield casts are the biggest bang for the buck clubbell exercises, although there are lots of others that I enjoy and practice regularly (one cool thing about clubs is that there are lots of ways to play with them). It's especially cool if he is promoting the 1-arm reverse mill because I think it's a great drill and my impression is that it's not widely practiced (although I have limited knowledge of what other people may be doing out there). However, I wouldn't call them a "goal" to club swinging. I think of them as basic drills, not advanced skills that need some extensive progression to "achieve."

Well this is extremely helpful. After seeing how Wildman incorporates clubs with bells it was obvious to me that he isn’t doing training then the same way we do at StrongFirst so I wasn’t sure how the overlap would go.

I have two follow up questions:

what does a week of training look like when you would incorporate a session like this?

what was the progression you used to get to milling the 25 (which is strong AF)?

wildmans recommendation is:

two hand:
Inside circle
Outside circle
Shield cast
5x5->20x5
1x10-> 10x10

one hand:
Inside circle
Outside circle
Shield cast
5x5->20x5
1x10-> 10x10

Then you start working mill and reverse mill.
you do that progression with 15lb then 20lb then 25lb. That takes about a year and a half.

 

[Steve W.]

what does a week of training look like when you would incorporate a session like this?

I've done a lot of different permutations over the years.

I find mace and clubbell training to be pretty easy to recover from, once acclimated, so it's pretty flexible when it comes to programming. After a layoff, I will often get some severe DOMS in the armpit area (the lat and triceps near the armpit) and in the midback around the scapulae. But I can stack a pretty good volume on top of any other training I'm doing that day (at the end) or I can split it into a separate day. One pattern I followed for a long time was rotating through days of A+A snatches, clubbells, A+A double cleans, and maces, each on separate day, with a couple of sets of KB double front squats thrown in here and there, plus some easy variety in an unsystematic way.

A lot of my KB training is very relaxed in terms of work/rest ratios, so even when I'm doing a long A+A session with a pretty high total volume, I'm not exhausting myself. With maces and clubs, my work/rest ratio tends to be a lot higher than my KB training, but I still try to calibrate it so the overall intensity of effort is moderate. My philosophy, which I've evolved to as influenced by @Al Ciampa, @Anna C, @Harald Motz, and others is to let the accumulated time and volume do the work, not the intensity of effort. In my A+A style training, I probably rest longer between sets on average than almost anyone.

I've also done a lot of Q&D training since that program came out. That's more intense in terms of effort, but the volume is low to moderate. And in general with KBs, if I am working at a more condensed work/rest ratio, I'll keep the time and volume lower.

what was the progression you used to get to milling the 25 (which is strong AF)?

Thanks. I don't feel like it's particularly strong. I'm not a big guy and my other lifts are not anything crazy. For instance, I've never snatched more than 32kg or pressed more than 36kg.

I started with 15lb clubbells, which felt plenty heavy at the time. 1-arm mills, 1-arm shield casts, and double swipes were some of the first things I learned (from Scott Sonnon videos), and I don't see any compelling reason to wait to learn them. I learned the reverse mill a lot later just because I wasn't aware of it, not for any strategic reason. However, the first thing I did with my first KBs back in the day (from DragonDoor's first production run) was to snatch them (and bruised the hell out of my forearms for a few weeks before discovering how to catch them overhead by trial and error), so there wasn't the same mentality of "you have to learn this before you learn that," like there tends to be today.

Initially, IIRC, Rmax did not make 20lb clubbells, so my first set was a pair of 15s and a pair of 25s. Then I added a 35 and a 45 for 2-handed drills, and much later the 20s. So I went right from milling the 15s to the 25s (not immediately in time, but directly in progression). It really wasn't a big deal. I was doing swipes, pendulums (what Wildman calls circles), and shield casts with the 25s, so I was acclimated to them before I started using them for mills. Double inside/outside pendulums (circles) were a favorite of mine, and they really taught control of the 25s since you have to stabilize both clubs upright in the center position on each rep (much, much harder than with a single club).

But there was no real systematic progression. Just practice with the 15s, do whatever other stuff I could with the 25s, and then just give it a try. I don't feel like it took that much more pure or overall strength as much as just skill and confidence in the movements -- learning the rhythm of where and when to be tight, where and when to be loose, where I had good leverage (and the fine points of getting in stable, good leverage positions where I could absorb or exert force, and how to direct that force), and where I didn't have good leverage (and the fine points of letting the club flow through those positions using momentum). And that came with just putting in a lot of time and reps and learning by trial and error. I have no doubt I could mill 35lbs if I just had the grip strength to hold onto it, which unfortunately I don't.

 

[the hansenator]

Swipes are fine, but overlap an awful lot with hinge-based KB ballistics. So for someone who is already doing KB swings, snatches, double cleans, and so forth, they would move far down my priority list.

With swipes, both hands are also working every set, so grip fatigue and forearm pump will limit the volume and density you can do compared to one arm drills where you have more programming leeway to manage grip fatigue.

I agree. In this case, the assumption is that swipes are literally the only exercise you do.

 

[forkmantis]

This is a cool thread for me to find. Quick history: I started Simple and Sinister in April of 2020, and worked my way up to 8 of 10 sets w/ the 24kg bell. I was so focused on getting to the 32kg bell by my birthday, that I ignored the golfer and tennis elbow I was developing until it got way out of hand, and I haven't really been able to train anything heavy since Oct 2020. I've been rehabilitating ever since. To make things even more fun, as my elbows started to feel better, I started developing RSI or maybe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in my hands and wrists, which I am still in the middle of.

Along the way, I picked up an Adex Big Deal Kit for when I got better. Having that on hand, and watching Mark Wildman's videos on single handed club, and also starting to be on the mend, I've recently decided to start my own bastardized version of S&S, doing the TGUs, but replacing the swings w/ MW's program for inside circle, outside circle, and shield cast. At this point, I'm taking a very conservative approach using only the 3.5 lbs handle. I've worked my way up to 14 sets, and it gives me some way of moving consistently and making progress towards something.

One of the things I learned along the way is that muscles adapt faster than tendons, and I think I just added too much volume and weight too quickly. My thinking w/ this program is that the light weight and slow progression I'll go through w/ the clubs will give my tendons a really long time to adapt, and that some day down the road I can restart S&S proper.

 

[Jacob DeRossett]

This is a cool thread for me to find. Quick history: I started Simple and Sinister in April of 2020, and worked my way up to 8 of 10 sets w/ the 24kg bell. I was so focused on getting to the 32kg bell by my birthday, that I ignored the golfer and tennis elbow I was developing until it got way out of hand, and I haven't really been able to train anything heavy since Oct 2020. I've been rehabilitating ever since. To make things even more fun, as my elbows started to feel better, I started developing RSI or maybe Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in my hands and wrists, which I am still in the middle of.

Along the way, I picked up an Adex Big Deal Kit for when I got better. Having that on hand, and watching Mark Wildman's videos on single handed club, and also starting to be on the mend, I've recently decided to start my own bastardized version of S&S, doing the TGUs, but replacing the swings w/ MW's program for inside circle, outside circle, and shield cast. At this point, I'm taking a very conservative approach using only the 3.5 lbs handle. I've worked my way up to 14 sets, and it gives me some way of moving consistently and making progress towards something.

One of the things I learned along the way is that muscles adapt faster than tendons, and I think I just added too much volume and weight too quickly. My thinking w/ this program is that the light weight and slow progression I'll go through w/ the clubs will give my tendons a really long time to adapt, and that some day down the road I can restart S&S proper.

You should totally track your training in the logging section on this forum. I would be really curious to see what this looks like for you in the coming months. I haven't had issues like that, but I do have a tendency to overtrain if I'm not careful so watching your rehab would likely be very informative.

 

[Tim J.]

@forkmantis - I have a remarkably similar story to you and actually just purchased an Adex Arc in hopes that it would help with the rehab. Would love to know how the club work is going for you.

 

[watchnerd]

but if we were to apply StrongFirst principles to the club, what would that look like?

Clubs are ballistic, so the concepts of relaxation + short force application seem relevant to me.

Plus the usual stuff about core and breathing.

 

[watchnerd]

@forkmantis - I have a remarkably similar story to you and actually just purchased an Adex Arc in hopes that it would help with the rehab. Would love to know how the club work is going for you.

I also have an Arc.

I use it most when I need to be indoors, as opposed to the longer mace that I can use in the garage or outside.

 

[WhomtheBellTolls]

Ive wondered this my self after just buying my first steel mace. Ive been using it for mobility and recovery while doing S&S.
With my limited Steel Mace experience my Program minimum would be:
Warm up- 1) Hip Bridges with Steel mace
2) Steel Mace Pendulums
3) Barbarian Squat (Prying)
Ballistics- One handed 360s 5x10ES
Core - Plank Pull Thru's 5x5ES.
TGUs are a impossible exercise to replace with a Steel Mace but Plank Pull thrus provide excellent Core stability.

 

[Pasibrzuch]

Has anyone ever tried to simplify and sinisterize clubbells with such a template:
10x10 inside circle
10x10 outside circle
10x10 shield cast

Adequate rest after each set. Every two weeks add two sets where you use a heavier club (probably +2kgs) or a more complex form of a given exercise. Done EMOM it should take 30 mins + warmup and cooldown. Frequency would be the same as with S&S - at the beginning it can be done almost daily but the futher you go, the fewer sessions you need.
Goals: strength and some hypertrophy.
Would it work?