Odd Object Lifts- Gimmick or Need To Do?

Hey, Athletes! Odd Object Lifts- Gimmick or Need To Do? - Episode of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up! 

• Odd Object Lifts- Gimmick or Need To Do?

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IN THIS 38-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• These week is about odd object lifting. 
• What types of exercises are these is discussed. 
• Our own thoughts on these challenging, odd lifts
• And A LOT MORE!!

Diving Deeper…

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Odd Object Lifts- Gimmick or Need To Do?

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To becoming better!

- Jerred

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: [00:00:00] This is the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast, and we're here to build autonomous athletes and put phenomenal programming into every garage, basement, and spare bedroom out there. I'm Jared Moon, and I'm with Jill Courtney. We are strength and conditioning coaches who have turned over 20, 000 people into garage gym athletes over the last decade.

And we're here to reduce the information overload that exists in the health and fitness industry today. We're going to do that by covering relevant science and give actionable takeaways. Not only from the data, but from our years of experience. So let's dive in.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. Jared Moon here with Joe Courtney. What's up, Joe?

Joe: Man's hanging out my gym. As you can see,

Jerred: it's, it looks very realistic. This Larry. These green screen backgrounds are getting better and better. I'll let the people, the few people who watch it on YouTube, as opposed to listen to it, [00:01:00] decide whether or not my background is real.

What do you think? It looks pretty

Joe: realistic.

Jerred: No, it's fake. All right, let's get into it. What are we talking about today? We're going to be talking about odd objects and here's why. So I would say odd objects or unconventional training is really what we're discussing. Because if you are a garage gym athlete, it's going to happen at some point.

If it hasn't already happened to, to you, you're going to be like, Ooh, yeah, I think all I need for the rest of my life is a sandbag, a kettlebell and a mace, and I can do all the things. And you'll see some people like that on social media. They train that way. And I want to discuss the pros and cons Limitations, all these kinds of things about this style of training, because I do think if you are a true garage gym athlete and what I mean by true garage gym athlete is you like to train in the elements, push yourself hard.

You like to train the garage when it's hot or cold or whatever, then you might have a little bit more of that mentality to use some odd objects or do some unconventional training. Joe and I have some experience with it. Also want to dive into. [00:02:00] Some of the science behind it. And like I said, some of the limitations and also some of the pros, like the benefits to training that way before we get into that today, Joe house training.

You old man

Joe: i'm on the mend things are getting better Because he's hurt all the time if you're not hurt you're not trying I think that's if you're not cheating you're not trying that's I mean i'll just make my own Yeah, my own spin on things it works. I finally went to the doctor to get all my stuff looked at so i'm seeing Three different doctors for my three different things that are going on.

So already getting some, steps in the right direction. Wrist, I'm seeing an OT, just working on some wrist strengthening and stuff. That's already going a little better. I just got dry needled today for my shoulder. So hopefully that has. Big ramifications in the past. I've gotten dry needled and always had really good results from it to really help free, just loosen things up.

So I actually move so hurts, but I only just got a needle today, so I have to follow up next week and my heel. I haven't seen the doctor yet. I did [00:03:00] hear, I did. X rays on it got another results, but I'll wait to share them for a couple of weeks when I actually have the appointment with the ortho, my heel doesn't hurt really at all for running.

So like I'm running to my heart's content, whatever I want to do for run. So that's been going good. So on the men, the shoulders, the biggest pain, like literally pain right now and limitation makes upper body days is really hard to do. But luckily I have resources of the main. On base gym where I can do at least, some machine things.

I can, I have a lot more equipment at my disposal to use for certain exercises just to at least get some upper body work in. So still good. All good. Runs good

Jerred: man. Shoulder, shoulder injuries are the worst. Shoulder, low back knee. Those are all like You find out how much those are the worst once they're like, what else could be hurt? That's not like going to be bad, but like those are really bad. Also, like when your abs really sore, if you ever had really sore [00:04:00] abs and you realize that you use your abs for basically every movement throughout the day.

Joe: Yeah, it was like a couple of weeks ago I did. Again, on base, I use a GHD to set up. Every time I use those, it's like they kill and and I did them until we, two days later, I was like, I want to do a row workout. And the first time I pulled back on the rower, you're like extended back. And then you're like, Oh my God, I'm using my ass away.

Yeah. I'm using my ass away too much for this row.

Jerred: Speaking of that, I don't have a lot to update on training other than I'm getting it all in. I have been Doing the last cycle. I'm not doing the current cycle. So like more of the body geo stuff, with running and I don't know man.

I might just make that like a new garage gym athlete life track where it's just like body geo on repeat and like some intervals and running or Whatever. I just I enjoy that training so much and I feel so good when i'm doing it. It's like never too much So that's just like my favorite style of training.

And after the runs I've been sticking with using that freak athlete thing to get [00:05:00] GHD setups in and my abs have grown accustomed to it. It's funny, like what you're talking about, like if you haven't done them in a while, GHD setups will light you up. And I had that for the first one to two times I use it.

And now it's I'm pretty accustomed to them and it's not my abs aren't getting that sore after I do a bunch of GHD setups, which is good. I'm doing a lot of Nordic Curls after runs and all these kind of things and Curls might be one of the hardest exercises on the planet.

And what's crazy though is my hamstrings have definitely gotten weaker because I remember me and my friend used to do Nordic Curls. He would just hold my legs down like we would hold each other's legs down and do them that way and I could do them Like pretty easily now. They are super challenging It feels like my those are my hamstrings are like ripping off when I go down and then come back up But really good for the head.

I've gotten

Joe: scared a few times doing those where I'm like holding myself down It's like this is really painful. I don't know if I want to keep on Clenching this, cause I don't want anything to tear because they're going to, it almost feels like it. [00:06:00]

Jerred: Yeah. The cool thing about the, then the freak athlete machine, again, talking about again, free exposure for them, but nothing for us, we're not trying to push it, but you can do Nordic curls.

at different angles. So like you could do a 45 degree Nordic curl and then like slowly lower it down. And that's actually where I started. I not at 45 degrees, but I started at an angle because I was like, sure, I can do a couple full Nordic curls, like with it flat, but I would rather do 10, 12, 15 or something like that.

So I put it at an angle to get a lot more reps in. And that's been really good. Trying to keep those hamstrings strong because I was at a sporting event for my son last night. It's crazy, man. It's William. He's the oldest and they basically have a combine here and the, and for his grade and they it's insanity, man.

They make them run forties, all this kind of stuff. And then they do a draft after that to see which team you're going to end up on based off of your performance. It's just, [00:07:00] it's crazy. Texas is crazy with their football.

Joe: Exciting for the kids, but yeah, it's

Jerred: cool, but it's not like for show. That's what's, that's what I think is crazy is and I grew up here just so I'm not talking about Texans Oh, those weird Texans. I just moved here from California. It's like I've been, I grew up in Texas like and I still find it odd sometimes like the some of the things that go on here with football.

And I played football in Texas, all this stuff anyway. Yeah. He was doing it. They did all these 40 times. Pretty cool to see all the kids do it. But then an adult did it at the very end. What do you think happened? Blue is hamstring. Yep. At 20, 20 yards into the 40 yard dash. And I was like, dude, I'm leaving.

I could have told you that was going to happen, but that's what I don't want to happen to me. Not that I'm going to be doing well, my kids asked me to do random stuff like that, and I'm getting to the point where I'm like a little bit nervous. If we go out and I'm like, I run all the time.

I exercise a lot. I'm like, but I don't do forties that often, you know? So I'm always a little bit scared. I'm going to pull my hamstring just messing up a [00:08:00]

Joe: rolling start, like a 10 meter rolling start and then at 10 and then to the 50 or whatever, a rolling start 40.

Jerred: Yeah. But then my time will be a good, my.

Kids would be very disappointed in me. So who's timing you? My kids. That's the only reason they'd want to do it. Sticklers. Yeah. All right let's get into some odd object training on unconventional training. And like I said, the main reason I wanted to discuss this was just because I know it comes around like everybody.

You either see it, you get interested in it, and you might think oh, could I just do kettlebell training for the rest of my life and be good? Maybe. Depends on kind of what your goals are. But one thing that I found really interesting, and I want to start with kettlebell training specifically, is I've always been interested in and I've talked about this a little bit on the podcast, but like the force of a kettlebell, like, say you're flipping kettlebells and catching them and all these kinds of things, right?

That takes a lot of force, [00:09:00] takes a lot of power. And what's interesting about that is if we were to actually calculate it out and I did calculate it out or I had it calculated out if, If you convert like a moving, swinging kettlebell, 70 pounds from five feet to catch a kettlebell or to stop it, it's force is 389.

Let's call it 390 pounds of force when you catch it. So if you flip it or if it's if it have to be falling at its rate, so if you were controlling it a little bit on the way down, which I don't think a lot of people do on a kettlebell swing, but if you were, this would not be true.

But that reverse motion, that stopping. Stop. Now we got to go the other way. Kettlebell, like on a swing, I've always been interested in that because I know just from thinking of it, I'm like, this is explosive. There has to be a lot of power generated here. So calculated out, it's nearly 390 pounds.

This is a 70 pound kettlebell, 390 pounds of force. At that [00:10:00] reverse engineer, like we're stopping it, we're moving in different direction now. And so that's the same amount of force. If you were to just have 390 pounds on a barbell and you were lowering it down and squatting back up, that's the same.

Your body doesn't actually know the difference, but what the difference is that 390 pound force from the kettlebell. Is only, it's a fraction of a second, right? So it's if we were to like graph this on a chart, it would be like, 70 pounds spike up to 390 pounds of force, and then it'd come back down, right?

And it wouldn't come it wouldn't go down to zero, whatever, right? It would just the force would come down. So you're not, you don't have that muscle under tension like you would a 390 pound back squat, but you do see that level of power output. And that's what's always had me interested in kettlebell training, because that's If you're not worried about the mechanical tension side of things with the barbell, like you're not trying to be a power lifter.

You're not trying to like, say you don't even care about like gaining muscle mass. You're just like, I want [00:11:00] athleticism. I want power development. Then a kettlebell can get you there with a lot less chance of injury. And that's why I've always thought it was cool. Because if you can Get to swinging around some heavy kettlebells and doing it safely.

You get to see these huge spikes in force empowered output over and over again, without this like loaded spine, 390 pound back squat, lowering it, going back up, which I'm not saying is a bad thing. I'm just saying you need to know what you're training for. And so that's, what's always had me interested in keeping my eye on all these other things, but there's kettlebell training, there's mace, there's sandbag, there's strongman stuff. But I guess I'll ask you in general, Joe, like what are your opinions of that kind of training? What do you think of it? Where do you think it's place is for a garage gym athlete?

Joe: I think you can, if you're. So I don't think if you're new to working out of the gym or working out at home or whatever, I don't think this is something you should be throwing in because it's already [00:12:00] almost like a bit of a shiny object. And I think it fills in some holes that you might not have for other stuff, like with the barbell that you have.

And also it provides a nice variety to it. And there's definitely some. A lot of them that I like to keep doing and training like weighted carry sandbag carries. Whenever, when I was with shrink track, I program a lot of bear hug, whether it's with a sandbag or even like a a med ball, bear hug.

I think it's fantastic movement. Moving with moving with the weight and it really helps strengthen your mid to upper back, which tends to fail a lot with some of these heavier lifts anyway. Kettlebell stuff. I don't even consider that an odd object, even though it technically is, to me, it's just a staple.

It's almost its own

Jerred: thing. There's like strong man. There's like unconventional odd object. And then there's it's just kettlebell training. Some people just train with kettlebells like kettlebell only. What are you, what are your thoughts on that? If you were to only train with a kettlebell for the rest of your life, do you think that it would limit you in any way?

Joe: No, I've seen some of those kettlebell sport people. Actually there's a guy in the gym here. I think I've only seen him a handful of times and he'll [00:13:00] do, a bunch a kettlebell clean and presses and it's pretty impressive how they do this, because they're not just doing one or two reps of clean and press.

They're like doing four reps, like lots and lots of reps, double digit reps of whatever it's clean and presses two at once. And the core support that you have to do that. And then also just like the stability and control is definitely impressive. I can sling a kettlebell around, but I can't do some of the stuff that they're doing, especially with like shoulder mobility or other issues.

Jerred: Yeah, the kettlebell sports stuff is like real high on the muscular endurance and even aerobic endurance because the I'm not to be honest I've seen the sport, but I don't actually know how the competition goes But I know it's like I know they're doing a lot of reps and they're like max reps for 30 seconds Yeah, yeah, they're doing a ton Yeah, I think As far as all that kind of stuff, like of all the things like we're talking about, mace, sandbag, whatever, I think kettlebell sits on top of this pyramid.

So if we're to start framing putting out a framework for people who want to get into [00:14:00] these things, the first thing Joe said, I 100 percent agree with is it's something I would add. I would only view all of these things as accessory. And I think that's why some people they're like, Oh, should I found out about kettlebell training.

Should I only do kettlebells or should I only swing a mace or do sandbag? It's let's not be so polarized. Let's have well rounded training. And if you want to add these things in let's do it. And that's honestly if you look at our body geometry programming, if you were to just take a snapshot of one workout from body geometry, you might be like, Oh this is a.

Almost like power building, where it's like, we have some hypertrophy stuff in there, we have some more power lifting stuff, so it's like, it's that, but, what we've thrown in there that kind of separates it from that thing is, Some of those things. There'll be a sandbag squat in there. There will be a kettlebell swing in there.

There will be a Turkish get up. There will be all these other kinds of movements in there because they're great accessory movements and they really work the [00:15:00] body in different ways that you're not going to see if you were to just be doing hypertrophy bodybuilding style stuff or just power lifting stuff.

So it's great for accessory. I don't think unless you were truly to get into kettlebell sport, I don't think it's the best for most people. Like you're saying, Joe, to start and be like, yeah, this is the, this is a sport I'm getting into because they're just, you're missing, I feel like you're skipping so many steps, but the kettlebell kind of sits on top of it can really do everything.

It's only limitation. In my opinion, the kettlebell will be hypertrophy. If you're looking to gain muscle mass, I could make an argument. I could make any kind of argument that you could do that with body weight, that you could do that with a kettlebell. You absolutely can't. There are ways to program it and execute it to where you can gain muscle mass.

I'm not going to say it's impossible, but is it a way easier to gain muscle mass? If you're using a straight barbell or. Something else like heavy loaded things. Yeah, it's going to be way, way easier to gain muscle mass. If you're not afraid to [00:16:00] move a barbell or some dumbbells or something else, that's just a little bit more structured.

So the kettlebell is the King of these movements. You could almost train with it by itself. In fact, I think. We've asked that question 1000 times. If you could only have one piece of equipment to train with for your life, what would it be? What's your answer right now? It can be different every time.

Joe: Is

Jerred: it gonna

Joe: be a

Jerred: kettlebell?

Joe: Well, my argument always with the kettlebell is it's not fair if the barbell gets all the weight. So the kettlebell, I feel like I need a rack of kettlebells or a kettlebell that you can at least Yeah.

Jerred: Say you had a rack of kettlebells or a barbell with all the plates, what would you pick?

That, I think that would be very showing of your

Joe: opinion of the two. Probably at this point, probably the kettlebells. Yeah. They suck more to use, for sure. Like when I, if I were to look at a workout and be like, This workout has our barbells or this workout has our kettlebells.

I'm like, man, that kettlebell workout looks terrible, but it's probably the better one.

Jerred: Yeah. I think I do the same if I had the choice, if it was like barbell with plates or a bunch of different kettlebells. Yeah. I'd probably choose a kettlebell. But then once we stepped down from [00:17:00] kettlebell, my opinion starts to change of all these things.

Like I do love kettlebells and I think that they're great and you can do almost everything. If you're looking to be athletic, powerful, but stay away from Olympic lifting. Because again, Olympic lifting is great. It's just like golf. It's it's really freaking hard to get good at you. You can have a bad day.

You know what I'm saying? Like golf is just incredibly frustrating sport. I know you know that. And I feel like that's the same with the snatch and the clean and jerk. So if you want to get a lot of those benefits of kettlebell training is where it's at now. But then when we get into these other ones, like what's your opinion of it?

Yeah. I think a step down from there would be like sandbag training. What's your opinion of sandbag training?

Joe: So when I first got the sandbag and I know a lot of people have the same mentality with these sandbags, a lot of them, especially the bigger ones, they're gonna have all the handles and then you see that the handles on the side and you're like, Oh, you can do cleans.

They are awesome. I can do sandbag cleans. First time you do a sandbag clean. You're like, this is not the same. It completely like you go to pull like you would a barbell and it's Oh my knees hit the sandbag. So [00:18:00] now I have to like, Pull with my arms before I have to shorten the length of my arms.

And then I can do the power movement and then I figure out how to take all the slack out of the bag. So it's yeah, yeah. And I'm like, all right, this is not the same thing. So for that it's not that it's not quite the same presses. I think are, can be cool, but I like using them as a.

Unbalanced piece of weight. Like I can use this as something that's going to be heavier than a kettlebell. So instead of holding like one kettlebell, you can have a sandbag on one shoulder or across both shoulders to go for a walk. You can do squats with them to either side because you're going to be a little bit imbalanced bear hugs.

I said, I liked that a lot. So those things, I think it's definitely an in between thing that you could use to work out a lot of your body, mostly the lower and the and your core.

Jerred: Yeah. I think the sandbag is great. I do have a love hate relationship with a sandbag so I don't even remember the brand I have, but yeah, it's it's one, like you're saying, it's got all these different handles on a bag.

And then three, I have three inserts in there, so I think it goes up to 150 pounds. I think each [00:19:00] bag that goes inside, it's like a, is a 50 pound bag. And you can do some legit stuff. It can get where sandbag training gets frustrating is if you do try and treat it like barbell training. If you're like, I can just do all the same stuff with barbell, but I'm just going to do it with sandbag.

It's not really. Cause to your point, it's like the clean is different. Even the presses sometimes I feel like my bag got stretched out. So I feel like I get eight, nine inches into the range of motion before the resistance even comes. And so then it's just it's just like a almost like a partial lift.

I'm like, I only have four to five inches of resistance when I'm actually lifting it overhead. But I do like it for throwing something on the ground, picking it back up, whether that's a sandbag or like a medicine ball. And carrying around, I think for loaded loaded walks, loaded carries, a sandbag is like top of that food chain lunges.

And I do think it's good to get training Like to not be so symmetrical, asymmetrical is a great way to train. Like whether you're doing that on purpose by [00:20:00] training, lab, unilaterally. So like you're doing one leg movements, pistols, shrimp squats, or you're doing lunges, those kinds of things in your own training, or You're loading a sandbag on your right shoulder and doing a squat or then low loading on the left shoulder and doing a squat.

So the sandbag is great because where it is better than the kettlebell. Like you're saying is like you can get a little bit more load. You can't get as much load as a barbell, but You can get more load and it challenges you in a different way. I've heard the argument that some people say like it, I, it works all these different muscles and stuff, and I haven't seen that as much.

I haven't seen I feel like if you're, if you are an experienced lifter in general, like with barbells or kettlebells or anything else, you find a way to stabilize your body the same way that you would. Anything else, any other apparatus and it just might take one or two training sessions to learn.

So I don't feel like there's all that balance and coordination. I don't feel like that's there with the sandbag. I think people make that argument, but I just, I haven't seen that. I [00:21:00] don't feel like it's there. I think if you're talking about we're getting really unconventional, like slosh pipe, which.

When's the last time you saw anybody train with a slosh pipe? Am I like the only person you've ever seen with a slosh pipe? Yeah,

Joe: researching this actually, it's funny. There was an article that the Air Force Academy did back in 2008 or 2003, something like that. And they were training their athletes with, it was a bucket full of water and they were having to do squats and other movements with a large, like a barrel full of water.

I was like, that would be tough. So not as. It gets out of control. It's one or two drops one way and you're, you lost

Jerred: it. Yeah. So if anybody's unfamiliar with the slosh pipe, cause this, we're just talking unconventional training or odd objects today. And if you want to know how to build one, do you Google?

End of three fitness, DIY slosh pipe or end of three fitness slosh pipe. You will find me in my project of doing a slosh pipe. But what it is basically a large PVC pipe. This is probably a [00:22:00] six inch PVC pipe. If I had to guess four to six inches, they're fairly thick. And then you cap one end. So you just fully cap it with PVC cement.

And then the other one is like a rubber end that you can tighten down. So you can change the amount of water in there. And I don't remember. I think I put in the article like what I did, but like I loaded it up at first. I was like, I'm strong. Like I'm gonna. I'm just going to put a bunch of water in this thing.

Dude, a slosh pipe will kick your ass all over the place and you can't do anything about it. It doesn't matter how strong you are. And so I ended up having to let so much water out of that thing and using a very small amount. But a slosh pipe is so fun to use because of what you're saying. Like that water moves around so much so that if we're talking about stabilization muscles and you know all those kind of things firing which also helps with growth hormone release and other things A slosh pipe and I didn't mean to go jump straight to slosh pipe because I did want to talk about like other unconventional Items but slosh pipe anything that has water in it Is insanity.

[00:23:00] Like it's, they're very hard to train with, very frustrating to train with, but really good for you overall. A lot of fun. If you're looking to add something like new, and I don't know if there's supposed to be a certain length, but the one I had, I think it was like 10 feet long. It

Joe: was insanely big.

Jerred: I don't know.

I don't know. Yeah. I don't even know why I did that. I was like, and I didn't want to, I didn't want to like, I didn't want to cut it. But like the water runs. Whatever, five feet away from you. It's it's very hard. It's hard just to walk with. So not let alone like doing presses and everything else.

So slosh pipe is really cool, but going back to sandbags, sandbag doesn't get you that kind of stimulus like you would with a slosh pipe, but it is good overall. Um, any comments on the Slosh pipe?

Joe: I remember it was super hard. We took it out for a walk one day, a long time ago. One of the early days of one of our meetings.

And yeah, it was rough. I've always wanted one, but we moved so much that I think it's just an awkward thing to, to have and refill. And so one day when we move back to the states, maybe that'll be something that I add. I'm not gonna make it mine as big. Maybe I'll do it a little thinner piping as well, just so I can do more presses or [00:24:00] something.

Jerred: I think I might build another one. Such an inexpensive project too. It's yeah. If, if you have, if you're like, if money is the excuse that you can't exercise go get a slosh pipe. That's like the cheapest thing that you could do and probably one of the hardest things. Okay. But let's step down now.

So we have kettlebell sits at the top of this. It's almost its own thing. Then we get into sandbags. I'd probably put medicine balls into that kind of like. Just round bags of dirt, whatever you want to call it. Like they're all the same to me. But then if we like go down a step lower, I feel like it really broadens out to like, what do you think of mace training and have you done much

Joe: of it?

I have not, I've never touched a mace every time I've seen it and they're them doing it. It I think, okay, that looks cool. But I also look, feels like that would hurt my shoulder a lot. Cause you're usually spinning it around a year. They're doing all kinds of things. I know it requires some coordination though.

I'm sure it's not hard to to learn. There's definitely a little bit of a gimmicky factor to it. Um, I think it'd be fun to use here once in a while, [00:25:00] but I've never been, I never even considered or thought of buying one.

Jerred: Yeah, I have used the mace like a legit mace before and I also do mace or mace stuff with a sledgehammer Sometimes so I have that sledgehammer son Yeah Like I have a sledgehammer and I'll do mace swings with a sledgehammer granted my sledgehammers only 10 pounds and some of these mace Swings people are doing 30 pounds with the mace swings.

So I'm very familiar with the movement and how it works I My only thing with that is like having done some of it like if you're in the category of I Do mace training, it's if you want to make that decision I think that there you're leaving so much on the table like and that's where I think like the Limitations really creep up with the kettlebells.

It's ah it's really just like maybe hypertrophy sandbags. I'm like Power's probably a little bit harder. That's probably its limitation, but you can get a lot of other stuff and you could probably actually do a little bit more [00:26:00] hypertrophy than you can with the kettlebell. But then we stepped down to okay, let's talk about Macy's.

If you don't view that as an accessory movement, I think that you're damaging all sorts of results that you could be seeing because the maces, it doesn't do a lot, but you can't do a lot with it. And I'm sure some mace expert could hop on here and be like, I could kick your ass with a mace.

Yeah, dude, I'm sure you can have a good workout, but. There's a lot of benefit to it. Similar to kettlebell training. There's some power development. Good for your shoulders after you get used to it. I think it actually would probably be more rehabilitation for your shoulder if you were to able to do that.

And then also a lot of trunk core stability, those kinds of things. But it's just so limiting after that. It's just so limiting. There's not a lot you can do. Like I've seen people do these weird like slow presses with it and stuff. I'm like, just get a Barbell or kettlebell or something like I understand what you want to do, but a very limiting piece of equipment, but cool.

And I'm not against it at all. I just think it should really only be seen as an accessory

Joe: apparatus. Also like [00:27:00] completely neglect and neglect the lower body.

Jerred: Yeah. That's my bigger problem too. If we're talking about any of these things, if we're talking about kettlebells, sandbags, mace training, what do you do with your legs?

Honestly, if all you did was kettlebell swings, Or a kettlebell squats, goblet squats, you won't have strong legs. Like you might have good muscular endurance legs, but they're not going to be strong and powerful. I honestly, the only way that you could probably do that is with a barbell. And that's me saying that after having that back injury where I couldn't lift with a barbell.

And I'm like, how am I going to train my legs? And I tried it with a kettlebell. I tried it with body weight. And there are ways to work the legs out. Don't get me wrong, but none of it is as good

just a barbell. If I had to, if you were like, Hey, I'm going to give you an hour and a half kettlebell specific leg workout. And that's what you can do, or you can just do [00:28:00] barbell walking lunges for 10 minutes. And that's the only workout you could do for the legs for the rest of your life.

And the kettlebell has got all these different movements, all this stuff's an hour and a half long versus 10 minutes of kettle or barbell walking lunges. I'm going to use barbell walking lunges where I can control the weight because. I just think this would be better for my legs. Make them stronger.

It's unilateral movement and I can go heavier. So I think that if you want strong legs, you can forget all the things that we're talking about. You can't really do any of this stuff. But yeah you're right on that. Mace, mace and all these things neglect the lower body.

Joe: Yeah. And so what would you say is, Because it's all without object that would you say is one thing that's links all this together that has a benefit that they all share

Jerred: the

Joe: benefit that

Jerred: they all share is athleticism, power development and that I put those in the same category.

That's one thing to me if you're just doing bicep curls, cool, you're gonna get a bigger bicep. And if you're just trying to grow muscle, there's ways to do that. But you lose athleticism, it's like at the expense of [00:29:00] your athleticism and power. So I think all of these things, increase a lot of power, which is a good thing.

That's why I love them to be in the program, but not be the program because I don't want to lose power. I want to maintain my athleticism. So keeping power, that's thing. Number one thing. Number two would be, let's just call it like different planes of movement. Cause that's another thing. I think when we're only moving in one plane of movement, running, bicep curls, up and down, squat up and down, deadlift, right?

We're only in that same plane over and over again, all these other things that we're talking about kind of force you outside of that thing, outside of that. So if we're doing Turkish getups or kettlebell swings or around the world, or we're doing Cossack squats or different things with a sandbag with the mace swing.

It kind of forces that and I think that honestly helps you become more resilient to injury when you are training outside of different planes of movement. So those would be the two biggest benefits I'd say [00:30:00] to these odd objects, unconventional training methodologies and stuff. What do

Joe: you think?

So I guess my two would be somewhat related. One of when the one that was related is. It definitely forces you to really concentrate and perform on what you're doing. You can't just cause like you can do lifting with good form, but then you're just doing form. But when you're doing anything with the sandbag, you have to like really dial in everything and pay attention to how you're moving everywhere.

And when you're swinging, you can't just you can't just use your arms or something. You have to use everything and really. Brace everything that you're doing, which leads me to the name of anything that I think these are all beneficial for. And that's the core and your trunk. Yeah, I think it does.

Like it does all sides, all around total, totally of your trunk. Then like V ups or sit ups are going to do, because that's just going to target right here or planks. That's why I, that's why I really like a lot of these odd objects ones and what I really put into the strength track with your bear hug carries, I like doing front rack.

Walking carries with with the kettlebell to, switch arms and all those things just because I think the core that [00:31:00] you get from, and like even personally, I hate V ups and working the core and working the ab , right? I'd rather take a sandbag for a walk for 10, 15 minutes or something.

I'd rather do a front rack carry. I, regularly when we were in Monterey, I would end my workout with, farmers carry, I do a loop around the small block on my house. I would, go to fatigue on one hand, set it down, switch the other hand, go to fatigue on that hand and just walk around the house that way with a single kettlebell.

Taking it for a way to carry

Jerred: and all these things are great. And hopefully, as we wrap this up, I don't sound like I dislike any of these things. Don't be very clear. They're all awesome. They all serve a purpose, but it's not like you have to go down this dark tunnel because you saw somebody's Instagram and you're like, Oh, all they do is train at the kettlebell.

And to be honest, most of these people don't like, if you really got into their training, they're still lifting a barbell, like they're still doing other things. They just really kettlebell training and emphasize it. So you don't have to go down this route. It's not oh I just, I'm the kettlebell guy now and I swing maces and do kettlebells.

It's I've seen a lot of [00:32:00] people do that and I don't, I never really understand why I don't, it could be pure interest, like if you're just like, if that's it, you're like, I'm just more interested in these things. But don't act like they're superior to a well rounded training that has, training all the different energy systems, has a barbell and it has power development, has a lot of body weight, skill development all these kinds of things like they're you can have a very well rounded program and still utilize all these instruments to see a lot of results.

So I think they're all good in conjunction of a really good program, but to go down and do it solely by itself I don't think it's the best idea if you want to maintain A good amount of strength and empower speed all those kind of things while also, being healthy and live longer So that's my take you got anything else Joe?

Joe: Yeah, I think Every gym your own gym should have probably minimum two kettlebells after that whether it's more kettlebells sandbag Anything like that? Just think of those things as extra fun things that to add into [00:33:00] as far as workout construction these things You Typically, you're going to throw in at the end of your workout, which just shows the priority of how you should in my opinion, the priority of which you should have in your gym, because it's going to be the accessory core extra, athletic things that you're doing after your main body of your majors and even your minors.

Jerred: I agree. All right. We'll get out of here on that note. Let us know what you think in the community about odd objects, unconventional training, kettlebell, all these kind of things. What experience you have. We'd love to hear for you in the garage gym athlete community. For all of you, a part of the community really appreciate you being there following the training.

If you want to be a part of it, go to garagegymathlete. com sign up for a free trial and we would love to have you. But that's it for this one. Remember if you don't kill comfort will kill [00:34:00] you.