UrbanUpdate

If you're rebuilding a post-pandemic strength-training routine from scratch, or ever simply feeling burnt out at the gym, consider training with a sandbag. It's what it sounds like: you use a heavy sandbag to execute your favorite lifts or perform weighted carries—which is a fancy way of saying “pick it up and walk around with it.” The simplicity is the point: unlike with a barbell or kettlebell or even dumbbells, there isn't a big learning curve to getting started. 

For Geoff Girvitz of Bang Fitness, the low barrier to entry and adaptability of the sandbag makes it a great tool for getting started or for pushing yourself. “People can tend to get really fussy about what muscles they’re activating,” he says, "but the simple reality is that if you’ve got a decently heavy sandbag you’re carrying and you’re still able to move, then all of your muscles—from quads to glutes to abs—are doing exactly what they’re designed to do in a responsive and intuitive way."

While lighter loads carried for longer can help your endurance, there is also a kind of practical pure strength that comes with moving sandbags. That's one of the reasons why you'll find sandbags in strongman and MMA gyms. Diego Lopez, a model and trainer who has worked with everyone from professional fighters to celebrity clients, notes how that kind of power can be extremely useful whether you're learning to face a man in a cage or just trying to pick up your kid.

"The invisible strength that sandbags nurture is similar to some of the strength you get from grappling," says Lopez. "Doing sandbag carries and the squeezing mechanisms that go along with that can be really useful for jiu jitsu training and MMA in general. That kind of thing transfers over to real life really easily. But the thing I’ve found most useful about sandbags is that because they’re a soft malleable tool, it lets you fuck around a bit more. You can learn how to do it by doing it. You can drop a sandbag on the ground and it won’t matter. That gives you a lot more freedom to play and experiment than with barbells or other weights."

There are several different kinds of sandbags to use if you're starting out. A throwing sandbag can also be used for kettlebell swings and is designed specifically to be tossed high or far. Strongman sandbags can weigh up to hundreds of pounds and their awkward nature makes them difficult— and very fun—to pick up from the ground. But if you're looking to get started then a standard sandbag is probably your best bet.

A bag from Goruck or Rouge will run you a little over a hundred bucks (plus the cost of sand, which you almost always have to provide yourself.) They come in different weights, and for a beginner a sixty pounds is a great place to start. A lot of other exercise equipment comes with best practices or YouTube tutorials, but sandbags don't really have some kind of special program. Want to do a sandbag squat? Pick up the sandbag  and squat. Sandbag overhead press? You gotta push that sandbag over your head.

During the pandemic, my sandbag has become my go to for  park workouts because I could hit so many different lifts with one piece of equipment. When I'm bored I've also started carrying it on walks around the block or climbing the stairs for an extra challenge.

 For Jason McCarthy, a former Green Beret and co-founder of Goruck, a sandbag and rucksack has replaced the gym entirely. "Growing up I spent a lot of time in the gym. I did a lot of running. But that body type collided with reality when I got into the Special Forces. I had to be able to move real world objects," says McCarthy. “The Special Forces training was really just rucks [walking with weights] and sandbags. It was all about practical applications. I didn’t want to work out just to be good at working out.” 

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