Everyday Systems

This is more out of curiosity than anything. What are people using for their sledgehammers?

Mine's a 12 pounder, but it actually weighs more like 13 with the handle and sweater added. I ticked the 12 pounder box though.

C.

yeah, I clicked the 10-pounder, even though with the extra weights it's now 15 pounds (not including the handle).

The one I have been using says it's 16lbs, but after reading some of the posts I actually decided to weigh it on a scale and it comes in at just below 13lbs. So I clicked the 12lb box.

My hammer, I mean. It's 14 pounds.

Go Kevin!!! LOL...

James, I use a 12 lbder which as Carolejo said, really weighs more like 14 with the handle...

Did you get the sixteen pounder yet?
Love,
Deb

The one I have been using says it's 16lbs, but after reading some of the posts I actually decided to weigh it on a scale and it comes in at just below 13lbs. So I clicked the 12lb box.

Hey Buddha!
That doesn't seem right...
16 lb sledges are considerably more expensive than 12 lb ones, by around ten dollars...
You should call up the store and see if they will refund you..
The probably put the 12 lbs ones in the wrong row...
These Home Depots, Lowes, etc.. aren't necessarily the most well organized...

13 lbs is a good amout of weight for the purposes of SG...
Hope you are enjoying it!
Peace and Love,
Deb

Hey Deb!
I wonder if the weight is supposed to include the handle? Either that or maybe I should use something other than the bathroom scale?

Ha ha!
I stood on a doctors scale at the gym, and put the head of the sledge directly on the scale in between my feet...
I don't think a bathroom scale would be that accurate, and I'm not even sure about the club scale... But the main point is that the weight is really a bit more than advertised...
Reinhard said he thought the weight was based only on the head of the sledge..

As long as it feels challenging but not really difficult, it's the right weight..
Once it starts feeling easy it's too little...
Peace and Glove!
LOL..
Deb

Then again, if you want to go for pure shock value, you could always walk into any local deli counter with the sledge over your shoulder and a glazed look in your eye, and ask if they would let you use their
cold cuts scale!
LOL...
That might not be accurate either, but you might wind up with a free sandwich if you look scary enough!
LOL..
Love,
Deb

For the weight of the sledge, you just count the head. I think for shugging, however, the handle+sweater could be counted. I guess Reinhard should be the one who calls it.

16 pounder. I love it.

Actually a 6 pounder. You didn't have that option.

Sorry about that oversight, masked lioness...

There doesn't seem to be a direct way to edit the poll once it's been created, but I can probably finagle it into the database somehow when I get a few minutes. I'll let you know.

Reinhard

OK, I tacked on the 6 pound option on the end.

Sorry it's out of order, but things would have gotten really messy in the database if I changed that.

Reinhard

well hacked, Reinhard!

Thanks! Now if only someone would tick it!

Looking over the testimonials, I guess I gotta add 4 pounds, too. Stay tuned...

Reinhard

Also, Reinhard, I know we can only vote in polls once, and when I voted I ticked the 10 pound box since that's what I was using. These days however I regularly use both the 10 pounder and the 16 pounder, so you may want to increment the 16 pounder by one next time you hack the database.

Or would that be cheating? I really do use both all the time....

I actually have a 30 lb sledgehammer that I use for some movements. But it's a custom sledge from a specialty athletic/strongman store so it's pretty expensive and kind of violates the spirit of the whole thing I guess. They actually make sledges up to 150 lbs! at this place.

Wow. I guess I'm really going to have to hack this poll. Forgive me for asking, but are you HUGE? Heading towards my 5th year shugging, I'm getting use to the 20 pounder, but I don't think my skeletal structure (much less my muscles) would support 50% more.

Just out of curiousity, does this store have a web site?

Reinhard

I have a lovely 8 pound sledgie! And my cat tries to play with it ever time I use it

reinhard wrote:Wow. I guess I'm really going to have to hack this poll. Forgive me for asking, but are you HUGE? Heading towards my 5th year shugging, I'm getting use to the 20 pounder, but I don't think my skeletal structure (much less my muscles) would support 50% more.

Just out of curiousity, does this store have a web site?

Reinhard

I'm not huge. Well roughly 6 feet about 215-220 (used to be much heavier, probably would be best weight 190-200 at my advanced age of 38 ) And I have a fair amount of joint/back problems so conventional weightlifting that I once did really isn't feasible in the long term for me. I have mild/moderate scoliosis from birth so I'm a bit "unbalanced" and I have pretty bad shoulders and a pretty bad knee too so I don't do stuff like heavy bench or much of any kind of overhead presses anymore.

I'm not a hardcore regular "shugger" but I do like the general idea of the exercises and over the winter especially it's about all the exercise I did. While losing weight last year, I researched a lot of non-traditional ( or maybe traditional, depending on how you look at it) exercises. I was looking for stuff that was more full-body full -range of motion less-restricted in movement, because fixed-position single plane exercises (like barbell bench press) tend to irritate my joints.

I got into a lot of stuff like making sandbags with duffel bags, using clubs (like clubbells, which are derivatives of old indian clubs), swiss ball exercises, some bodyweight stuff, and...I found your shovelglove site. Anything that doesn't fix you into a rigid position and doesn't use extremely heavy weight. Because one of my legs is slightly longer than the other (or my pelvis is slightly tilted, same difference) I've never liked to run or even walk for extremely long distances. I like to cycle in the summer especially as it seems to be easier on my knees/back as well as more fun.

Anyway, I can use the 30 for most of the shovel-type movements, but it is a bit strong for a lot of the chopping movements. Of course as you know the great thing about shovelglove is that even with the same weight hammer you can vary the intensity by altering the force of your swing. I couldn't do a really vigorous chopping motion with the 30 and stop the movement, although I can do a more moderate swing and handle the weight.

Although I don't follow the shovelglove program religiously like I said I do like the spirit of the program and a lot of the exercises, and I use them often in my workouts. In addition I actually like to swing the hammers and hit things sometimes instead of stopping the motion, which adds a different element, but of course isn't practical or feasible indoors. The best solution is hitting an old big tractor tire, or just hitting the ground itself (use eye protection if you do of course to avoid flying debris). I also really like to use clubbells (which you've mentioned on your site) and I actually have several "homemade" clubbells which consist of those big orange plastic toy baseball bats filled with sand, etc in addtion to one genuine clubbell (which are nice but pretty expensive).

The website with the hammers is torqueathletic.com. They are a hardcore powerlifting/strongman site for the most part, and their stuff is quite expensive but good quality if you are into that sort of thing. They are the company that manufactures the clubbells and they also have the sledgehammers which are solid steel powder-coated hammers up to 150 lbs which they call "war hammers." Even the lighter hammers are over $100 and the heavy ones (which no one could ever realistically use for shovelglove) run up to several hundred - so they don't really fit the inexpensive nature of shovelglove, but they are quite sturdy (I own one hammer from them the rest are hardware store models).

Anyway although I'm not a strict "shugger" I do admire what you've done and use your exercises quite frequently, so hats off to you and keep up the good work!

Kroft67,

Sorry for taking forever to get back to you here.

Thanks so much for posting this! Though I have to admit, for me and most others here it's of curiosity value more than anything else, still, curiosity has value.

I'm going to beef up my shovelglove sledgehammer store with links to this and hammersource (what a lousy businessman I am, to link to my competitors!). I'm also going to get rid of the out of stock item links (most of them, sadly).

Hitting a tire sounds ridiculously fun, but unfortunately it's not something I can feasible do in my living room, and for now that's a hard parameter...

Reinhard