more than a 20 pounder?

Take a sledgehammer and wrap an old sweater around it. This is your "shovelglove." Every week day morning, set a timer for 14 minutes. Use the shovelglove to perform shoveling, butter churning, and wood chopping motions until the timer goes off. Stop. Rest on weekends and holidays. Baffled? Intrigued? Charmed? Discuss here.
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guille
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more than a 20 pounder?

Post by guille » Tue Jun 29, 2010 6:42 pm

Hi

im curious about something

in general from what i have read in this forum ,the heaviest hammer people found are 20 pounds, which sounds like a ton for me right now, im useing a 12 pounder , but after years of working out people reach those 20 pounders, and after that? Has any one upgreated their shovelgloves? With fungus method.
he mentions that you can find 4 kilos weights to adapt the shovelgloves, so if my math is not wrong you could get to 37 pounds if you wanted at some point( i dont know if it is even possible to shovel with such a monster, 37 pounds... holly sh$#%) :D

has anyone gone heavier than 20 pounds

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Djemps
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Post by Djemps » Wed Jun 30, 2010 7:27 pm

If you go past 20 lbs you are moving away from the Shovelglove 'system' of sustainable daily work movements and into heavy lifting. There are companies that make loadable sledgehammers and maces like strongergrip.com that will allow you to go beyond 50lbs. I wouldn't modify a hammer with added weight past 20lbs. It seems too dangerous.

fb22
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Re: more than a 20 pounder?

Post by fb22 » Tue Jul 06, 2010 12:12 am

guille wrote:Hi

has anyone gone heavier than 20 pounds
Well....somebody sells heavier hammers just for workout purposes:

http://www.torqueathletic.com/ns/catego ... rod=MA04-1

WAAAAYYY too pricey. Plus, I think they make them up on an "as-purchased" basis. Call it a hunch, but they don't have photos of the heavier units.

Plus, they'll likely want to sell you the used tractor tire that everyone else seems to use. Un-imaginative :wink:

Cheers!

-Frank

guille
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Post by guille » Tue Jul 06, 2010 3:18 am

yeah i have seen those hammers, too expencive, not worth it in my opinion, but i was thinking in modified hammers, like some i have seen in this forum, i did a fast experiment with my actual shoveglove not to use it but to see how solid was with atatched ancle weights , and think it was very solid

useing ankle weights of 3 k and 1 k you could make a weight of 33 pounds more less

in similar tools to the shovelglove in the sence of realworld power,i think of clubbells for example
the heaviest they use in general is 45 pounds, and is not considered ridiculously heavy strongest world guys tool, i mean normal people work their way into it , it takes them time, but they are not your mr-olimpia -lifting-cars-huge-tire-slyers-fittness-junky-kind-of-guys or gals

so to think of going higher kilo by kilo, little by little after the years , till getting to a 33 pounder for example doesnt sound like something so antishovelglove philosophy in my opinion

im not talking about doing a 50+ pounder or something so drastic, we are not ayax by any means :wink:

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Post by fungus » Tue Jul 06, 2010 8:03 am

guille wrote:yeah i have seen those hammers, too expencive, not worth it in my opinion
Is this where I post the link to the ultimate hammer?

fb22
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Post by fb22 » Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:38 pm

fungus wrote: Is this where I post the link to the ultimate hammer?
/What the....??? Oh, it's brass...no sparks when you strike other metal bits. :lol:

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Post by fungus » Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:48 am

guille wrote:so to think of going higher kilo by kilo, little by little after the years , till getting to a 33 pounder for example doesnt sound like something so antishovelglove philosophy in my opinion
Every time I go up a weight I think this will be the limit, that if I go up any more it's going to be too much for my back or something, but ... after a few months I'm swinging it just as fast as ever and wondering if I ought to be thinking about getting something bigger.

My first hammer was 4kg (9 pounds) because that felt quite heavy to me in the shop but I outgrew it in a few weeks and went for a 5kg hammer. 5kg seemed an awful lot heaver when I upgraded, much more than the 20% increase would suggest.

Moving from 5kg to 6kg also seemed like a big step when I did it. I though this would be about as high as I would go but I eventually got used to it as well (i.e. I could do 15 minutes at full speed - about 700 swings total).

My last upgrade to 7kg (15.4 pounds) didn't seem so bad, I really thought it would be tougher. The only real problem I had was with my hands - I started getting callouses until I bought some work gloves (my "shovel gloves") and that fixed it.

A few months later and I'm pretty much at full speed again. A couple more and I'll probably be thinking about adding more weight.

Is there a limit? I don't know. The human body is very versatile, just take your time and only go up a level when you're really comfortable.

guille
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Post by guille » Thu Jul 08, 2010 6:30 pm

yep i totally agree, the body is the one that says too heavy or not

holymadness83
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49.8 lbs

Post by holymadness83 » Thu Jul 15, 2010 6:49 pm

Hello,
I posted a year back or so that I was using a 25lb hammer. It's 49.8lbs now according to the scale.

I have attached ankle and wrist weights with gorilla tape. LOTS of gorilla tape. The weights are soft and do not break my toes when I drop them on my feet from head distance (yeah, I tested it).

The entire hammer would turn my foot to mush of course. But I wanted to make sure that if one weight flew off, it wouldn't cripple me :P

I can post pics if I ever figure out how to do that on this forum. The thing is huge.

I do the same moves that I used to, but they're slow now. It's very much heavy lifting and not aerobic. I'm thinking of buying a 2nd hammer, so I can do a little of both.

guille
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Post by guille » Thu Jul 15, 2010 10:19 pm

wow! holymadness83 that incredible, an 49 pounder? this is madness!! madness? this is sparta!!! :lol:

i used elastic bandages, lots and lots of them to see how solid the sg would be with 3 kilos of ankle weights, and it was very very solid, because its tied up from all angles. and as you said even if the ancle weights droped they wold have to pass the sweeter and still they are very soft so there is no problem

about what you said of feeling its more heavy lifting now than before, im not an expert by any means but i have never considered shovelglove cardio, ofcourse just by moving one gets more condition than a couchpotato, but for example im useing a 12 pounder now and for my fitness levels i consider it more heavy lifting than cardio, to be honest


what have been you results of useing a 49 pounder?
no injuries?
have you felt a difference in your mucsle tone, or power?

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Re: 49.8 lbs

Post by fungus » Fri Jul 16, 2010 8:05 am

holymadness83 wrote:Hello,
I posted a year back or so that I was using a 25lb hammer. It's 49.8lbs now according to the scale.
How many swings do you do in 14 min?

fungus
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Post by fungus » Fri Jul 16, 2010 8:08 am

guille wrote: i have never considered shovelglove cardio
It depends on how you do it, eg. If you do "deep shovel". then it's definitely cardio.


* Like normal 'shovel' except you bend your knees/back and swing the hammer below knee level in the 'scoop' part of the motion.

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Fri Jul 16, 2010 2:32 pm

I can post pics if I ever figure out how to do that on this forum. The thing is huge.
I may have to upgrade the bulletin board to phpbb version 3 just to see this. My god, now YOU are the master. :-)

If you email me a picture, I'd be happy to plop it on the site in the meantime.

Reinhard

reinhard.engels@gmail.com

holymadness83
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Post by holymadness83 » Sat Jul 17, 2010 1:20 pm

Oh wow! I don't think I can accept the title of master, but I am flattered like a little schoolgirl.

I will proudly email some pics.

To answer a few of the other questions, I have had one injury. It's hard to say what did it because I was also (poorly) attempting to do a bench press routine at the time. I ended up with a slight tear in my left shoulder that put me out of training for four or five weeks. No surgery. That was when the hammer weighed 25 lbs. I quit bench press and upped my shovelglove and have been injury free for over half a year.

As to how many swings in 14 minutes, I do the swings, excepting Flip Lever because it always felt like it was going to tear open my shoulders, to a max number of reps. When I can do 14-20 reps for each exercise comfortably, I make the hammer bigger. Currently, I do 10, so I've got a way to go at this weight. I might could do 14 now, but I'd probably need to call an ambulance after that. Interspersed with some degraded beast stuff like pushups, pullups and shovelglove squats (squats with the hammer on one shoulder), this takes me half an hour or so. I stop and catch my breath between every exercise for 20-40 seconds. I do it 3-4 times a week, but I wish I did it every day.

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Mon Jul 19, 2010 2:30 pm

And now, ladies and gentlemen, behold the 50 pound shovelglove, NOT some pre-fab, overpriced, soulless hunk of commercial "exercise equipment" but, in the true spirit of shovelglove, a home-forged creation:

Image

The combat book for scale (and hardcore-dom) is a nice touch, don't you think?

Image

And finally and the Man Who Wields It. Whatever you do, don't make this guy angry!

Image

Reinhard

ironsickel
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Post by ironsickel » Tue Jul 27, 2010 1:02 pm

Amazing! Thanks for sharing!

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Post by JoshT » Tue Sep 07, 2010 2:02 am

Those pictures remind me of that scene from Crocodile Dundee, where he's held up by some guy with a little switch blade. He pulls out his giant knife and says, "That's not a knife - this is a knife."

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Post by mattman » Wed Sep 28, 2011 12:53 pm

Hi, I know it's been a while since anyone has posted on this thread but I was wondering what the weight of the hammer is up to now? Are you up to 60#'s yet? Also, is there anyone else here who has gone beyond twenty pounds? This is a cool old thread.
two wrongs don't make a right.
But three lefts do.

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