Some new moves I invented...

[fungus]

Here's a few moves I've invented. I don't have videos of them so if you have any doubts just ask...


a) "Pick onions" - work your lats.

Hold the hammer horizontally in front of you, one hand at either end of the handle, palms downwards. Feet should be fairly wide apart.

Bend forwards until the hammer is hanging with the head a couple of inches above your foot.

Using only your arms (i.e. without raising your body), lift the hammer up until the handle touches your chest, lower it down again. Repeat. Change sides.

The "hammer above the foot" thing is a good incentive to control the hammer properly and not let it hit the floor (which would be bad - especially if you live in a rented apartment).

Advanced version: Only lift with the hand which is near the head of the hammer - the other hand should stay more or less where it is. This is much harder for some reason...

Variation: Try it with your palms facing upwards.



b) "Toss the apple" - reinforce your biceps.

Hold the hammer with one hand at each end of the handle, palms upwards. Arms should be relaxed with hammer hanging naturally in front of you.

{For the next section I assume the right hand has the head of the hammer}

Throw the head of the hammer upwards with the right hand. The hammer should go up into a vertical position with the handle just below your waist and the head just in front of your face.

As the hammer moves upwards, slide the right hand down the handle until it reaches a position just above the left hand.

The right hand then grabs the handle and the left hand is released. The hammer passes in front of you and the left hand catches it as it falls to the left.

In practice this all happens very quickly. It may sound difficult/dangerous to do but it's really quite easy as you never actually let go of the hammer and the handle naturally guides your hands into the right positions.

Once you've tossed the apple over to the left, toss it back to the right and repeat.

The fact that you have to throw the hammer makes this one quite tough. There's absolutely no way to do it slowly/carefully.

I usually replace "flip the lever" with "apple toss" in my workout as it feels a lot mroe natural to me (and it works roughly the same set of muscles).



c) "Wave the flag" - nice for the front shoulder/pecs.

Hold the hammer vertically in front of you, left hand at the bottom, right hand at the top, palms facing towards you. The handle of the hammer should be slightly separated from your body. Imagine the left hand is holding the base of a long flag pole and the flag is up above your head somewhere.

The left hand should stay more or less in front of your belly during the whole exercise. You'll probably find it moves a little to the left as you swing, that's ok.

Move the right hand from side to side in front of you to wave the "flag". Repeat. Change hands.

notes: When you wave "outwards" (i.e. when the right hand is waving the flag and the flag is going to the right) you should try to go backwards as well as outwards. The further back you go on the outswing, the harder you hit your pecs.

When you go back to the center position you only need to go a little bit past vertical, if at all.


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Enjoy...

[david]

Those are nice ideas!

--david

[reinhard]

Thanks for posting these, fungus. "Pick onions" sounds particularly intriguing (and I think I even understand it).

I'll try them out tomorrow.

Reinhard

[Jammin' Jan]

Is "Pick Onions" a Bent-over Row?

[fungus]

Is "Pick Onions" a Bent-over Row?

Maybe... I hadn't thought about it.

Doesn't fell much like rowing to me though, more like picking something up from the floor.

I was going to call it "weed the garden" but "pick onions" seemed funnier, maybe that's just me though.

We could vote on the name, I don't mind...

[Jammin' Jan]

a bent-over row isn't really a rowing motion; it just has that name, which differentiates it from an upright row, which actually is a rowing motion. Go figure!

[fungus]

a bent-over row isn't really a rowing motion; it just has that name, which differentiates it from an upright row, which actually is a rowing motion.

Ok ... in that case, yes, it's a bent over row.

[Matthew Warner]

Cool! I'm going to have to try those out.

Here are some ones I came up with to keep things interesting. I think the titles are self-explanatory, but let me know if they aren't:

1. Canoe paddling

2. Gong ringing (front and side)

3. Knighting someone (Similar to your flag waving description)

4. Pushing out of an Iron Maiden. (Hold the hammer near the head with one hand and the handle going down to your elbow. Bring the hammer head to your pec and then straight out to the side. Mirror the movement with the hand not holding the hammer, then switch sides.)

5. Whack-a-Mole

[WinstonWolf]

So... I've been doing shovelglove (and a variety of other exercises, including pushups and pilates, which I like)... 5 days a week for 3-4 weeks now. Almost nothing on Saturday, my designated "no significant exercise" day, and a bit more on Sundays.

My squatting has improved a lot. A month ago, I could only go down to the balls of my feet, and that was it. Now, I can pretty much drop to a "normal" (?) heels-down squat whenever I want. Wasn't really expecting or working for that, but hey, I'll take it!

However... one workout I do (thanks, BestLife magazine, of all places, for introducing me to Alwyn Cosgrove's website/workout methods) has both jump squats (fun! but hard) and lunge jumps (not fun yet). The lunge jumps pretty much toast me. I'm only doing that particular workout once or twice a week, and not doing yoga as much as I'd like, to get more lunge-type stuff in. Ah well, working out a lot more than I was, so ... it'll take as long as it takes. Plus, my MBA is done next May, so there's that.

Soooo... long story short, I wanted to incorporate more lunging. A lot of the more full-body exercises I do with shovelglove (tuck bales, shoveling, others) I do a partial or full squat as it is... but not much with lunges.

I'm currently using an 8 lb hammer. I'll move up eventually. I also picked up a kettlebell (35 lb) so I'm doing stuff with that 2-3 times a week, also... and in the process of quitting our gym, which we don't really use. (Married).

One of the non-full-body exercises I do ... well, I don't really have a 'permanent' descriptive name for either of these yet, but ... is a particular kind of hammer swing.

1) "T-swing",maybe. What I do is, take the hammer in one hand, about midway on the handle. I am using a comfortable stance, feet some distance apart. I swing it back so that the handle basically comes next to my arm (kinda touches the triceps if that makes sense, along the arm), then I swing it forward and up. The hammer ends up perpendicular to the ground, with my wrist and arm straight, and my arm perpendicular to the hammer... so my arm is roughly parallel to the ground.

Maybe "presenting the bouquet" or something like that, if I was a really stiff and nervous gentleman... although I wouldn't do that with arm fully extended... anyway.

Okay, that's something I do when I need a little breathing break from more full-body, as it's mostly my arm/shoulder/wrist, etc.

So. I wanted to do lunges. I figured, combine that with a lunge... and it was challenging and quite fun as a finishing move for the day.

2) "T-swing lunge" - stand in kind of a triangle position (left leg front for some number, then swap); bend both knees into a lunge while swinging the arm holding the hammer up into T position. It's MUCH more challenging than just doing it standing. Of course, that also could have been because I was at the end of the workout...

I managed ... 28 total? I would swap feet every 7, and swap arms every 14. Maybe more. Didn't entirely keep track. But I did do two full sets, anyway. Once to try it, another time to "set" it for memory.

TOUGH but hopefully adding that will help some with making lunges easier to do.

I've tried adding lunging to other SG exercises that I've been doing, but nothing has really clicked with it yet. This did and I'll probably do it more often.

Just wanted to share.

[david]

I do lunges with thrusts. Think of avoiding a baseball bat swing to the noggin by dropping into the lunge position while thrusting your hammer head into the "attackers" gut.

You can do something similar with a move I call "spring up, smash face." From a squat position, jump/spring up. When you get to the peak of your jump, draw your feet up under you and smash your "opponent" in the face with a thrusting hammer action.

For both of the above, I would recommend placing your grip very near the hammer head.

--david

[Cayenne]

Hi Folks,

Best to all, on this my first post. Perhaps I'll post a more appropriate "intro" at some point, but for now, please allow it to suffice that I say I am loving Shovelglove, thank you Reinhard and fellow Shuggers !

I've improvised some stuff as well. I don't really think about a name when I do them, ( I just think of the movement,) but I guess a "naming convention" is convenient for discussion. If anyone likes these movements and thinks of a better name, that's fine. (Apologies if these have been listed previously.) So...

Hot Potato:

Hold the unweighted end in either hand and close to the weighted end with the other, with the SG extending outward from the abdomen, perpendicular to the torso. "Throw" the weight up into the air and catch as it descends. The hand holding the unweighted end is a "control". (Edit: Did some this a.m., I realized that one may hold the unweighted side wherever comfortable. Holding "at the abdomen" as originally described may make it hard to reach the weighted end.)

Hang the Painting

Pretend you are hammering a nail as high overhead as you can. Vary hand positions for safety, comfort, and desired level of difficulty.

Ab Killer Variation

Kudos to the originator of the Ab Killer. You may enjoy this variation. Start in a high "horse stance" or slight squat position with knees slightly bent Hold SG to either side of body, on a horizontal plane. Step wider with leg opposite weighted end. As that leg steps out, "swing" SG as in Ab Killer. The wider step, (edit: which actually "describes" a 1/4 circle") changes the movement.

Start the lawnmower / Yank the chain

The "opposite" of a diagonally downward chopping movement, lower the weight and pull up forcefully

The Whole 9

Simply combine a shovel and a chop. Shovel up, chop down.


Overhead Swings

This is inspired by kettlebell "towel swings" and/or the Tornado Ball apparatus. Simply grab the SG as close to the unweighted end as possible with both hands. Swing the SG in a big circle, parallel to the ground, overhead. As with all SG movements, but especially so, please be careful.


I have some Aikido based "sword" movements that I think are interesting, but I could not even begin to describe the stepping patterns. I will revisit these if I can post video at some point.

I bought family members SGs, so I have access to 4, 6, 8, 12, & 16 lb-ers.
I mostly use the 12. Working the 8 fast is great. Grunting out the 16 is a nice challenge. The 12, as for Goldilocks, feels juuuuuust right. ( I hope over time, a 20 feels like the 12 does now. )

I think I have some others, can't recall specifics right now. The foundation, ( shovel, chop, churn, etc.,) movements are staples (ie; If I find myself thinking "what next" I shift to "default" pattern of those movements so as to keep "burning" the 14 minutes.

BTW, the 14 minute paradigm has helped in other areas. While some need it to exercise, which they'd otherwise procrastinate, I love to exercise and have used it to do other stuff I might otherwise procrastinate,(eg; I will make myself do undesirable task X for 14 minutes",) or just to be more productive overall (eg; "Let me see if can do X in 14 minutes" as a sort of fun competition "with" myself.)

Shug on !

Eddie

[reinhard]

Cayenne, Winsonwolf,

Thank you for posting these moves. Now that I've got the no-s book out and the habitcal works reasonably well, I can finally focus on expanding the shovelglove movements page.

I'm going to trawl through the boards and find any movement that gets mentioned several times (or looks especially interesting) and add it to a list of "non-canonical" movements below my regulars here. For now, I'll link to the first mention of each post. I think what I'll do eventually is code something up to automatically create a home page for each non-canonical movement (and update the canonical ones) with links to all mentions on the bulletin board. That way from one page it would be easy to get to everything anyone has posted about a particular movement.

You can monitor my (probably slow) progress here:

http://shovelglove.com/movements/

And feel free to shout suggestions, both of individual movements which should be promoted here and "structural" improvements.

BTW, the 14 minute paradigm has helped in other areas. While some need it to exercise, which they'd otherwise procrastinate, I love to exercise and have used it to do other stuff I might otherwise procrastinate,(eg; I will make myself do undesirable task X for 14 minutes",) or just to be more productive overall (eg; "Let me see if can do X in 14 minutes" as a sort of fun competition "with" myself.)

Yes, I've found this too. I think my next podcast, if I ever get around to it (hard to motivate now that health hacks is defunct), will be on the many virtues of using a timer.

Reinhard

[WinstonWolf]

Cool, glad to add to the body of knowledge.

I've adjusted how I'm doing the lunges a bit, after a couple days of them - instead of starting from a triangle position, I just start from standing with feet more or less together, and do a step-lunge along with the arm swing. It feels more fluid.

[Cayenne]

BTW, the 14 minute paradigm has helped in other areas. While some need it to exercise, which they'd otherwise procrastinate, I love to exercise and have used it to do other stuff I might otherwise procrastinate,(eg; I will make myself do undesirable task X for 14 minutes",) or just to be more productive overall (eg; "Let me see if can do X in 14 minutes" as a sort of fun competition "with" myself.)

Yes, I've found this too. I think my next podcast, if I ever get around to it (hard to motivate now that health hacks is defunct), will be on the many virtues of using a timer.

Reinhard

Reinhard, FYI, several years ago, I saw a Paul Newman movie. I think, but I am not sure, that it was called "Nobody's Fool". I can't even remember what it was about. But there is one scene where Newman's young grandson has to do something he is afraid to do. ( I think walk over to an amputee with a prosthesis, and the child is very frightened about approaching the man because of his disfigurement.) Newman hands his grandson a watch with a second hand ( again, my memory may have distorted this somewhat, but the gist is there,) and tells him that he only "has to be brave for 60 seconds," and the boy is able to do it.

Your "14 minutes" contains that essence. Thank you !

Of course, you may want to watch the movie. While it may have merit aside from the scene mentioned, that scene is a great connection with your "many virtues of using a timer".


All the best,

Eddie