Thinking about Shovelglove...

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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Jammin' Jan
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Thinking about Shovelglove...

Post by Jammin' Jan » Tue May 10, 2005 4:12 pm

Two things:

(1) would these exercises work with a body bar instead of sledge hammer? I like the idea of the weight being evenly distributed instead of just at one end.

(2) musing on movements, so here's one for you: "Washing Clothes." In exercise parlance, it would be called "Bent-Over Row." Imagine bending over a little to wash clothes on a washboard and tub. Feet shoulder width apart; knees flexed. Back straight, bent forward about 45 degrees. Tuck the buns; tighten the abs; don't arch the back. Hold shovelglove horizontally in both hands. Move arms up and down -- feel the shoulderblades pinch back at the upward end of the movent. Do half the reps with the weight on the left, then switch to right for rest of reps.

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reinhard
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Post by reinhard » Wed May 11, 2005 2:51 am

I don't quite know what a body bar is, but assuming it's some kind of heavy stick, I don't see why not. You won't get quite the leverage effect (light weight seeming much heavier), but you may not want that starting out anyway.

I like the washboard movement. "Washboard abs doing washboard movements." It has a certain poetic justice (always nice in an exercise). I'll give it a try tomorrow.

Keep us posted. Remember, even if you start out light, go easy. It's harder than it feels right away.

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Jammin' Jan
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Post by Jammin' Jan » Wed May 11, 2005 11:21 am

I did most of the shovelglove movements last night. All the junk in the garage, but no sledge hammer anywhere, so I used a 5 pound cast iron dumbbell. This might be better for now, since I am a pint-sized middle-age mom; even the lightest of the sledge hammers would probably be too heavy for me.

I did shovelling with it and could really feel it in my obliques (ab muscles on the sides of the waist), much more than when I do crunches (which I detest). Churning butter was fun, especially since I added a squat for every churn.

It takes a year and a day to get the pictures on the screen from the Shovelglove home, so I haven't seen them all yet. But I have an idea of what kind of movement is necessary to drive a fence post into the ground, so I did a bunch of those, too. Not sure how chopping wood is different from the fence post movement.

Also did the laundry on the washboard.

This was a lot of fun. I like being upright, and the movements themselves were fun. I have to be careful about form and will probably never ever freestyle --- a karate-induced shoulder injury which I don't want to re-activate keeps me in line!

Have you tried holding the shovelglove as you would a baseball bat and swinging in a controlled way? This move will work triceps (back of arm).

This is fun stuff!

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Post by reinhard » Thu May 12, 2005 12:20 pm

Congratulations on getting your first shovelglove workout under your belt. Not having tried it, a dumbell sounds a little short, but if it feels right, go for it. Your baseball bat move sounds like "chop the tree," which Justin posted a long, long time ago to the yahoo group. I don't have any slow pictures/video up for it on the site yet, but I do it every N-day morning (14 reps each side).

Squat churns are a good idea, it's a natural extension of the movement, and squats from what I hear are fantastic from an exercise point of view. It's so natural that I've broken into squat churns a few times without even really planning to. It brings the somewhat neglected lower body into play (not that I worry about this much because urban ranger takes care of that). The only thing is, from a "useful movement" perspective, I worry about their historical authenticity... but that's probably nothing a little revisionism can't take care of. :wink:

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