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Favorite Sledge Hammer Workouts...


smp76

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Okay here is one I have not seen, and perhaps a few of you guys and gals who have experience can share the wealth with. What are your top five favorite sledge hammer workouts. Please list the exercise and how it is performed, experiences, good, bad, indifferent, this one wounded my chances of having kids, ect...

Thanks for the input.

-SMP76

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#5 Rear Levers, just flip the heavy end to the rear and manipulate up and down.

#4 Front Levers, same as above but heavy side forward.

#3 Front Twist, holding the sledge in your hand elbow and forearm paralell to the deck rotate the heavy end from left to right and repeat. Maintain strict slow movements.

#2 Finger walks, heavy side down, shaft vertical, slowly without sliding, walk your fingers up the shaft. Forearms are paralell to the deck.

#1 Hulk Smash, place saftey glasses on, find a pile of large rocks, and reduce them to a pile of small usable gavel bits. As your endurance improves make the begining pile larger and make the end pile more refined, also suplement rock for hard woods for those of use who heat with wood stoves, your family will love you for it. To add more work, carry all logs to the splitting point by driving the maul into the log, then pinch grip the maul while dragging the log into place. Split and throw log with a pinch grip, repeat. :D

-SMP76

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Reverse finger walks are good. Just do finger walking behind your head. Although I think a sledge is too much weight.

You might want to PM some of the boards sledge masters if you want tips in improving your sledge work. Slim "The Hammer Man" comes to mind...

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One of Brookfield's tips was an exercise with a sledge that looked interesting. It was briefly discussed in some back posts a while ago. Looked like he was holding the sledge like a two handed sword and was circling it.

Jon@han

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I've tried that Brookfield Tip. I like it.

You just hold the sledgehammer with two hands out in front of you and start drawing circles in the air. Anyone who's picked up a sledge knows how difficult this exercise is. I find it works the thumb side of my wrists better than front levering, an action which I find awkward sometimes. And it keeps constant tension on the wrists. If you can ever twirl a sledge around with one hand (like Brookfield suggested for a challenge) then you've got yourself some strong wrists.

As far as other sledge exercises go, I also like levering down towards my face. I like how it works the pinky side of my wrists and there's extra incentive to move the sledge... i don't want to smash my face!

And try sledgehammer tosses. Brookfield had that as a tip one month as well, and I've seen it on Bender's page. Just toss the sledge from hand to hand at a slight angle. I'd suggest doing this outside, otherwise a misgrab might put a hole through your floor.

I've never tried a "hulk smash" workout, but I seem to recall someone on the board doing a similar workout with a sledge and a large truck tire. They would hit the truck tire repeated, which would give some bounce back. This way, you get the workout without having to deal with a pile of gravel.

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#1 Hulk Smash, place saftey glasses on, find a pile of large rocks, and reduce them to a pile of small usable gavel bits. As your endurance improves make the begining pile larger and make the end pile more refined

Nice, my grandfather actually used that method for roughly 6-8 hours a day during some periods making roads on his farm, making suitable gravel from the big rocks, using his 25 pounds very large sledgehammer, but he got a bit tired from such stuff the last years, after he was 80 :rock

Support grip was trained well with carrying large logs to the road for further shipment home. Logs that I wasn't able close to being able to budge... (hopefully I would have been able to do that now though)

If I ever get hands close to what his was even at 80 I will be very proud, thankfully I have lots of time left for that. I really need a lot of improvement, heavy manual labor many years is very very effective for making strong hands!

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I have a 4'x6' rubber mat in my back yard, and I put a piece of ply wood over it and sledge it, or just sledge the rubber mat, increasing intensity slowly until its high, then decreasing it back down. I like to spend about 5-10 minutes hitting away.

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I am thinking of taking an 8lb sledge to my buddy's forge and welding a 2" thick piece of pipe to it for a handle then see how the Hulk Smash works out. I will let you know and try to get some pictures when it's finished.

-SMP

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Several members used the "report to mod" link because it was going off topic and it was political (the corresponding posts were removed by the mods). Remember, this IS the gripboard and let's stick to grip.

Thank you and back to SLEDGE HAMMERS which is what this thread was about.

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