Training with Omnibell
Benefits of Training With a Steel Mace:
What differentiates mace training from other "primal" forms of functional fitness, such as kettlebell or steel club training, is the mace's highly uneven distribution of weight. The long, narrow rod serves two purposes:
- Variable Grip Options: The long rod makes it easy to change your grip position from exercise to exercise, altering the difficulty of each movement.
- Facilitates Movements That Engage the Core: The longer rod extends the distance between your body and the weighted end, making it a great tool for swinging, twisting, and pressing exercises where core engagement and control are critical.
When you incorporate mace bell training into your regular routine, you're likely to experience the following benefits:
Improved Grip Strength
Grip strength—a combination of hand, finger, and forearm strength—is an often-overlooked aspect of most fitness programs. But if you think about it, grip strength is fundamental to just about everything you do.
For instance, rock climbers can't ascend a challenging route without impressive grip strength, baseball players can't effectively swing a bat without the ability to hang onto and control the bat's trajectory, and even basic weight training exercises—pull-ups, curls, deadlifts, and rows—all require grip strength to hold onto the complimentary bar.
Because of the mace bell’s uneven distribution of weight, swinging it requires a strong grip. Repeated swinging, especially over the course of weeks and months, can increase your grip strength to considerable level.
Strong and Healthy Shoulders
The shoulder girdle is the least stable joint in the entire body, making it susceptible to injury. And anyone who's ever experienced shoulder pain can attest that it wreaks havoc on a workout routine.
When you swing a steel mace with the proper form through a full range of motion, you can increase the strength of the muscles and connective tissue surrounding the shoulder joint while simultaneously increasing your shoulder flexibility.
The key here is proper form. It's a good idea to work with a trainer to master the movement before starting a routine on your own. You may also want to start with a light mace to ensure you don't use it incorrectly or place too much stress on your joints.
Total Body Strength and Cardiovascular Conditioning
While the obvious benefit of using a steel mace is upper body strength (including grip strength), the mace can also be used for total body conditioning. Like a kettlebell, certain mace bell exercises, such as the climber squat or barbarian squat lend themselves to lower-body strength training.
Similarly, various mace exercises can drastically increase heart rate for an excellent cardiovascular benefit. The mace lends itself nicely to high-intensity interval training workouts.
Rotational Core Strength
Many mace bell exercises, such as the steel mace paddle boarding exercise, require cross-body swinging motions that require extensive core engagement, particularly of the obliques. This is further amplified by the uneven distribution of weight along the steel mace, which requires greater core engagement to control. The result is an excellent core and oblique workout that improves overall core strength.
Static Strength with ligament & tendon conditioning
Also known as yielding isometric exercises where you just hold out the weight in various positions at different height or distance from your body. There are numerous variants of these exercises that can be performed with the mace and due to the length of the handle, you would be extremely challenged to ever max out on most of those if holding the mace closer to the end of the handle. Some well known examples for developing exceptional shoulder strength are the “Iron Cross” (lateral) and “Hammer of Thor” (frontal) hold-outs.
Quick tutorial showing the easiest and fastest method of loading/unloading your Omnibell mace: