Hammer your way to awesome power

Fitness training and exercise in general can sometimes get boring. It’s the same old, same old jogging, push-ups and weight training — again and again. But not this time.

In today’s video my good friend Coach Kevin Kearns will show you two great ways to use sledgehammers to develop awesome power throughout your body.

Sledgehammers 1 – Swing to Squat

The “swing to squat” exercise works your shoulder complex, forearms, legs and core at same time.

Stand with feet apart and arm by your sides. You can hold the hammers at their ends if you like. The lower you hold them the more difficult the exercise and more intense the effort of the grip and forearms. So if you do not have strong hands, forearms and shoulders, you may like to choke-up a bit and hold the hammers closer to their functional ends.

Swing the sledgehammers up with both arms, stopping at shoulder height with hammers pointing upward.

From here you will squat down and then stand back up.

Now drop the hammers down to the starting position, raise them, squat and repeat.

Be sure to do each part in sequence, with a brief pause between movements to ensure proper posture.

20 or 30 reps is a goal to reach and I the process you will notice dramatic changes in the way your body handles weight, opens up and expands.

Sledgehammers 2 – The Iron-T

The Iron –T exercise is great for shoulder conditioning, endurance, strength, and really opening up the shoulder complex. The shoulder and upper back get locked down by stress and limited range of motion usage on a daily basis. This exercise does much to move the shoulders in several directions (not just back and forth) while really opening up the joints and developing the musculature of the upper body.

Here, Coach Kevin is adding a lunge to the familiar dumbbell exercise. Anytime you add more muscle mass to an exercise you increase your heart rate and burn more calories. And in this case, with the addition of the lunge, there is stability training while developing leg strength.

To begin, stand upright with sledgehammers over your shoulders and behind your back.

Now take a long lung step forward with your right leg, making sure not to allow your knee to bend forward of your toes. This will place too much strain on the knee and may cause injury.

As your leg lunges forward you will bend your rear (left) leg to allow a lower bend and better balance. At the same time you will be separating your arms out to their respective sides, forming a letter T.

Then withdraw your lead foot and stand back up, returning to the starting position with hammers behind our back.

Now step out and lunge forward with your left leg, bending your right knee, while again extending your arms out to their respective sides. The hammers will be held upright and your arms and body will make a letter T.

Return to standing, start position again. The more times you lung out the harder the exercise gets. One lunging T with each leg is considered to be one repetition. So try to start with one set of 10 reps and build up from there. As Coach Kevin tell s us, 20 or 30 of these will rock your fitness world.

Good luck and have fun training!