MRT Ultimate Sandbag Workouts

DVRT Master, Amanda Thebe (FitnChips.com)

There is a certain amount of irony in this post, as I sit here in the aftermath of one of America’s biggest storms Hurricane Harvey, with flooding all around me, knowing that the workout I am sharing with you all is using the Ultimate Sandbag Training Water Filler.

We moved to Houston four weeks ago and are staying in temporary accommodation and I have no access to my personal gym equipment. I did however packed with me my core bag and water filler, which I have to say is one of my finer moments. As most of you reading this know, I am a DVRT Master Trainer for Ultimate Sandbag but have rarely used the water filler and boy did it open my eyes.

The difference between the more compact sand and the very fluid water is so great that it’s almost like working with a new type of training tool. For this workout I required much more core control and stability, I really had to dig deep to stop that water slushing around and knocking me off my feet. My glute med, the smaller glute at the topside of your butt, was burning by the end of the session. Training the gluteus medius should be an essential part of your training, there is an exhaustive list of the movements it is responsible for and it is also so important to prevent lower back pain. I really like this quote from strength coach, Mike Boyle.

“The truth is that glutes are essential to survival. Low back pain expert Professor Stuart McGill , author of Low Back Disorders, describes the loss of glute strength and size as gluteal amnesia and goes on to implicate lack of strength in the glutes for the debilitating back pain that afflicts so many. The cure for gluteal amnesia is an addanasstomy. The truth is we sit too much, we take too many elevators, we skip too many stairs. The result…Loss of glute function and the relative disappearance of the bodies most vital muscle. Then to top it off we go to the gym and do what? Of course, we work on our upper body. No wonder everyone’s back hurts.”

What is MRT?

OK back to the DVRT MRT Workout, what is MRT you might ask? The term has been floating around for some time now, but it was Coach Dos Remedios that really brought Metabolic Resistance Training (MRT) to prominence in his many articles, with Josh Henkin now making this an integral part of DVRT Ultimate Sandbag workouts. MRT is a form of interval training where the period of work time is equal to or less than the rest time, for example;

30 secs work/30 secs rest
15 secs work/45 secs rest

The reason that you need to keep work period less than or equal to the rest period, is so that you can power through safe movements with a heavy load to fatigue, before technique breaks down. Now my water bag wasn’t as heavy as I would normally have used for this methodology, but because of the variability of the load, I did in fact reach fatigue during the work period.

You want your heart rate to reach your 90 – 95% anaerobic threshold.
The wonderful thing about this type of training is that you are improving your cardiovascular capacity, who would think that lifting could be cardio!

How does this look in our Ultimate Sandbag workouts?

Here are two Ultimate Sandbag workouts for you. For the first workout I picked two exercises that I knew would get my heart rate spiking, I performed these back to back for 24 rounds in total.

DVRT MRT Training 1

DVRT Shovelling
DVRT Reverse Lunge to Overhead Press 30 secs work/30 secs rest
Total work time 24 mins.

DVRT MRT Training 2

DVRT Shovelling
DVRT Reverse Lunge to Overhead Press
DVRT MAX Crossover Lunge to Lateral Deadlift (r)
DVRT High Pull
DVRT MAX Crossover Lunge to Lateral Deadlift (l)
Lateral Beast Crawls
30 secs work/30 secs rest
Total work time 24 mins.

Here are the videos of each exercise in these Ultimate Sandbag workouts: