Ultimate Sandbag Workouts for Movement Strength

Late in January our DVRT Master instructors came to me with an interesting idea. They wanted to dedicated February as an opportunity to show some of our uniqueness of Ultimate Sandbag workouts by featuring DVRT flows. I thought it was intriguing, but I also found myself having some hesitation.

If you aren’t familiar, our Ultimate Sandbag workouts that feature flows are where we take on Ultimate Sandbag exercise and as the name implies, have it flow into another. You may be familiar with people doing this with bodyweight exercises, or even kettlebells, so why would I be hesitant at all when it came doing so with our Ultimate Sandbag workouts?

Believe it or not, I actually hear more commentary from a lot of professionals than most may realize. Now, I don’t put stock into everything I hear, but if I hear something come about consistently, or from very reputeble sources I have to at least think about them.

In the past, while I have always enjoyed Ultimate Sandbag workouts with flows, if you have never performed one it may look a bit odd. At times I have even heard some professionals call it, “dancing with sandbags”.

Sure, that is of course a bit short sighted or lacks the open mind we like to think people have, but it is somewhat reality. When I agreed that a month of Ultimate Sandbag workouts featuring our flows could be something really cool, I wanted to make sure we also accomplished two other goals.

The first which is most important to all our Ultimate Sandbag workouts was to explain the “why’s”. Flows are probably one of the best reflections of real world fitness and strength training. That is due to the fact they have unique elements such as learning fluidity of movement, acceleration/deceleration typically moving more than just up and down, elements of mobility and stability while still producing force, and most of all looking efficient while doing so!

I often think of Ultimate Sandbag workouts with flows as the culmination of putting all the foundational concepts of good movement strength together. They possess so many great qualities that they should be a no brainer especially because they can be a very effective means of performing high intensity training as well.

Sounds pretty good right? However, the other aspect I wanted to highlight in regards to these Ultimate Sandbag workouts was that they aren’t always done with light weight. In fact, like all forms of strength training, we want to use as much load as we can handle with good form.

This means that depending upon the exercises within the flow we can use some pretty impressive weights. In the world of Ultimate Sandbag workouts that really does more than just make something heavier. The larger the Ultimate Sandbag, the more unstable they become therefore making flows more challenging not just from a weight perspective, but instability as well.

With all these great benefits we still have to answer probably the biggest question, how does one use these flows for their Ultimate Sandbag workouts? I typically suggest two options. The first being they can be a whole workout in of themselves. Depending upon the number of exercises in the flow (the load as well) I will usually aim to hit around 5 total reps of a flow. Stealing this idea from Coach Dos, I will actually time how long it took me to do so. The time it took me to perform the flow is the time I get to rest before repeating. That ensures me a good work to rest ratio and still being purposeful with my training.
Another option is to use as a finisher of a workout. This will typically mean lighter loads and placing emphasis on movements or patterns that weren’t done during the main part of the workout. For these types of Ultimate Sandbag workouts I like to use time. Due to the number of exercises and movements in the flow I like longer periods.

For example, 30, 40, or even 60 seconds of work is good. I’ll match that with equal rest to again, not compromise quality or go into weird sandbag jazzercise type of work.

Flows can be a wonderful way to maximize Ultimate Sandbag workouts. You can learn so much about your strengths as well as weaknesses through them. Using flows also seems a bit more natural than how many train in the gym. The idea of building coordination, fluidity, while building strength and conditioning just seems to, excuse the pun, flow together more naturally.

Try out some of these DVRT flows in your next Ultimate Sandbag workouts and see if you can feel the power of these movements and thank our awesome DVRT Master coaches for so many great ideas!

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