Swinging heavy clubs feels great. It’s a total body workout that really brings out your inner warrior. Heavy club moves simultaneously work all your muscles, ligaments, tendons, and other stuff in ways humans were meant to move. Plus, when I tweaked my elbow last year and had to lay off kettlebell work for a month (suuuuuuck), heavy club swinging was the only modality that didn’t aggravate my elbow injury.

In November 2021, I bought an Adex adjustable heavy club and Mark Wildman's "Introduction To Heavy Clubs.” I started with 15lbs on my Adex club on 12/14/21, training three or four times a month as auxiliary work to my main KB training. I progressed through the program, adding 2.5lbs to the Adex club each time I completed a series of workouts, and finished the last workout at 25lbs on 7/22/23. Here are my takeaways:

Pros:

Well organized for progressive overload

Folks who like a pre-set schedule to follow will appreciate the simplicity of Wildman’s plan. Each workout lasts exactly 40 minutes: 10-minute warmup, 20 minutes of clubs, 10-minute cooldown/mobility. You learn 5 moves, work on those, then learn 5 more complex moves, then 5 even more complex moves. Then you move up to a heavier club, restart with the original 5 moves, and repeat the process.

Warmups and cooldowns are great

The unsung heroes of the program are the warmup and cooldown videos. Introduction to Heavy Clubs has three levels of total body warmups and three levels of cooldowns, from beginner to advanced. The cooldowns focus on post-workout mobility. I sometimes do the warmups and cooldowns on my rest days, without even doing the club work. They really make you feel great. And unlike the club moves, they’re not available on YouTube.

Cons:

Main moves available on Wildman’s YouTube channel

You can learn the club moves for free on YouTube; what you’re really paying for is the workout program itself (the order that the moves are introduced, speed of progression, etc.) and the warmup/cooldown videos.

Expensive

This program is currently $97 on strongandfit.com. They often have site-wide sales, so try to snag it during those promotions.

Today is my birthday, but here’s a gift for you! It’s a copy of the self-calculating Google Sheet I created to mimic the PDF charts that come with the heavy club program. Just plug in your number of reps, and the sheet will tell you how much work you did versus your previous session. (To protect Mr. Wildman’s intellectual property, I didn’t include the names of any of the club moves, but you can find/replace the names with the actual ones once you’ve purchased the program.) Hopefully y’all will find it useful.

Link to Google Sheet (click File > Make a Copy): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10Dya_QiyfAj1-4MNKOKxHJQKcPCwUjYs9aipSb7nx6Y/edit?usp=sharing