You can train in many different ways and practice methods from several eras. You can be on a machine and get something going, count reps until the cows come home on the bench until someone takes it over once you're done. Then there's the sledgehammer. A tool that just (pun intended), strikes different.
In the video below, working with a hammer isn't about looking like a pretty boy or following someone in a spin class, it's about making a killer piece of steel a part of building a powerful and strong physique that has the go along with the show. Working in unison as if you and that hammer are one. Control, Rotate & Lift as you put explosiveness into it over and over again. It's one of the reasons why Sledgehammer Training is about as bad ass as you can get
Striking with a hammer isn't always in just how the arms move. When done properly, the true power comes from the ground. Your legs, trunk and hips generate that incredible force while the arms create the guide. Scientific studies such as from the American Council on Exercise suggests that training with hammers build solid yet challenging coordination, strength, power and rotation. Emphasizing that the lower body is the engine behind it all.
Most of modern training has become or can be linear as hell. Typical push/pull/squat and all that. In and of itself they're not bad things, they are essential with great importance but us humans don't always live life moving like robots. We're meant to turn, twist, brace and chop to generate force from many angles. That's the beauty of the sledgehammer, it brings that rotation and even anti-rotation into the mix, making our core transfer all that force but also in a controlled manner.
It goes beyond what we know about ab training and not just seeing mirror muscles. It teaches to stabilize as we unleash hell.
Another is when it puts great emphasis on forearm & grip strength. Just holding the hammer isn't going to make you some wild and crazy strong dude, it's really about controlling that long lever with a heavy head pulling the hands in directions they may not want to go. Each swing demands strength in the lower arms. Ever shook the hands of a man that works with hammers? It's quite noticeable.
Conditioning is where it really starts to get good. Giving this implement a good swing in a repeated fashion, isn't just some rinky dink stroll on a machine that doesn't go anywhere, it tackles the heart rate with vast vengeance and forces your lungs to work at levels they're not used to. From the shoulders down to the legs, you have to keep producing that force. Some of the best athletes in the world understood this especially boxers and wrestlers.
The mental aspects are profound. It's practically primal in this regard. The tool, a target and the job at hand. It's not complicated, just pure unadulterated effort. It's one of the reasons why training in this capacity has great attitude. The combination of aggressiveness, conditioning, grip, strength and other things into one nasty entity of equipment. It's a bad ass without even trying to be. It doesn't automatically make you a tough son of a bitch, it just doesn't give a shit what you say online LOL.
Control the weight, generate the power and keep on trucking, or don't. Simplicity in the implement, the work, not so much. Be amazingly awesome and work on building that kind of strength that challenges the norm and gives you the type of capacity that has insane effects.
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