The Sandbag Advantage: Why Training with a Sandbag is Good for Your Soul

When you step into the fitness world, there are a lot of options - overwhelmingly so. Even those who have made physical exercise a life-long priority often come to plateaus and moments of questioning the process.

Resistance training is a foundational element to the pursuit of strength in learning how to resist the forces that work against us. Acquiring skills with the tools of the trade (cables, free weights, bands and barbells) may be a part of this learning process, but technique can bury you.

This is not to say that technique is not important. Good movement must be the pillar of human health. But the meticulous breakdown of exercise to disparate pieces has scattered the core principle of human movement - this body is ultimately one thing.

Lifting, carrying and moving with odd-objects is natural to our human nature. For most of human history we have carried logs, stones and the fruit of our labor and have evolved thus far. Yet somehow in this evolution, we have also become so far separated from even ourselves - we have made so efficient the manners of forward progress that we've stopped doing the hard things ourselves. Doing hard things is not easy, but it is simple.

Sandbag training is simple. Cutting away the frills of popular exercise and the shine of building glamour, the process of learning to handle an unpredictable thing is actually already natural to you. As much as we have learned to steward and manage, our most basic human condition is knowing that we are not in control of it all. You may need to relearn this truth, but the core of who you are is grounded in this fact.

Here are some of our top reasons why we love sandbag training:

Sandbag movements are generally easier to learn. Barbell movements can take months to coordinate and years to master, yet it can take a matter of minutes to safely and effectively learn how to move a bag of sand. This makes sandbags a more inclusive tool to the general fitness community and a quicker on-ramp to training with intensity.

The asymmetrical loading of a bag leads to greater core training. The anti-flexion resistance of a sandbag is significantly greater than that of a barbell which translates to better core activation. The unpredictability of a bag can help fill the gaps of an otherwise very controlled environment created by machines, kettlebells, barbells and dumbbells.

It’s functional. It’s much more likely that you are going to lift something that mimics an awkward, misshapen bag of sand in real life than a perfectly loaded, collared barbell. When it comes to a truly functional and “human” movement, training with a sandbag is King. Movement should predicate exercise.

It's safer. The way your core activates with a center-loaded versus an outside-loaded (such as loaded barbell) weight can naturally lend itself to safer movement, reduced risk of injury or bodily stress and even promote better breathing mechanics. This leads to decreased negative stress on the nervous system for optimized states of wellness and health.

They will expose you. The shifty and unstable nature of a sandbag requires full attention and coordination of your body, so it makes identifying weaknesses or imbalances a more self evident process. This sort of awareness may protect you from future injury, recover from chronic pain or increase athletic performance.

A sandbag allows for a greater diversity of training. Sandbags are great for holds, carries, and movements within the frontal plane (side to side) and transverse plane (rotation and anti-rotation) versus the sagittal plane (up and down) that tends to dominate popular exercise. Again, this can help fill the voids left in most people’s training routines to help avoid injury and optimize athletic performance across all fields.

They're affordable. Making full use of a barbell requires plates, racks, clips, benches and even protective equipment such as floor mats. Sand is free (at the beach) or at least purchased very cheap and just a few weight varieties can give you options for a full spectrum of movements and exercise modalities. Financial concerns shouldn't be what stand between you and conditioned strength.

Life isn’t perfect and neither are sandbags. They’re awkward and uncomfortable which is exactly the vital variable needed for a successful training system. Imperfect elements are paramount to the learning process and growth.

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it." - Lena Horne