Premier Fitness Blog

The Benefits Of Sandbag Training

4.12.21

One major benefit when training with a sandbag is improved stability. With the sandbags, stability is often a challenge as the sand shifts with every movement. Known as dynamic resistance, these shifts impact our ability to stabilize the sandbag throughout our training. By using body stabilizers not always used in other movements, sandbag training will strengthen your core and hips above all. By strengthening these areas, all of your other training movements should be improved as an extra bonus!

Beyond stability, overall strength is also a benefit of using sandbags in your training. Because of the weight shifts and the odd shape, sandbags are much harder to move than regular dumbbells or plates. As a rule of thumb, most people should start out lifting a sandbag at 1⁄3 of their current weight and advance from there. There is really no need to go extremely heavy with sandbag training, because the factors mentioned above are already making movements more difficult.

As a bonus, people who train with sandbags are able to transfer those movements into everyday life. It is one of the few training methods that holds a direct real world application opportunity. Some movements similar to carrying a sandbag are picking up your kids, carrying grocery bags into the house, or moving bags of dirt for a landscape project. With the advantages of implementing sandbag movements into your training routine that were mentioned above, there’s really no downside. Sandbag training is challenging, can have an tremendous impact on your other daily activities, and is an overall fun style of training!