I love Indian clubs for my warm-ups.
If you can incorporate Indian clubs into your warm-ups, you’d be so much better off for it.
There’s a lot of good prehab work you can do with Indian clubs before you get into your main workouts.
These are only about half a kilo, which is about 1 pound, so they don’t need to be heavy.
The first drill I like to do is outside wrist rolls. We’re going to start in the order position.
This is your order position with the club, and then from here, we’ve got this in a hammer grip.
There are two grips to be aware of mainly with club training. The first one is the hammer grip, which is a neutral wrist.
When I say neutral, it’s just in perfect alignment as if you’re going to throw a punch. It’s straight all the way through, not extended, not flexed, just straight. You have four fingers against the handle and a little pinky against the pommel. That’s your hammer grip.
The other grip to be aware of later on is the saber grip. The saber grip is for when you’re casting it out to the side or down.
We’re just going to use the hammer grip here. Shoulder down and packed down basically means don’t shrug. This is a ball-and-socket joint; it’s much stronger in its socket. If it’s up here, it will be in a compromised position. If it’s down in the socket, supported by chest and lats, it’s in a strong position. Shoulder packed down, 90° elbow here, wrist is straight.
All we do then is roll the club forward into a 180 position. As you can see here, the palm is facing the sky, fingers pointing forward, and I’m gripping the handle between the thumb and the hand. I’ll just do that again, letting it roll forward into the 180 position.
Then I use that momentum to come over and do a full 360.
So, I’ll put that together from there to there. Just practice this one to start with, this is your forward outside wrist roll. You can do 10 or 20 of these.
When you feel comfortable, we will go the opposite direction. This time, we go back towards the body, doing the same thing, dropping into the 180 position. The palm faces up, fingers pointing forward, gripping the handle between the thumb and the hand, and then a full rotation.
Again, get about 10 or 20 of these in to practice the movement. The more you do these, the more ability and range of motion you’ll get through the wrists, and it will become easier over time. It’s not going to be perfect the first time, but each time you come back, it will be a little bit easier.
For my warm-ups, I do 10 forward and 10 back, counting forward and back as one rep. I do this up to 10 reps, then switch to the left side and proceed to the next movement. Those are your outside wrist rolls.
