Best Warmup For Steel Mace Swings

How to properly prepare your body's mobility for swings

Steel Mace Training is something that I have been very passionate about. It’s something that inspired me to begin teaching workshops starting in San Francisco, and eventually leading me across the country, to Ireland and eventually to a community in Singapore.

The thing that I began to understand better over time, through my own experiences and through teaching others, was that I and many others had limitations. I am a coach and I spend much more of my time than the average joe, working on my body. I’m afforded this because of the nature of my profession. I began to understand that when I was introducing this tool to coaches who’s Point A of shoulder, spine, or elbow mobility had constraints, that the people they’re teaching, might be starting at some different Point A.

This led me to begin thinking of this sort of training from a body first perspective.

It began to become abundantly clear that the body that I or anyone else brought to the movement would be a predictor of the outcome.

This outcome might be the look of the swing.

This outcome may be the short or long term affect of the swing on overall health. In other words, the likelihood of either a catastrophic injury or a longer term chronic injury potential could be predicted.

My mission became clearer. I must help those who are willing to take the time to truly understand the mobility requirements.

So many people will just say, “swing it more” and you’ll get better. Most of the time, these people have very little experience in Strength and Conditioning and are simply enthusiasts. The fact of the matter is that the tool became popularized more so by enthusiasts than actual Strength Coaches.

Many would argue with me about how they swing the Gada in India, but they neglect the fact that the Gada and the Steel Mace are two totally different tools. They are not made of the same materials and therefore do not act on the body in the same way.

Furthermore, the people who swing these tools in India are not often people who grew up sitting at a desk, and spend most of their adult lives working from their desks.

If you at least consider these two facts, then you may understand the flaw in this argument.

We should also come to understand the physics surrounding the lever arm and load on tissues of the elbow and shoulder joint. Depending on the constraints of the shoulders, we would want to consider the impact of the swing on the spine… especially as spine that is not good at dispersing force and load.

If we understand how tissue develops (connective vs. muscle) then we would begin to understand the volume of work done and how it impacts those tissues positively or adversely.

Considering the mace has also become a high volume sport, we should understand that in sport, the preparation isn’t simply doing the sport in high volume. Athletes refine skills and work on techniques. They prepare their body for load and stress, but they often do accessory work that has carryover to the sport. So athletes that jump and land, run and do dynamic lower body efforts do plyometrics, isometrics, etc. It stands to reason that our upper body would require similar inputs as a form of prehab/injury mitigation.

If we make these considerations we can begin to create a new understanding of how to approach Steel Mace Swings.

In this video, I show a basic starting point of taking your joints through their most fundamental movements. This is just the beginning of preparation of tissues and will pay dividends in the long run. Check it out.