Socrates asked: I´ve heard that you use a sandbag as a conditioning tool. I was wondering if you mainly use adaptations of traditional exercises (clean and press and so on) or if you use it in a more “sport specific” way (wrestling moves and so on).

Steve’s answer:

I do both. The main thing about training though, whatever it is (strength, speed, reactive power) is that it’s got to be performed repetitively at the type of intensities and durations that are representative of a fight.

One way is to work for 20-30 seconds on a station, having half the time period for an active or passive rest, and then repeating that process until you complete a period of time you anticipate is your fight time. The work can be specific, non-specific or mixed. And this goes for the sandbag as well. IT’s got to be high-intensity interval work.

What I do is to reference weight training and adapt it to use with a sandbag with the idea of a fight in mind. And from the other side of it, I’ll look at a fight and see what moves or fundamental patterns I could strengthen with a sandbag. Explore those possibilities to the full. You’ve got now some references for training.

The sandbag isn’t a big important thing in my life, it’s just one tool of many which I explore the possibilities of. If you haven’t got money for expensive equipment, it’s an ideal solution. And being an irregular shape, it forces you to stabilize and use your body in many different ways.