Ye Ole Macebell

Look at that picture for awhile. Doesn't he blow your mind? I bet he killed that cat with his macebell. Oh, "he" is the Great Gama. Or was. I'll spare you his story since I was just going to copy and paste from Wikipedia, and then further embellish with stories of wars against unicorns and bros. He was a man's man that's for sure. 

I first became aware of the macebell/gada when reading Rosstraining.com. I'm a big fan of DIY workout equipment and his site has been a tremendous resource. In one of his DIY articles he had a link to the instructions for a homemade macebell. It took me a little bit (as in, a couple months) to fully understand the greatness of Steve Maxwell. I would love to train with that guy sometime.

The macebell is an incredible tool. It's great for circular strength (for your shoulders) and your grip. On top of that you can almost work every muscle group with it. You can perform circuits of overhead presses, rows, floor presses, pull overs, offset overhead squats, and all of the other traditional and not-traditional macebell exercises. This will really test your grip and forearm strength. This little thing called "leverage" is everything with the macebell. You can increase or decrease the difficulty of a movement by changing the position of your hands. You can hop on youtube and watch one of the many vids. 

I was intrigued, and decided to use my superior rush-into-action-prior-to-thinking-things-through skills and make one. In north Dallas there is an Academy and Home Depot in the same parking lot. What a great combination. 

Supplies:

1 broomstick pole (i found a 60", ended up sawing about 12" off of it)

1 10lb bucket of Quikrete
1 small ball of sorts (I found a basketball on clearance at Academy for $2.99)
A couple nails

First task was to shorten the broomstick some and drive some nails into the end. Theory being they will help keep the concrete ball on the end of your smooth stick. Then you cut a hole in the ball like so:

Next you add water into the bucket of Quikrete and stir. Once the desired consistency is reached you start shovelling it into the ball. I strongly suggest you make sure you compact the concrete once filled. If that ball isn't truly filled and there are "air spots" the concrete will have cracks and more than likely less structurally sound. I'm not a gymnast, Maury, so I don't know for sure. 

Once the ball is filled entirely (the whole mixture should fit) stick your, uh, stick in it. 

I had to let it sit overnight for it to dry completely. I think it had something to do with the weather, because I made a second one and it was good to go after 5 or 6 hours.

The result of the above instructions is on the right. The one on the left was my Father's Day gift to myself. It's around 20lbs and uses a thicker shovel handle. Unfortunately I haven't gotten to play with it much since a) I'm really not ready for it and b) I've been hurt.

After spending the last few hours typing this out (Cowboys are on, I'm distracted) I came to the realization that I didn't first become intrigued with the macebell on Rosstraining. It was on Mark's Daily Apple. My above prose is beyond fantastic, and what I said about RT.com is true so I decided not to spend another few seconds deleting and re-typing. So I spent a few seconds typing all of this out. Whatever.

Enjoy the macebell if you decide to make one. I strongly suggest you do make one as it'll revolutionize your world and make you feel like a barbarian. Or a large Hindu wrestler.