Here at the Flow Shala, we often train with unconventional tools like steel maces, steel clubs, and RAD rollers, in addition to bodyweight drills and yoga-based movement sequences.

While you’ve likely heard tidbits in class of why these tools are so effective and integral for our training, we thought you might like to get a more comprehensive understanding of what these tools actually do to your body and movement practice.

First, let’s meet the tools!

We’re RAD Rollers! :D

We’re wayyyyyyy more cool than our tubular older siblings.

What makes these tools unique?

Good question!

These tools are unique because they’re Leveraged. A lever, in this sense, is a rigid bar pivoted around a fulcrum (point of rotation) used to transfer a force to a load, and usually to provide a mechanical advantage. Leverage is the mechanical advantage gained by the tool, which we use to learn control of our bodies’ biomechanics and develop efficiency in our everyday movements.

why is this important for training?

This is important and useful for training because the loads that we typically bear on an everyday basis (such as holding a child, carrying groceries, or hauling a package) are almost always unevenly distributed. When we bear loads that are unevenly distributed, we must use leverage in order to maintain stability.

So, training with leveraged tools allows us to develop strength and stability in movement patterns that are unfamiliar and typically throw us off balance.

The steel mace is a great example of how this shows up in our bodies: When you pick up a steel mace, the seemingly light weight of the tool pulls you off balance because the mass is concentrated away from your body, at the end of the tool. The challenge presented by this uneven weight distribution quickly makes it apparent that the weight you must control is far greater than a mere 5-10 pounds.

What does this do to your body?

These awkward tools stimulate your nervous system and provide feedback that cause you to activate core and stabilizer muscles that are typically sleepy or completely inactive. Training with leveraged tools helps us learn how to utilize torque.

Torque is external rotation in a ball and socket joint (shoulders and hips) and creates stability in the surrounding muscle groups (glutes & rotator cuff), and also recruits the strength of your deep inner core. The feedback created by these tools essentially forces us to draw awareness to the entirety of our structures and utilize torque and core strength in order to not fall over or be pulled off balance by these top heavy tools.

The torque required to wield these tools also helps us develop strength in the joints themselves as well as their rotator muscles. This is due to the traction on the joints that happens when the tools are swung through each of the ranges of motion in the ball and socket joint.

Which brings us to our next point ~ the 3 T’s!

Torque, traction, & Tri-Planar Movement

The trifecta of the three t’s is what makes these tools so beneficial for developing functional strength that helps you with your everyday movements. We already talked about torque & traction, so let’s dive into tri-planar movement.

Tri-Planar means 3 planes - sagittal, frontal, and transverse.

While everyday movements exist for us in each of these three planes, we rarely go through these planes with force in our movements. Bearing uneven loads will typically push us around these 3 planes of movement, but our muscles have usually been conditioned to compensate to bear the load, rather than perform with optimal function.

Because leveraged tools are swung through these 3 planes of movement, our muscles are able to develop strength in more functional patterns and unwind the compensation patterns that sedentary habits (like sitting all day at work) create.

The key here is the swinging motion performed with these tools.

Swinging these top-heavy tools is an action that forces us to respond physically in order to stay balanced and prevent injury. When we create torque to stabilize our limbs as we swing these tools, the force from the swing simultaneously creates traction in the joints.

This dual-action of force in the joints lengthens and strengthens the connective tissue in and around the joints, allowing you to develop strength in the entire range of motion of the joint and increase your range of motion and mobility in the joint, given the lengthening that happens through the swing.

Because this force also gives you no choice but to recruit your deep inner core to stay in one place, you also develop rotational core strength and even out imbalances created by being dominant on one side of the body.

Mark Wildman gives a fantastic articulation of these forces below:

Long-Term Benefits

So, now that we’ve covered why we train with these tools and how they affect your training differently than conventional weights, let’s talk about the changes you’ll start to see in your body and everyday movements when you train with these re-calibration tools.

Coordination -
Successive chain of orderly and structured movements that allow the technical execution of a sport or activity. You’ll find yourself more coordinated in your day-to-day movements, especially those that involve added layers of complexity or carrying something.
Agility -
The ability of the human body to change direction in a specific movement, with the greatest possible efficiency. You’ll find that your day-to-day movements that involve challenge or complexity become easier because your nervous system has had to learn how to control leveraged tools and you’ve developed efficiency in your body’s functional movement patterns. You’ll understand how to adapt your movements in a manner that protects your structure and avoid injury.
Precision/Alignment -
Stacking bones for optimum biomechanics. You’ll find yourself more intuitively adept to move with fluidity and ease in other movement modalities that you practice and in daily activities. You’ll find yourself naturally moving in a manner that protects your joints and utilizes your muscles efficiently, rather than creating or moving within compensatory patterns. You’ll especially find yourself more aware of what your shoulders are doing when you reach for things or do anything with your arms (i.e. putting something away on a shelf or opening a door).
Proprioception -
The ability to sense where our limbs and body are in space at any given time. You’ll find greater awareness of your body at all times, but especially when you’re doing something that involves bearing a load or potentially creates a strain. The full-body awareness and efficiency you’ve been developing will further help protect you from injury and ensure that you’re able to maintain awareness of your core strength and torque in the legs when you’re moving something heavy or you miss a step on the stairs.
Core Stability -
Endurance of the deep inner core musculature (TVA, pelvic floor, internal/external obliques, paraspinals). You’ll find yourself more aware of the layers of your deep inner core and how to control them, as well as how this translates to stability in your movement (Spoiler Alert: a six-pack is not indicative of good core stability!). Most of us aren’t aware of the complexities core stability and how this shows up in our movements. As a result, we typically lose balance or compensate with other muscles when we move through the 3 planes of motion. Swinging leveraged tools will help you build awareness of how to maintain integrity in the core and protect your limbs from injury when you need to adapt your movement patterns to efficiently move through space.
Dynamic Flexibility -
The ability to go to end range of motion with control. The feedback you receive from swinging leveraged tools will help you understand your true range of motion and gradually increase it as your tissues adapt to the movements that you take them through in your training. The strengthening & lengthening action that happens in the joints from the traction of the tools will help you overcome restriction in your body, unwind residual tension, and increase your movement capability in areas where you’re building new awareness.
Strength -
The ability to exert force. As you train with these leveraged tools and your nervous system begins to recalibrate your movements to optimize biomechanics, you’ll build functional strength and be able to bear unevenly distributed loads with ease. Rather than focusing on bulking up and increasing the volume of superficial muscles, you’ll build strength in the entire body and find more ease in your daily life, as the strength that your building will help you stay balanced and avoid creating new compensation patterns.
Endurance -
The ability to do more anaerobic and aerobic work. You’ll find that you have more energy when you need to exert yourself because you’re unwinding compensatory movement patterns and building functional strength that brings awareness to how to use your entire body, rather than expending all your energy by focusing on one muscle to perform a given movement.
Balance -
The ability to maintain an upright stance. All of the aforementioned benefits come together to help you maintain balance when you add complexity to your movements. The act of swinging a leveraged tool will pull you off balance unless you draw your awareness to your structure and mechanisms to prevent that. Because you’re constantly resisting being pulled off balance when you train with leveraged tools, your nervous system adapts to perform in that manner on a regular basis. You’ll find yourself more aware of what muscles you need to fire and better able to maintain balance when a daily activity presents a movement that would normally throw you off balance.
Posture -
The position in which someone holds their body/spine when standing or sitting. Because training with leveraged tools helps to unwind residual tension from stagnant activity and build strength and mobility throughout your structure (especially in the spinal erectors, which are part of the deep inner core), you’ll find that your shoulders are more open and that restrictions or compensation patterns that affect your posture gradually return to their natural state. In addition, you’ll be more aware of what your body is doing in general and find yourself correcting bad posture to match the form required for safe training with leveraged tools.
Power -
The ability to move weight with speed. As you develop efficiency in your movements and the action of the 3 T’s shows up in your body, you’ll eventually be able to move with more ease and fluidity and work your way up to heavier weights and more complex movements. As this happens, you’ll find yourself utilizing this efficiency and strength in the form of power. These are ancient weapons, after all.

Flow State

Another central theme of training with these leveraged tools and what sets them apart from other training protocols is their ability to cultivate flow state.

Flow state is a mental state of hypo frontality where energized focus and involvement in the present moment characterize one’s concentration. Aspects of flow can appear independently of each other, but in combination they foster the optimal experience of flow. These aspects are the following:

You intensely focus concentration on the present moment
You merge action and awareness
You lose timidity, hesitation, and self-consciousness
You sense personal control and confidence over your world
You warp your experience of time, so all things slow down and become possible
You experience a feeling of being intrinsically rewarded, gratified, and fulfilled

Gradually learning the mechanics of swinging leveraged tools cultivates awareness around how your body moves through space and how working with the mechanisms of your structure helps you move efficiently and stay resilient.

Beginning with foundational awareness of the 3 T’s and integrating these slowly as your training builds in complexity allows you to blueprint these movements into your nervous system. By training in this gradual manner and using this as a means to re-calibrate your nervous system and your bodies movement patterns, you’re eliciting a flow state response and empowering yourself to elicit this response in all areas of your life where this mental state is useful (Hint: Flow State is always useful!).

What about the RAD Rollers?

Clearly, these aren’t leveraged tools that will help you build functional strength; However, they will help you increase your mobility, range of motion, and awareness around the muscles your training, as well as your awareness of your fascia.

As you know, recovery is an extremely important part of training and re-calibrating. A recovery method that’s extremely complementary to training with leveraged tools is self-myofascial release.

Myofascia, or simply fascia, is connective tissue that holds together your bones, skin, and muscles. Think of it as a continuous web or crystalline structure that holds everything in your body together.

This is precisely why it’s so important: Because connective tissue is a continuous structure, adhesions or restriction in one site can cause other sites to be restricted or cause a compensation pattern. Self-myofascial release helps to break up these adhesions and restore mobility. It also acts as an additional feedback tool that helps you blueprint the new neuromuscular connections and full-body awareness that training with unconventional tools helps you cultivate.

It’s a package deal!

So, there you have it. We’re not training with these unconventional tools to be flashy or be the next thing (though, we can’t complain about the formidable image that we cultivate for ourselves by training with ancient weapons), we train with these unconventional tools to help you understand your body, prevent injuries, make everyday movements easier, strengthen your entire body, and improve your quality of life.

We believe that everyone can be an athlete and that strength training is beneficial for everyone. Not just to build muscle mass, but to make your life easier and to reduce pain that the majority of us deal with that’s cultivated by modern stressors.

We believe that knowledge is power, and when that power translates to understanding your body and moving through your life in a way that makes you feel good and access flow state, true transformation is possible.

Hear from head coach, Summer Huntington, founder of Clubbell Yoga & Steel Mace Vinyasa about her take on training with Clubbells!

Interested in nerding out with Coach Summer & Coach Mark?

Check out our upcoming workshop & retreat dates for longer, immersive training experiences.

We are also still accepting applications to our next SMV Teacher Training cohort!

Unconventional Tools - Why do we train with them?