Everyday Systems: shovelglove: message 195 of 649

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Hi Willie,

I have two tiny problems with ducting on other weight,
one mechanical, the other psychological.

The mechanical: one of my goals in constructing this
device was "not to kill my cats." I can imagine all
too vividly the duct tape coming loose and little
lethal fishing weights flying all over the place.
Maybe you could duct it securely enough so that this
wouldn't actually happen, but there's no way you could
do it so I wouldn't constantly be worrying about it.
Also, I think that once your body is really used to a
certain weight you are less likely to injure yourself.
Changing the weight around frequently might
dangerously confuse it.

The psychological: futzing with weights can be a
distraction, you can get dangerously obsessed with
progress. It's dangerous both physically because
you'll be tempted to do just a *little* too much, and
mentally, because you'll get frustrated as you
plateau. It sounds like the latter has been a problem
for you personally in the past, so you need to be
especially careful. There is a great range of workout
that you can get with a single weight sledge. In the
beginning, it's a bit too heavy, you need to take it
super slow, some moves will be awkward, others maybe
not even possible. It took me a good year to go from
plodding, clumsy and limited movements to swift,
graceful (if that word can be applied to sledgehammer
use) and varied with my initial 12 pounder. Going to
the 16 pounder wasn't *such* a jump because I did it
gradually, for just a few movements, with fewer reps,
doing the rest with the 12 pounder.

Shovelglove is less about "maximum workout" than about
creating a routine that you will actually,
consistently do over the long haul because it is
interesting and doesn't suck up too much of your time.
Don't let workout maximization distract you from this
most important goal.

That being said, the fishing weights is an interesting
(and amusing) idea. If your duct tape skills are up to
it and you think you can handle point #2, go for it.
Glad to hear shovelglove is working for you otherwise.

Reinhard
--- williegreen13 <gharman13@...> wrote:

> Hi guys,
> 
> I am new to this forum but it seems to me instead of
> going out and 
> buying a new sledge hammer, why not just add
> incremental weights? 
> You can buy 1/2 lb fishing weights or 1lb dumbbell
> weights for less 
> than a dollar. You can even get those wrist/ankle
> weights wrap them 
> around the sledge and duct tape them on. That way
> you can go up 1/2 
> lb every few months to gradually build up to a
> bigger sledgehammer. 
> Put them in a sock and duct tape them to the hammer.
> Use enough 
> duct tape and I can tell you from personal
> experience you can hold a 
> 25lb plate on the thing. (I did it with a 25lb plate
> and baseball 
> bat a long time ago, don't ask).
> 
> I haven't had time to look through all of the
> messages so if this 
> has been mentioned before, please ignore me.
> 
> I found the website a month ago and have been doing
> this every non S 
> day without fail. Before this, exercise had become
> something that 
> was very inconsistent. My biggest problem has
> always been focusing 
> on progression and how to make my workouts harder
> and harder. I 
> ended up dreading exercise and coming up with
> excuses. Focusing on 
> 14 minutes and knowing that my intensity will be
> high some days and 
> low others has made all of the difference.
>