Great, Dazzling, and Spectuliar was the day at CrossFit Vagabond as the troops made some huge strides in their performance. Today, the gentlemen did a Met-Con Workout that dealt with the dreaded Sandbag. The Sandbag is one of my favorite tools and I love busting it out for a workout once in awhile. The idea of the Sandbag is not to huge weight because through experiments they have found the person can only work to about 60 % of their 1 rep Max in the basic Squat/Power Clean. The boys are not ready for a strength WOD yet dealing with the Clean Movement, so I added this little tool in to hit them with some toughness. The Sandbag is not an ideal tool and does not match up to the movement of the clean. However, it is great for stability and core development. There are two main points I want to make around the Sandbag Use. First, it develops a strong grip and core strength. The Sandbag is awkard and hard to handle. So, fundamentally it develops your grip strength and also forces you to move the weight around to a comfortable position. It also develops a strong core, in which, you have to clean the bag up to your shoulder with ability to use your core and keeping it stable. The basic clean is a great movement, but the barbell is very stable, as with the sandbag it is packed with instability and develops you to use stability and technique. I was very impressed with the athletes today as they performed this movement. I also want to add in, that the girls crushed their workout and put up some very impressive rounds for their scores. They were smoked at the end and a couple of them were almost in tears. However, they got through the workout and showed some true determination during their workout. Great job Gals, and you are making me blush with envy as you make huge strides in your performance.