Indian clubs & steel maces: Why this is real strength training and not just "skill". Give it a try and you will be blown away.

Indian club training is often dismissed as light mobility work or coordination practice. Many people assume that when athletes or strongmen struggle with clubs, the issue must be skill, not strength.

This belief is understandable... but it’s not correct.

If you’ve never held a club or mace yourself, it’s easy to underestimate what these tools demand (and the demands are insane).

The confusion comes from applying the wrong definition of strength and ignoring leverage, torque, and sustained stabilization.

Let’s break this down clearly.

The Bodybuilder Experiment - And Why It Confused People

Recently, Eero shared footage of large, strong bodybuilders and strongmen trying Indian clubs and Persian meels for the first time. Many of them struggled to even hold the clubs upright.

Many of these individuals were on paper the strongest men on planet capable of lifting hundreds and hundreds of pounds and kilos.

The immediate reaction from skeptics was predictable:

“It can’t be strength. These guys are strong. It must be skill.”

At first glance, this sounds logical. A 20 kg (44 lb) club doesn’t seem unreasonable for a big, trained strongman. But this is where intuition fails.

A 20 kg Persian meel is not actually medium or light weight...

In club training, 20 kg is elite level, comparable to asking a beginner to bench press 100 kg (225 lb) on their first day. 

Why Clubs Feel Way Heavier Than They Are

The key factor people miss or don't fully understand is leverage.

With dumbbells, the weight is centered near your hand. With clubs and maces, the mass is distributed far from your grip.

This is why even small angle deviations multiply the effective load. So in reality, the resistance is far greater than people think and definitely far greater than the number you see.

A 5–6 kg (11–13 lb) club can feel shockingly demanding because the lever is long and a slight tilt can turn a manageable load into a near-maximal effort instantly.

Anyone who has tried clubs or maces feels it immediately. Even in our private Facebook group, a member stated that he could not have expected 6 kilos (12 pounds) to feel so heavy when he tried the steel mace for the first time.

Due to the shape and leverage, just balancing the clubs upright becomes something else and far more difficult than it seems.

When you hold a club:

These are muscles doing constant work. This is pure strength but it's not just one-rep-max strength.

Swinging Will Increase The Demands of Strength, Not Decrease it!

Some people accept that holding clubs requires strength, but claim that swinging turns it into pure skill. They think you are just swinging the clubs with momentum so there can't be much muscle tension or control.

This is also totally incorrect.

When you swing a club:

Skill and strength increase together, not in opposition.

Returning the club to center, locking it in position and stopping momentum cleanly are all strength tasks. The heavier the club, the more demanding this becomes.

And even during the swinging the muscles hard work to stabilize the movement because otherwise your arm would just collapse and the club would hit your back or knee.

Part of this confusion comes from a narrow definition of strength.

For many people, strength means: Heavy bench press, other heavy lifts and low-rep near max effort.

But in martial arts, combat sports, and real movement, the most valuable strength is often:

 
1. Sustained
2. Controllable 
3. Stable

Indian clubs and maces develop strength endurance, joint integrity and force absorption. Of course, you develop mobility, maximal strength and structural balance as well.

This is why lighter clubs (5–10 kg / 11–22 lb) can produce massive adaptations when used properly.

This is why many of the strongest athletes struggle with clubs not because they are weak, but because their strength is mostly linear, the muscles of their wrists and forearms are undeveloped and their nervous system (skill aspect) isn’t used to this type of stabilization and coordination.

In fact, club training exposes gaps that traditional lifting doesn’t target well! This is why everyone should be using them.

Give It a Try & You Will Be Blown Away.

If you’ve never trained with Indian clubs or a mace, theory won’t help you understand this.

We recommend you to find a steel club or a Indian club. Start light. Hold it upright. Swing it slowly with simple movements. Feel what happens in your grip, shoulders, chest, and back.

... You won’t need further explanation.

Here's the bottom line: Indian clubs and Persian meels are not novelty toys or coordination gimmicks. They are proper lever-based strength instruments that demand control, stabilization and real physical strength.

If you want to learn how to train with them properly and build both skill and strength in a structured way, see IronKingMethod.com - there's nothing quite like it.

But first, experience it yourself. The body understands far faster than the mind.

Stay strong.