An effective and dynamic exercise to develop the biceps and forearms using a mace or a sledgehammer. A variation with far different benefits to a regular curl.

If you are looking to improve your grip strength and build massive forearms and biceps, the mace has it all. Just a small amount of weight (5 kg or 10 pounds) will be enough because you are utilizing the leverage of the mace.

Recently, we have talked a lot about the Indian Clubbells and Mace when it comes to developing the body - they truly offer unique ways for training the body.

You can learn more from the articles and videos below:

This equipment has been used for thousands of years and it's far from a gimmick. The gains in upper body, core and grip strength are humongous and "out of this world".

You see, the modern training equipment such as barbells and dumbbells are fairly new. They have been popular training equipment for only 100 years and used by old school strongmen for less than two hundred years. 

In the regions of India, Pakistan and Persia, the clubs and maces have been used for thousands of years. One of the greatest Indian wrestlers of the 20th century "Great Gama" mainly trained with clubs only.

"The Portal".

Portal is a unique exercise we developed to work on the biceps. It's very effective for this purpose and a lot more effective than you could think - your biceps will be burning in no time.

In the portal exercise, you are drawing a circular portal with your lead hand while keeping the rear hand close to your hips.

You can easily adjust the difficulty by utilizing the leverage of the mace. Obviously, you can draw the portal in both directions giving the arm a slightly different stimulus. 

Where you grab the mace will make a difference in what parts of the biceps you will work on:

• When your lead arm is more further away, the shoulder is externally rotated and you will develop more the brachialis muscle and outer head of the biceps. 
  
  
• When the lead arm is closer to your body, your shoulder is internally rotated which will then develop more the inner head of the biceps.

What makes the portal unique is that the bicep muscles are flexing and extending in a variety of different muscle lengths and angles during one circular repetition.

On one end it's like the drag curl, on the other it's like the scott curl. This ever changing stimulus will tire the biceps quicker than you could expect.

Your forearm muscles will also work due to the thick handle and due to the elbow flexion. You may feel the exercise slightly (but not much) in the shoulders as well.

If you have access to a mace or a sledgehammer, give the exercise a go. Due to the low weight (5kg or 10 pounds will be plenty), the maces are not too expensive to get.

Recently, we added workouts for both Indian clubbells and steel mace in Warrior 20XX Method alongside with many exercise tutorials.

Stay strong.