There’s no shortage of expensive kit promising to revolutionise your training. But can you really pare it all back to basics and make gains with nothing but a few bags of sand, some duct tape and a willingness to rough it for a few weeks?
For one month, YouTuber Focused Lucas ditched traditional gym training entirely, replacing barbells, dumbbells and machines with homemade sandbags. His original set-up consisted of four bags of generic builder's sand, each weighing around 18kg.
The total cost? Around $20 – roughly £15. In other words, his entire ‘gym’ cost less than you could easily spend on a single day pass at even the most average health club.
Cheap, yes. Simple, sure. Easy? Absolutely not.
30 Days of Sandbag-Only Training
‘I was about to be surprised at the challenge that this unsecure, unbalanced, unpredictable weight of the sand was going to give me,’ he says.
Two bags – around 36kg combined – proved particularly humbling.
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‘After about only 20 minutes, well, I was fried,’ he admits after his first session experimenting with the different movements he could perform. ‘This is extremely humbling. I’m so much weaker than I thought.’
That’s arguably sandbag training’s biggest selling point. Unlike a neatly balanced dumbbell or barbell, the load is constantly shifting. Before you’ve even started squatting, pressing or carrying it, you’re fighting simply to get the thing into position and stop it folding you in half.
By week three, he’d built something resembling an actual programme, splitting his training into upper-body, lower-body and what he dubbed ‘weird strength’ sessions. Weighted press-ups with the bag on his back, curls, walking lunges, front-loaded squats and overhead presses were joined by throws, cleans and over-the-shoulder work.
Even familiar exercises felt different.
A roughly 18kg sandbag curl, he says, felt ‘way harder than a 40 lb dumbbell. Way harder.’
Walking lunges were ‘extremely effective’, while simply holding around 36kg of sand in a front-squat position was surprisingly taxing.
‘Even just trying to hold these bags was fatiguing.’
Perhaps the most interesting result, though, came from his back. Despite entering the challenge worried that the awkward lifting might aggravate an old lower-back injury, he says he experienced no problems.
Instead, ‘the sandbag workouts felt therapeutic on my lower back’, adding that over the four weeks it felt as though his back was becoming ‘stronger than it had been in a long time’.
As for muscle growth? Don’t expect a Hollywood transformation montage. He admits that, at first glance, there wasn’t much difference, although he felt his upper traps and lower back looked thicker by the end of the month.
Hardly scientific proof of hypertrophy. But for roughly £15 worth of sand, it’s a pretty compelling case for just how little equipment you actually need to train seriously hard.
In fact, combine heavy sandbag lower-body training with upper-body calisthenics, plus some simple conditioning drills or running, and you've got a recipe for building a savagely capable physique from home.
Sandbag Workouts to Try
Want to try your own sandbag experiment? Nip down to your local builders' merchant, assemble your ‘gym’ and give these workouts a go.
Track your total rounds and reps for each workout and aim to beat that score on subsequent attempts. When things start to feel a little too easy, it might be time for another trip to Wickes...
Upper-Body Sandbag Workout
20-Minute AMRAP
- 5 x Ground-to-Overhead
- 10 x Ground-to-Shoulder
- 15 x Pendlay Row (row bag from floor to hips)
- 20 x Push-Up
Lower-Body Sandbag Workout
20-Minute AMRAP
- 10 x Bear-Hug Squat
- 10 x Alternating Reverse Lunge
- 10 x Deadlift
- 10 x Burpee Over Bag
Full-Body Sandbag Workout
20-Minute AMRAP
- 3 x Ground-to-Overhead
- 6 x Bear-Hug Squat
- 9 x Pendlay Row (row bag from floor to hips)
- 12 x Deadlift
- 15 x Burpee
