Increasing strength, without increasing weight. (sandbags) page

[Caveman_chris]

Hi everyone, I've recently cancelled my gym membership and stopped doing my SS/SL strength training and got my self some sandbags (and some sand).

The problem is that adding weight each time is a right mess on, and I can see once I set back to 75-80kg it's going to be very bulky and awkward to get on my back. However.....having a 25kg bag on each shoulder is perfect, but I don't know how to go about any kind of 'liniar progression'.

I used to use a programme for increasing pushups, where you would enter your one set max and in would give you a routine of 5sets to do on alternating days. Would this work for squats also or are squats to much (compared to pushups)

Thanks Chris.

P.S sandbags are awesome, done a set of tabata shouldering the other and it nearly killed me, my neighbour even came running round to see what I was screaming at.

[Coach Palfrey]

Without adding weight over time you'll need to adjust the difficulty in some other fashion - increasing the reps, "playing" with the joint angles, adjusting your speed of movement etc. None of these are strictly the best way to build strength but will all have an impact.

[teach2183]

You could look at simple strength for how to adjust reps. Adding in the sandbags to start will increase the difficulty.

[zilog]

For the cost of 18 months gym membership I bought a (very decent) power cage and a barbell set which will hopefully last me many years. Definitely a good investment if you have the space. You really can't do SS without this kind of setup. As the Coach said, there are other things you can do but I think you'll need to move away from SS.

[mark1971]

Are you using loose sand in your bag?
I've set my bag up with loosly filled heavy duty bin bags double wrapped in duck tape at varying weights, 5 at 1kg, a 5kg, a few 10kg's, a 20 a couple of 25's. The sand still shifts beacuse they're loosely packed but makes changing weight a doddle. I am managing to trash the kit bags I bought off amazon regularly though, might have to invest in a brute force bag at some point.
If you're finding SS isn't working for you it might be worth checking out Coach's stuff. There's loads of workouts on his website, and his books are great.