FEATURE COACH RICH THURMAN
If you came to this page, you likely saw someone using a steel mace and you thought it looked interesting, but you might be wondering, “What are the benefits of using the steel mace?” What makes steel mace workouts so special? Who should use a steel mace?”
We had a Q&A session with Rich Thurman III from San Francisco. Rich has spent years researching and refining his work with the Steel Mace. We took this opportunity to hopefully ask the questions that will our readers were seeking answers to. Rich is coming to CLIENTEL3 for a 3-hour workshop on Sunday, April 28th, 2019. We hope to see you there for this intro workshop to get this tool into your hands. Here is the abbreviated transcription of Justin Kompf’s interview with coach Rich Thurman.
Justin: Can you give us the history of the Steel Mace and tell us why it is a useful tool?
Rich: It was fashioned from the “Gada,” an Indian tool that has been around for centuries mainly used to swing. Jake Shannon learned of this tool and had it fabricated into the steel tool to be easily mass produced, sold online, and shipped to people. Nowadays, we have many ways to use this tool in a more modern sense using the offset load. Hopefully, you get to come out to this three hour workshop (early bird of $99 until April 14th, then $125) to get an introduction of the mace, show you how to use this tool safely and effectively, and try the mace out.
Justin: How is training with a mace different from training with other tools, such as barbells and dumbbells’?
Rich: It is different from a barbell because the barbell is long in size. There are loads on both sides and gets difficult to use asymmetric loads because of the unloading and reloading them. Not making it that safe or effective. For example, if you want to swing the barbell and have the collars on there, how safe can that be? A dumbbell is a single-hand tool. The mace is also used for rotational work, which isn’t really something that the dumbbell is really effective at doing.
Justin: Because the mace is a light tool, how can people get stronger from using this?
Rich: There are different sizes of the mace, they go all the way from 7 to 60+ pounds. The asymmetric loading of the mace is simple physics, as you move further away from the load, the load changes and becomes heavier due to increased lever arm’s distance from the fulcrum. You can challenge the body and your strength by altering your hand’s distance from the load. Another is by engaging mindfully with the tool. Many times when we work out, we are not aware of the tool and just pushing weights around and moving them mindlessly. What we do with the steel mace is teach you how to be more involved with the tool. This transfers over to other stuff you do and you will start thinking about how to be more aware, attached, and efficient at gaining strength with that tool.
Justin: Who is this seminar going to be good for? What type of people is going to benefit from coming to this Steel Mace workshop?
Rich: This workshop is going to be awesome for everyone of all levels, from beginners to high-level coaches. If you are looking for a deeper understanding of how to use this tool, have never picked a mace up before and would like to see what it feels like to get an understanding of it; if you are a coach and have maces around but have not had any instruction on it; then it is a perfect entry-level way in which to engage with the mace in a safe and effective way and give you ideas on how to use this tool effectively with your clients.
This workshop is going to be great for everyone who wants a little more understanding of the tool and wants to apply it more to their training. If you’d like to learn more about using this tool there are many ways and other tiers of workshops that I have available that you can work with me on.
For the full interview, watch below: