We dropped a new video this week with an update on Nate’s dual wield club mill journey.
This one is a good reminder that some movements are just plain humbling.
On paper, the weight doesn’t sound like much. Two clubs loaded to 12.5 pounds each. That’s only 25 pounds total.
But when you’re swinging one club in each hand, trying to keep the timing clean, pulling the front swing high enough, controlling the cast, and keeping your grip from blowing up, it feels like a completely different animal.
That’s one of the coolest parts of club training.
The load is only one piece of the equation.
The leverage, timing, coordination, and control matter just as much.
In this video, Nate talks through where he’s at after about six weeks of practicing dual wield club mills. The progress hasn’t been as fast as he hoped, but that’s part of the point. Some skills take time, and sometimes adding just a few pounds makes the whole movement feel like starting over.
After bumping the clubs up from 12.5 pounds to 15 pounds each, the full double mill basically fell apart. So instead of forcing bad reps, he backed off and spent time practicing the behind the shoulder portion of the swing.
That ended up being useful.
Dropping the weight back down made the full mills feel better again, and the heavier practice seemed to help reinforce some of the pieces of the movement.
One of the biggest takeaways is that with dual wield mills, you can’t just let momentum do everything.
You have to actively pull the front swing high enough so the club gets back into the right position. If you don’t, the club starts dangling too low, your forearm gets over-torqued, the timing gets messy, and the whole pattern falls apart fast.
That’s why these are so demanding.
They require grip strength, forearm endurance, shoulder mobility, timing, trunk control, and a lot of patience.
They’re also a great warmup or practice piece before heavier pressing, rowing, or upper-body strength work because they get a ton of blood flow into the shoulders, arms, and upper back.
The plan from here is simple: keep the weight manageable, hit a few clean reps every session, and build the skill gradually.
Not every training video needs to be a highlight reel.
Sometimes the most useful videos are the ones that show the messy middle. The frustrating reps. The weight jumps that don’t go as planned. The movement that looks easy until you actually try it.
That’s training. And that’s exactly why we keep going.