Is it possible to make a homemade sand bag? Is it possible to do it on the cheap? Can these bags really give you a great workout?

The answers are all yes! I don't know what I'd do without my sandbag now as I love the sweat I get when using it. If you want to get a fantastic workout with a piece of kit that you can make for less than halves a months membership at some fancy gym, then read on my friend.

A sandbag, sometimes called a power bag or a Bulgarian bag, is just what it sounds like... A bag of sand. You can fill these bags with what ever you like to give it some weight, I went with small chipped gravel - cheap and moderately dense. These bags are great, and in my opinion better than barbells and dumbbells, because the weight inside isn't stable, it moves around. Because of this movement, your muscles are forces to work harder to make it stable as you are moving it around and therefore receives a better workout.

We want this unsteady weight because of the increase effort your muscles will have to endure to move the bag around, but why is this important?

You can lift lighter weights and still achieve the same results and muscle fatigue as you would lifting heavier weights with traditional free weight exercises. For example, if you could shoulder press 25kg with a barbell, you wouldn't be able to replicate the same number of sets and reps with a 25kg sand bag because your muscles will be working harder to keep the weight stabilized throughout the motion. The more muscles recruited, the faster the fatigue sets it but the better the workout becomes. You might only be able to manage 20kg with your sandbag weight to get the same number of sets and reps.

These are fantastic for any sort of exercises, but in my opinion, they are best suited for circuit style training. You can load up a sand bag with a specific amount of weight, get your 5-10 exercises and then blast through them like a mad man guaranteeing you'll be feeling the DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) in the next day or two. You can use these for more traditional based strength and muscle building workouts, but that might mean swapping out sandbags to increase weights so you can hit the required rep ranges. Whereas with circuits you just pound away at the exercises for a specific amount of time trying to get as many reps as possible, no need to mess around with changing bags.

Excellent for fat burning!

Sandbags are great to use wherever you want. At home, at the gym, even take it camping with you! They can be relatively small in size, it's just the weight that becomes an issue if you wanted to take one abroad. I like to use mine at least once a week for a 40-60min fat blasting workout. There are tons of routines you can do with your sandbags and I plan on writing a few myself for you to try out.

I would really recommend you create your own sandbag rather than buying one already made. Here in the UK, I managed to make mine for less than £15 with 40kg of gravel. I have a friend in the US who gave me the idea and he said he made his for under $20. All you really need are rubble sacks, cable ties, an old duffel bag or backpack to put them in and or course the material you're going to fill the bags up with.

When looking for the material to put in your bag, the denser the better. You'll get more weight in less space. I've heard of people using ball bearings and sand, metal shavings, pebbles, gravel. Anything you can think of. I made mine a certain way that suited me and you'll make yours to suite you.