Spoilt for load: a field guide to free weights

In a world obsessed with Indian clubs, dumbbells and kettlebells, it helps to ask why a tool makes sense for a movement, rather than how to tweak a movement to accommodate a tool.

Here’s the thing about free weights: every implement below holds the same thing — mass. The only real difference is where that mass sits relative to your hand. Five positions. Everything else is material, finish and marketing.

Load in line with the hand

The mass sits on either side of the grip. Balanced, predictable — boring in the best way.

The classic dumbbell (steel or rubber, fixed or spinning handle). Handles may spin or not. Made of steel or rubber. The grip can be fatter or thinner depending on the weight. Tried, tested, found everywhere, and familiar.

Hold: one hand, centred between the heads. Best at: pressing and most bilateral work. Watch for: nothing distinctive — it’s the baseline everything else gets measured against.

Adjustable dumbbells (selectorised or plate-loaded). A convenient twist on tradition. They come in different forms. Some let you use standard plates. Others sacrifice that convenience for proprietary plates that can be adjusted much more quickly.

Hold: same as a dumbbell, usually on a longer handle. Best at: setups short on floor space. Watch for: standard plates are slow to change; proprietary plates are fast but lock you into one brand.

Load below the hand

The mass hangs under the grip. That offset is what makes a swing a swing.

The kettlebell (cast iron). Neatly complements a dumbbell — the load is directly below where you hold it. The best kettlebells have smooth, grippy handles and an even coat of paint over a smooth surface, with no bumps or bulging branding. It’s better for carries and rows than a dumbbell, but not as comfortable for pressing. You can’t swing a dumbbell like you can a kettlebell, and snatches and cleans on the two are completely different movements.

Hold: handle above the mass, one or two hands. Best at: swings, carries, rows. Watch for: pressing comfort, and the floor — cast iron is not built for repeated dropping.

Kettlebells loaded with sand (GORUCK, Hyperwear and others). Kettlebells aren’t built for dropping, and carrying training implements while travelling isn’t practical. Loading one with sand makes it easier to handle and more portable — and, unlike cast iron, you can drop it. It adds a lot of bulk, though, and bulk changes how certain moves feel. A terrific detail: three compartments keep the sand from sloshing around, so the load stays evenly distributed. You’ll find these shaped as a ball, a stone, a sandbag and a jerry can too.

Hold: fabric handle over a mass that shifts slightly. Best at: travel, dropping, throwing. Watch for: bulk — the same weight takes up far more room against your body.

Load with no handle at all

You hold the object itself. The closest thing in a gym to picking something up from the real world.

Ball-shaped implements (cloth, leatherette, canvas or rubber). Throwing is an underrated, under-utilised exercise. Muscles work quite differently when you throw forcefully versus when you do a push-up or press a barbell. The way you hold a ball-shaped object makes it uniquely suited to throwing, hugging to squat, and carrying around. They come in cloth, leatherette, canvas or rubber, filled with air, sand or fabric.

Hold: no handle — hug it or palm it. Best at: throwing, hugged squats, carries. Watch for: the hold is the limit, not the muscle — loading stops where your arms stop reaching.

The steelbell (textile shell, steel shot filling). Companies like GORUCK and Hyperwear are using textiles, metal and sand to make more adaptable weights. They don’t lend themselves to neat, ergonomic lifting the way dumbbells and kettlebells do. But they approximate the messiness of handling everyday objects, and they’re safer to throw around. The sand or bearing filling quickly takes the shape of your shoulders, upper back or chest, which makes them comfortable for picking up, carrying and a whole variety of exercises.

Hold: edge of the shell, or no grip at all. Best at: picking up, carrying, throwing, awkward loaded positions. Watch for: not the tool for precise, repeatable loading.

Strongman sandbags (canvas or cordura, filled to weight). The least refined object on this list, and that’s the point. A big sandbag has no fixed shape and no honest centre of mass — it settles differently every time you pick it up, and it keeps shifting while you carry it. That makes it a genuine test of bracing and of the whole posterior chain, in a way a rigid implement never is. Most come with handles, but the handles are almost beside the point: the useful work is the bear hug, the lap, the shoulder, the load over a bar.

Hold: bear hug, or grab whatever fabric you can. Best at: picking up, shouldering, loading, carries. Watch for: the weight on the label is the only thing about it that stays constant.

Load around the hand

The mass wraps the grip instead of hanging off it. Almost everything since 2016 has been an attempt at this.

Centermass bells and Fatbells (Sorinex, then Rogue, from around 2016). These hand weights spread the entire load around the handle. That makes for a more balanced lift, and the load feels smaller and more compact than a dumbbell or kettlebell. How a load is dispersed changes the feedback from a move, and it can make it easier to get a firmer grip. That’s a game changer, because stability is less of a constraint on a good lift. A compact load also makes for more ergonomic lifting.

The design comes from the powerlifter Donnie Thompson. It appeared first with Sorinex as the Center Mass Bell, and later moved to Rogue, who make it as the Thompson Fatbell — which is why you’ll see two very similar objects under two names. The shapes differ a little between them, but the idea is the same.

Hold: one hand through the centre, load all around it. Best at: balanced, compact, ergonomic lifting. Watch for: it feels lighter than the number on it — expect clients to under-select.

ATX Delta dumbbells (ATX, 2016). Also introduced in 2016, the ATX Delta tries to fold the best of kettlebells and dumbbells into one object. The rack position makes for a better starting point for pressing and squatting. The shape lets the load travel more smoothly on rows and sit more comfortably while carrying, and the feedback on raises and flies makes it more challenging than a dumbbell. The shape and dual handle make it awkward as a single load for squatting — but the design tells me it was never meant to be used that way. They’d make for terrific push-up handles.

Hold: dual handle, with a genuine rack position. Best at: pressing, squatting, rows, carries, raises. Watch for: awkward as a single load — that’s a design choice, not a fault.

TRX Y-bell (TRX, 2020). A 2020 entrant. The Y-bell follows the centermass bell and the Delta in offering multiple ways to interact with the object — you can hold it like a kettlebell, a dumbbell, or a slightly off-centre centermass bell. The same load feels different depending on where you hold it. The double-handle setup also lets you grip it with two hands more comfortably than a dumbbell or kettlebell.

Hold: three positions — kettlebell, dumbbell, off-centre. Best at: two-handed work. Watch for: same load, three different demands — write the hold into the program, not just the weight.

Havak Triad (Havak, 2020). Another 2020 entrant, aiming for more grip widths, versatility and loading profiles. The handles come in three different thicknesses, which help you challenge your grip strength. Like the ATX Delta and the Y-bell, you can hold it like a dumbbell, a centermass bell or a kettlebell to vary how the load feels across moves.

Hold: three handle thicknesses, three orientations. Best at: grip work, and varying the loading profile without changing weight. Watch for: the adjustable version can be hard to scale.

Load out on a lever

The mass sits at the end of a long handle, well away from your hand. This is the one position where the number stamped on the implement tells you almost nothing.

Everywhere else on this list, the load sits close to your grip, so 10 kg feels broadly like 10 kg. Put that same mass a foot and a half out on a handle and the arithmetic changes: what your shoulder and grip have to resist is the leverage, not the weight. A 7 kg mace held out at the end of its handle will humble people who press 30 kg dumbbells. That is the whole appeal — you get a serious demand on the small stabilising muscles, the grip and the joint positions, at a load light enough that nothing gets crushed.

Steel maces and clubbells (cast steel or iron, some adjustable). The heavier end of the lever family. Because the load is offset and out in front, they lend themselves to swinging, arcing and rotational patterns — the 360 and the 10-to-2 being the obvious ones — which is exactly the plane most gyms neglect entirely. Rotation is the thing barbells and dumbbells are worst at loading.

Hold: two hands on a long handle, mass at one end. Best at: rotation, arcing swings, grip and shoulder endurance. Watch for: the leverage is the load — start far lighter than your ego expects, and learn the deceleration before adding weight.

Indian clubs (wood or plastic, usually very light). The oldest tool on this list, and the lightest — often a kilo or two. These aren’t for building strength, and treating them as though they were misses the point. They’re for taking the shoulder and elbow through controlled, circular ranges that nothing else in a gym reaches, which makes them genuinely good as preparation and as joint work. Clubs have gone in and out of fashion for a century and a half. The joints don’t care about the fashion.

Hold: one in each hand, mass out past the wrist. Best at: shoulder and elbow prep, coordination, controlled range. Watch for: judging them by weight — a 1 kg club is doing something a 20 kg dumbbell cannot.

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Every tool has its pros and cons — geometry, ergonomics, handling, balance. If you get a chance to try one, play a lot with it.

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