Part kettlebell, part caveman weapon, clubbells – also known as steel clubs or Indian clubs – have a habit of looking either deeply unserious or deeply intimidating, depending on who’s swinging them. But while they may feel like the latest niche fitness fad to wash up on your algorithm, they’re anything but new. Clubs have been used for centuries by wrestlers, fighters and soldiers to build strength, power and resilience. In other words: they’ve got pedigree.

And for men over 40 or 50, they may be one of the smartest ways to keep your shoulders feeling strong pain-free, mobile and – crucially – usable.

A lot of men hit midlife with a decent engine still under the bonnet, but slightly creaky steering. Years of pressing, sitting and generally living in front of the body can leave the shoulders feeling tight, grumbly and reluctant to move through the ranges they used to. Clubbells are useful because they don’t just ask you to lift a weight, they ask you to steer it, decelerate it and control it through big arcs of motion.

As coach Mark Wildman puts it in a video on heavy club training, ‘the thing that heavy clubs do better than everything else is rotate.’

It’s hard to understate the importance of this. Most of what we do in the gym – and in life – isn’t purely up and down. ‘All sports are based on rotation,’ Wildman explains, whether you’re throwing, striking or simply changing direction. Clubbells give you a way to train that quality directly, under control.

The knock-on is that the shoulders, upper back, rotator cuff and scapular muscles all have to chip in. You’re building strength, yes, but you’re also rehearsing better movement. Over time, that can mean shoulders that feel more ‘open’, more stable and less prone to kicking off when you press, hang or reach overhead.

There’s also the way clubbells load the body. Because the mass sits away from the hand, there’s a longer lever arm and more torque to deal with. In plain English: relatively light weights can feel brutally effective.

They also tie together the movement patterns that tend to keep us athletic: rotating, bracing, hinging and decelerating. One of the first things many men lose with age isn’t just strength, but the ability to express it smoothly and quickly. Club training sits neatly in that gap.

And then there’s the simple fact that they make training feel fresh again. Learning a new skill, rather than grinding through the same sessions, can be enough to keep you consistent. Especially important as your tenure in the gym starts edging into the decades.

Bottom line: clubbells aren’t magic, but for men in their 40s and 50s, they’re a smart addition. They build shoulder resilience, usable strength and the kind of movement quality that keeps you in the gym for longer, and living a pain-free life.

If you’re going to give clubbell training a swing, start here.

Clubbell Halo/ Shield Cast

Muscles worked: Deltoids (all heads), rotator cuff, upper back, traps, core

What it does: Takes your shoulders through controlled, loaded rotation – something most gym programmes completely ignore.

Benefits: Builds strength and tolerance in positions that usually feel sketchy with age. Great for opening up the shoulders, improving scapular control and ironing out some of that ‘forward’ posture that creeps in from years at a desk.

Added bonus: Teaches you to decelerate the weight smoothly – a skill that carries over to pretty much every upper body lift

Clubbell Swing

Muscles worked: Glutes, hamstrings, lower back, lats, shoulders, grip, core

What it does: Trains hip extension, but with the added demand of controlling an offset load as it arcs through space.

Benefits: Reinforces powerful, coordinated movement between hips and upper body – something that tends to dull with age if you’re only lifting slow and linear.

Added bonus: Serious conditioning effect without needing to pound your joints into the floor – you’ll get your heart rate up fast, with relatively light loads.