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The tool fighting you

4 October 2026
Adarsh Gopal

I had the misfortune of watching a certification coach show others how to use a land mine.

A land mine anchors one end of a long implement, such as a barbell, to a pivot. The anchored end stays put, so the free end can only travel along an arc around it. That constraint is the advantage. You don't spend any effort stabilising the bar. When you push a dumbbell overhead, you keep it moving over your midfoot. Push it forward or back and it can tumble towards the floor. On a land mine, you can push the bar ahead of your toes and it travels its arc without drama.

The coach was cueing someone to move the land mine from mid-thigh to shoulder level and then push it overhead. A clean and a press. To make this happen, they had to start with their palm facing in towards their thigh, then drive the elbow up and then down. The shoulder rotates a fair bit along the way. With a dumbbell, you'd just pick it up by bending the elbow. With a land mine, you can't. The bar dictates where your hand goes, and it won't let your hand sit the way it would on a dumbbell. Unless you have a rotating handle. Those exist. We built one for ours, because when a tool gets in the way, you fix the tool.

A limitation of the tool has been turned into an exacting technical pattern. What would be a casual turn of the elbow and palm has become a "movement." With unique "benefits." And a demanding pattern that produces power outcomes nothing else can.

Compare that to a barbell clean, which takes advantage of the tool. The shaft and sleeves spin, so the plates rotate and the stress on the wrist drops. That allows far more load than you can manage on a land mine or a dumbbell. The barbell clean is the tool doing what it was built for. The land mine clean is the tool fighting you.

The land mine is a terrific tool when the job plays to the pivot. The land mine squat is a great learning tool. The land mine row makes it easier to row in a fixed arc. The land mine RDL removes the balance constraint. The land mine press frees up the humerus and scapula to do their thing. In every one of these, the pivot makes the job simpler. In the clean, it makes the job harder. My problem isn't the tool. It's the overselling.

My perspective has always been to pick the tool that makes the job as simple as possible. If you want to use a tool in a disadvantageous position, answer three questions first. What strength, conditioning or power adaptation does the constraint actually produce? For whom does the risk exceed the reward? Is the contrived movement even worth it?

The cottage industry of certs and fitness overblows the benefits of tools, patterns and progressions. It is to movement and sustainable training what extreme exclusion habits, crash diets and demonising foods are to sustainable eating. An arbitrary rule book that hurts far more people than it helps.


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