08/20/2026
We get it. There’s very little research specifically on mace and club training, especially when it comes to muscle growth.
To our knowledge, there aren’t controlled hypertrophy trials or meta analyses specifically showing how much muscle you can build swinging maces and clubs.
They’re non traditional tools. They get thrown into the “unconventional training” category. That’s fine.
But a lack of research is not evidence that something doesn’t work.
We don’t need a bunch of mace and club specific studies to know that skeletal muscle adapts to resistance. The broader resistance training literature is very clear that muscle can grow in response to sufficient mechanical tension, effort, volume, and progressive overload.
A mace or club doesn’t somehow stop providing resistance because it’s an unconventional implement.
Can we claim that mace and club training has been scientifically shown to build the same amount of muscle as traditional resistance training? No. The research simply isn’t there to make that claim.
And if your only goal is maximizing hypertrophy, are maces and clubs the most efficient or best tool for the job? Probably not.
But they’re a hell of a lot of fun.
And building muscle isn’t the only reason to train with them.
You’re moving load through larger ranges of motion. You’re training rotation and resisting rotation through the trunk. You’re challenging your grip, shoulders, and connective tissues in ways that look and feel very different from traditional lifting.
There’s value in all of that...especially when it comes from a type of training you actually enjoy doing and want to keep getting better at.
But saying maces and clubs aren’t the best way to build muscle is very different from saying they can’t build muscle at all.
Master the movement patterns. Load them heavy. Progress the weight. Swing with intent. Give your muscles enough resistance and a reason to adapt.
And if you truly believe maces and clubs build no muscle, please find a heavy one and get swinging. It will change your mind, we're sure of it.
