Double Mace Workout: Feels Like Your First Time Ever Using Steel Maces

Training with two steel maces creates a completely different challenge than swinging a single mace. With an offset load in each hand, your grip, shoulders, core, coordination, and muscular endurance all have to work overtime to keep both implements under control.

This double steel mace workout comes from Scott Viala, an experienced mace trainer who put himself through five demanding double-mace exercises using two 15-pound maces. Below, Scott shares what he learned from the workout, why training with two maces felt surprisingly different, and how you can try the routine yourself.

Important: Double steel mace training is an intermediate-to-advanced progression. Before attempting this workout, you should already be comfortable controlling a single steel mace, particularly during 360s and other dynamic movements.

Double Steel Mace Workout At A Glance

Experience Level	Intermediate to Advanced
Equipment	Two steel maces
Weight Used	Two 15 lb maces
Beginner Double-Mace Weight	7-10 lb per mace
Exercises	5
Sets	4 per exercise
Work	60 seconds per set
Rest	60-90 seconds
Primary Focus	Grip, shoulders, core, coordination, legs, and conditioning

Why Train With Two Steel Maces?

A steel mace is challenging because most of its weight sits at the end of a long handle rather than directly over your hand. That leverage means even a relatively light mace can demand significant grip strength and muscular control.

Put a mace in each hand and the challenge changes again. Instead of coordinating your body around one offset implement, you now have two independently moving loads to control.

Depending on the exercise, double steel mace training can challenge:

Grip and forearm endurance: Each hand has to control its own long lever.
Shoulder control: Dynamic mace movements require you to guide each implement through its intended path.
Core stability: Your trunk must maintain position while the maces create forces away from your center of mass.
Coordination: Alternating movements require each arm to perform a different task or move at a different point in the pattern.
Muscular endurance: Timed sets can become demanding even when the absolute load looks relatively light.
Lower-body strength and stability: Combining maces with squats and lunges turns the workout into a full-body challenge.

That does not make double-mace training inherently better than using one mace. It is simply a more complex progression that experienced mace users can use to introduce a new stimulus.

Scott Viala's Experience With Double Steel Mace Training

I had been training with the steel mace for almost seven years when I decided to do my first full double steel mace workout. I knew it wouldn't be easy when I wrote the workout the night before, but I still underestimated how challenging it would be.

The forearm pump was something else. Swinging and moving with two 15 lb maces created a level of fatigue I wasn't expecting.

One exercise in particular brought me right back to my early mace-training days: bracing one mace down my centerline while performing a one-arm 360 with the other.

I remembered those first few mace sessions when my forearms were pumped, my triceps were smoked, and my grip strength suddenly didn't feel nearly as impressive as I thought it was.

At the time, I could deadlift more than three times my bodyweight. I remember wondering how my grip and forearms could possibly be giving out while handling only 20 pounds.

What I hadn't fully appreciated was leverage. A mace doesn't feel like a dumbbell of the same weight because the load sits much farther away from your hands.

How Steel Mace Training Changed My Approach To Strength

Sticking with the mace showed me something that was missing from my training. Adding mace work to my strength and conditioning program challenged my body in ways that years of conventional lifting hadn't.

I noticed improvements in my body awareness, grip, rotational control, and ability to stabilize an offset load. Traditional mace patterns also challenged my core and many of the smaller stabilizer muscles that I hadn't consciously focused on during conventional barbell and dumbbell training.

I had previously torn my rotator cuff after years of heavy lifting. Steel mace training didn't magically repair that injury, and anyone dealing with an active shoulder injury should get appropriate medical guidance. In my own training, however, learning to use the mace with controlled rotational movement became part of a broader approach that left my shoulders feeling and moving better.

That experience got me hooked.

As I became more comfortable with mace training, I began pairing it with heavy kettlebell work and progressively increasing the challenge.

double steel mace exercises

Over time, mace training occupied more of my programming while heavy barbell work became less of a priority.

Coming from years of heavy dumbbell and barbell training, I worried that reducing traditional lifting would cost me muscle and strength. That wasn't my personal experience.

I continued progressively loading my mace and kettlebell training rather than simply performing easy workouts with light implements. For me, that approach allowed me to maintain and build muscle while continuing to get stronger.

I would occasionally return to the deadlift, bench press, and squat to see where I stood. Despite doing less specific training on those movements, my numbers continued to improve during that period.

That's my individual experience, not proof that mace and kettlebell training will automatically increase everyone's barbell lifts. Strength is specific to the movements you train, and anyone whose primary goal is maximizing the squat, bench press, or deadlift should continue practicing those lifts.

But it taught me that barbells and heavy dumbbells aren't the only ways to build a strong, muscular, capable body.

Steel mace and kettlebell training can provide a very different combination of strength, conditioning, coordination, and movement.

What Makes Double Mace Training Different?

This double steel mace workout reminded me what using a mace felt like when I was first learning.

With one mace, your entire body can organize around a single moving load. With two, each arm has its own implement to control.

Some exercises require both maces to move together. Others require one arm to stabilize while the other moves. Alternating patterns introduce another layer because each side is doing something different at the same time.

That's where the real difficulty comes from. The goal isn't simply to survive a heavier workout. It's to maintain control when the movement becomes more complicated.

SET FOR SET Double 15 lb Steel Mace Workout

Here's the complete workout. Scott performed all five exercises using two 15 lb steel maces.

If you're new to double-mace training, do not feel obligated to match that weight. Two 7 lb or 10 lb maces can provide more than enough resistance while you're learning to coordinate the movements.