Your Next Steel Mace: What weight to get.
- Elliot Fisher
- 3 days ago
- 11 min read
Choosing your next Macebell weight might be a little daunting but Alex and I will guide you through making your choice. You’re likely here because you've had a play around with a mace for a while and starting to yearn for the next challenge.
If you have yet to get your first macebell I would suggest having a look at ‘What Weight Steel Mace Should I Get’. In short for anybody new to the mace world; The Macebell, similar in feeling to a sledgehammer, consists of a long levered pole attached with a heavy globe fixed at one end and can be used for functional conditioning, using heavy blows, sustained swings and choreographed flows. Historically you can find uses as a weapon or as a trophy and sign of authority. The mace has its origins from a Gada used by Indian Hindu Wrestlers. Often the terms 'Steel Mace' and 'Macebell' are interchanged though technically, steel mace is a type of macebell whereas a Macebell is the umbrella name for the tool itself. Thus all Steel Mace are Macebells but not all Macebells are Steel.
As the instructor of the largest Steel Mace Flow class to date in the United Kingdom and 4th place finisher of the King of Swing II Mace Flight competition at Valhalla Training Academy in 2025. Here’s my recommendations on your next steps aided by a fellow competitor Alex, the owner of Magic Macebells and sponsor of Maceworks Half Marathon 2026.
Steel Mace Starting Weight
It sounds odd but if you haven't started with Steel Mace training I'd suggest trying out the principles with a sledgehammer first! Macebells can be tricky to get hold of and being rather specialised bits of kit they have a price tag to match. Plus they are heavy which makes shipping a little pricey too. Making the beginning of the journey potentially an expense to find you don't like the style.
I started with a sledgehammer as I happened to own one. Here I am 6 years later [at the time of writing] still getting in weekly mace workouts and supporting others to do the same. The short version is to start with a mace of 3 - 5 kg or 10 lbs. The reasoning for why 3-5 kg is here.
If you enjoy the mace training style and the primal feeling you get swinging a lump of metal around then by all means, crack on to invest in a full Macebell tool. The next question is what weight steel mace do you need next?
Should You Go Up A Weight?
We know now that the Macebell/Sledgehammer lights that fire in your belly to keep you coming back. The key to effective fitness training is consistency! If you enjoy it, you've won half the battle already. There's a few styles of fitness training with a Macebell that you’ve come across by now or want to explore. We need to consider each macebell style with their its parameters:
Complex training which is like HIIT workouts suit a mid weight but good length mace.
Steel Mace Flow is better suited to having the correct balance point with weight.
Traditional mace swing training is geared towards heavier macebells.
We will cover Complexes and Flow training first, then spend a little more time on traditional mace swings as that’s what most people have in mind when it comes to weight for a macebell.
"Plus the weight of the mace itself means there is a total downward pull exerted by the mace of 23 kg! A whole lot more than the 7 kg weight of the mace when you take it at face value!"
At this stage you may or may not know which style to go for. However, whichever path you choose, the starting weight will probably be within a set range. To be clear, this range may not sound heavy but when you multiply the weight by the length of the lever and add momentum, a light weight can feel pretty darn heavy, which Alex will help me explain in a moment.
Next Mace Weight For Complexes Training
Complex training covers a large variety of exercises and is probably your most conventional version of exercise with this unconventional tool. This is doing things like HIIT training, Tabata or sets & reps. Generally though, complexes involve doing one movement repeatedly before changing to the next exercise (e.g. this). Because of the more standard format we can look to more the more standard principles F.I.T.T progression:
Frequency
Intensity
Time
Type
You might not need to increase your mace weight to get more out of your workouts. You can enhance frequency by doing the workouts or similar, more times in a week. You could do the workouts for longer; though if you’re hitting an hour already it would be better to adjust the other F.I.T.T variables. Then there’s type, choosing a harder exercise. A lunge is a harder version of a squat. Both work glutes and quads but the lunge increases the stimulus to each leg.
Then there is intensity. The weight in our case. You’ll want to set your own markers depending on your goal here. If you are going down the strength route, once you can complete 5 - 12 reps or about 30 secs of an exercise you might want to go up an increment. For endurance, 12 - 30 reps or 40 - 60 seconds. For complexes I’d say the weight wants to be a 1 - 2 kg increase as usually there’s less leverage to compete with for things like uppercuts and presses. That way the difference is close to the actual weight you chose to increase by, similar to more conventional exercises.
What About Steel Mace Flow Weight?
Mace Flow is more unconventional and less receptive to increases in weight. I first got a 5 kg mace and years later it's still my main choice for steel mace flow despite now owning 3 kg, 4 kg, 7 kg, 10 kg, 12 kg and 15 kg Macebells as well as a 16 kg hammer. The mace is incredibly versatile and your main limitation on progression in steel mace flow is skill not strength. You might never need to look at purchasing an additional mace, though it is handy to have options and challenges to work with.
The reason you don’t need many, if any, heavier mace for flow style is because of balance points. Steel mace flows are far more fluid and dynamic than most exercises and even other mace training styles. There’s lots of twirls and flips. One of the most common jokes the trolls try on social media is to compare mace flow to baton twirling. They aren’t far wrong of course but the mace is substantially heavier. The balance also isn’t evenly distributed.
Usually heavier mace just adds a bigger head onto the same handle. For the correct rotation characteristics we need some weight in the handle to counterbalance the head. As the heads get heavier the centre of gravity moves further up towards the head nullifying the counterbalance of the handle. This makes the mace flip, twist and twirl slower than we would like for the fluid flows.
I treat flows as my cardio stimulus. Like running, to progress you run further or faster, not weighed down more. Thus, mace flows should do the same. Make them longer, experiment with tempo or enhance the complexity. Increasing the weight for flows isn’t what I would recommend.
The Implications Of Just 3 kg (Alex Ward)
When considering increasing the weight of your mace, it is important to consider how the mace is exerting force on your body, this might seem like an odd concept, and you might think upgrading from a 7 kg to 10 kg mace is simply a 3 kg increase, which probably doesn’t sound like a lot. But due to the nature of what the mace is (a mass and long lever arm, where the centre of mass is positioned a long distance from our contact point) and how we use them (by swinging them is arcs, or circular paths), the increase from a 7 kg to 10 kg mace will lead to a much larger increase in force exerted on the body than 3 kg!
This is due to, what is known to physics nerds as, Centripetal Force; the force required to keep a mass moving on a circular path. Newton's first law states "an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and same direction, unless acted upon by an unbalanced external force". In our case, centripetal force is the external force which directs the motion of the mace into a circular path.
It is the same force you feel every time you drive your car around a corner fast, you feel yourself being thrown towards the outside of the bend and have to grip the seat with your butt cheeks to prevent yourself ending up on the other side of the car! Or, the force you feel when you get spun on a roundabout at the park, and feel yourself resisting being thrown off to the outside. The direction of this force is always towards the centre. You feel the equal magnitude in the opposite direction. So when you are gripping the roundabout you have to grip with equal force so as not to be thrown off.
Unlike a barbell deadlift, for example, where you are only fighting the weight of the mass due to gravity, in the case of the mace, you are fighting both the weight of the mass but also the centripetal force required to keep the mace moving on its circular path.
Let's dig into some analysis for the example of our 7 kg vs 10 kg maces; the magnitude of centripetal force required keep an object moving along its circular arc is dependent on:
The velocity of the object, v, the higher the velocity, the more centripetal force required
The radius of motion, r, the smaller/tighter the radius, the more centripetal force required
The mass of the object, m, the higher the mass, the more centripetal force required
These 3 factors are linked by the following formula to calculate centripetal force, in Newtons:
We know that the mass remains constant as. The radius of motion during a mace swing, such as the 360 or 10-2, remain near enough constant, therefore from the above formula it is clear that the peak centripetal force will occur when the velocity of the mace is the highest, this happens during the centre of the back swing
By analysing the motion of the mace frame by frame through the centre portion of the back swing, we can figure out the radius of motion and velocity of the mace. We do that by having a reference scale of known length, and by knowing the frame rate the video was shot in, in this case, 960FPS super slomo.
So let's do that for our example of a 7 kg mace:
We now have all the factors required to calculate the centripetal force I am required to exert on the mace to keep it moving in its arc:
Plus the weight of the mace itself means there is a total downward pull exerted by the mace of 23 kg! A whole lot more than the 7 kg weight of the mace when you take it at face value!
Let's repeat the process for a 10 kg mace:
Plus the weight of the mace itself, that means in the centre of the back swing, this 10 kg mace is exerting a downward pull of 34 kg! 11 kg more than the 7 kg mace despite only being 3 kg heavier!
Are You Ready For The Next Steel Mace?
For an upper body exercise like a barbell bench press you’d most likely increase your weight by 2.5 kg - 5 kg. As Alex has detailed, a simple 3 kg heavier mace translates to 11 kgs more force to contend with! You probably wouldn’t just add 11 kg onto your bench press. But how do we know when you are actually ready to take that jump.
One way to assess what weight you may want next is with single arm work. If you can swing a 5 kg Macebell with one hand, you'll probably be able to do double the weight with two hands. For the 360 Swing, this single hand doubling rule works well both ways, generally. For flow and complex training however, it doesn't stand up to the test as good.
Another convention is the mace rep marker of 10 - 100 swings. It’s considered you can’t swing or train on a mace weight until you can do at least 10 reps. On the other end of the spectrum, when you can do 100 total swings, you’re ready for the next, emphasis on next, weight up.
What Weight Next For Traditional Swings
By the time you're thinking of getting another mace, you've probably got a better idea of the training style you like or want to achieve. If you want to go competitive then it's safe to say an adjustable macebell would be your best option as you'll be looking to progressively overload your weight on a regular basis as well as perform pyramid sets and other styles of strength improvement. That's a lot of maces to buy...so although an adjustable is more expensive than a single macebell, you'll save money and time in the long run.
The Flowing Dutchman, easily the biggest name in Europe for mace and a good contender for the world, only recommends 8 kg as your second mace from 5 kg. Fitness in general it’s best to take the next smallest increment but take them more often.That way your body is experiencing the holy grail of muscle and strength development being Progressive Overload. It’s easier to take a small step up in weight than a bigger step.
For some steel mace manufacturers, they do offer increments of 1 kg up to about 10 kg. After that the jumps get bigger being 2 - 5 kg at a time. It’s possible to take a 5 kilo increase in weight but as Alex discussed a 3 kg increase is actually an 11 kg bump and using his math that makes a 5 kg increment more equivalent to a 12 kg increase from 5 to 10 kg maces or a 14 kg boost going from a 10 to a 15! Again, this is where an adjustable mace comes into its own. Say a 2 inch diameter mace, you can use 2” olympic plates which can come in fractions as small as 0.25 kg. Usually the common smallest is 1.25 kg. This gives you smaller steps in progression to add to an adjustable mace being closer to a more manageable 2 kg increment per step up in applied force.
Overall
Guessing you read the Article on What Weight Mace To Choose you should have started with a 3 - 5 kg mace. For the various styles, you'll quickly notice the difference in weight of just 1 kg. To lift off the floor it's nothing much but to hold at length and swing with intent, that extra 1 kg is multiplied. I would recommend no more than 2 - 3 kg increments. The heavier you go the more the centre of gravity travels up the mace and consequently moves the centre of resistance further away from you which artificially increases the length of the lever multiplying the resistance. Therefore, for complexes where leverage is less of a concern you could rise 2 - 5 kg. For Flow you really don’t want to be moving beyond 5 kg total because of the balance. For traditional mace swings it’s probably best, in the early stages, to only move up 3 kg at most.
P.s. Armoured Muscle has no financial affiliation with Magic Macebells. I offered to feature Alex’s products in return for assisting me with the writing of this article.
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