Get the most out of your Pahlavandle™

When you get your Pahlavandle™, the little card in the bag mentions a few things, but it’s impossible to list everything! Stay with us and read on to discover the huge amount of variability there is in our little handle.

Get the right bottle

First, you must use plastic bottles that were made for carbonated beverages. The thread on that type of bottle is stronger than regular water bottles, and is an international size and standard in the industry. This is the exact match for our Pahlavandle™. Anything else is unlikely to work properly.

Carbonated beverages can be soft drinks, sparkling mineral water or even beer. BUT but but… drink the contents first, and then refill the bottles with tap water. If you leave carbonated liquids in the bottle and start to swing, you might experience leakage as the pressure build up increases with movement…

What’s in a name?

By the way, did you know why our little invention is called a Pahlavandle™? 
In Persia, a Pahlavan was an accomplished warrrior, athlete and man of honour, a  true leader in his community. Enters the Pahlavan-handle. We wanted to pay respect to the roots of club swinging, and make this training form available to anyone. 

It’s all about the shape of it

Now, not every plastic bottle is created equal…  Generally,  bottles with a classical wine bottle shape, a long neck, are structurally stronger and provide the best weight distribution, compared to a squarish bottle.

We recommend to use bottles up to 1.5 liters. While we have some people swing 1.75 and 2 liter bottles, usually in most countries, these bottles are too soft and bend at the neck, especially if your swings are less than perfectly smooth.

Wait, you can use different fillers???

Also, just because these bottles were filled with water , it doesn’t mean you should only use water! If you collect a few bottles, you can build a whole collection of clubs up to 3kg!

For this, you will need sand. Sand is roughly twice the weight coefficient of water. So 1 liter bottle filled with sand weighs roughly 2kg.
Some people worried about spilling water indoors even use rice or bulgur. Here the coefficient is about the same as water. so 1l iter equals 1kg.

There is a difference in sand, with beach sand being lighter than sand you would buy at a hardware store.

If you’re going to use sand, we recommend you to seal the tops of your bottles. Use silicone or any type of of flexible acrylic multi purpose filler. This will prevent sand getting into the thread, and prolongate the life of your Pahlavandle™.

The perfect balance

With heavy fillers, one way to bring the balance point back closer to the center is to fill your Pahlavandle™ with a small weight. It really depends what you like.

The more the weight is towards the end of the club, the more aggressive the club will swing . The more it is towards the center, the more forgiving the club handles itself.
Pahlavandle™ are hollow for a reason!

To fill or not to fill?

Nobody says you have to fill the bottles chockablock before you swing them either. Filling bottles to 50-75% of their capacity creates a shifting weight. This is a great tool when first learning how to swing clubs, as the shifting weight creates an audible feedback, which can help you understand.

One of my favorite ways to do this is to fill gravel inside a bottle to about 70%, and then add water. It creates a new dimension to the swings. Be creative!

How to increase the challenge

Since the recommended maximum weight for the Pahalavandle™ is 3kg, there are 3 ways you can challenge your strength and skills.

#1: Screw 2 or 3 handles together. The longer lever arm increases the resistance without any weight increase.

#2: use Fatgrips. They slide on and fit perfectly and will give you a hell of a forearm and grip workout.

#3: check our our Pahlavandle TG! It’s adjustable to 15kg.