Heavy Club Reverse Mill: What It Works and How to Progress It

The reverse mill is the mill backwards. Instead of rotating in toward your centerline, the club rotates out from it. It works the rear delts and the back of the forearms, muscles that are often overlooked in modern life. Train it on the same club as your mill, on the same volume cycle: 5 sets of 5 per side, one set added at a time, up to 20 sets of 5. If your reverse mill is weaker, train it until it holds up to the mill.

What is the reverse mill?

The mill is a very natural movement pattern that most people use all day, every day. It's how you swing anything from an axe to a baseball bat. It's how you throw a punch with correct mechanics, or a football, or a baseball.

The reverse mill is the same movement, but backwards. You don't really see it in any movement pattern except martial arts, such as blocking.

That's exactly why it's worth training. It uses muscles that modern life skips, and the balance between the two movements is important. You don't want to overdevelop one and cause imbalances in your body. The mill guide covers the forward version.

What does the reverse mill work?

The rear delts and the back of your forearms. That's where you'll feel it the day after your first real session.

The reason is the direction. Casting the club out from your centerline rotates the shoulder outward, and the muscles that do that sit on the back of the shoulder and between the shoulder blades. The back of the forearm works to keep the wrist from folding as the club swings away from you. Almost everything you do in a normal day rotates the shoulder the other way: pressing, typing, carrying, throwing.

What does it have to do with blocking a punch?

Think about a straight punch coming at you. The force is moving in a straight line, along the other person's arm.

The reverse mill is a rotational force going out from the centerline of your body. That rotation takes the straight force coming in and deflects it out. You take their arm as it comes in and open them up, so you have access to their centerline to strike back.

The mill is how you throw. The reverse mill is how you get the other person's punch out of the way.

Should you use a lighter club for the reverse mill?

Ideally you use the same club for both, because that means you're in balance.

If your reverse mill is weaker, train it until it holds up to the mill, and then you're good to go. Dropping to a lighter club hides the gap instead of closing it.

How many reverse mills should you do?

The same as the mill. A normal volume cycle: 5 sets of 5 per side, one set added at a time, up to 20 sets of 5, 100 reps per side. Then density compresses it toward 10 sets of 10.

Mill first or reverse mill first doesn't matter, as long as you do both. Switch it up from time to time, so each one gets trained while you're fresh and while you're fatigued.

How do you know it's caught up?

The numbers. If you complete the workout and it's the same as your mill, you're in balance.

If the mill is at 15 sets of 5 and the reverse mill is at 9, the reverse mill is what you're training. Once both log the same session on the same club, they climb together, and the heavier-club decision belongs to the pair.

What goes wrong

The arc. Most people who get the reverse mill wrong get the arc of the club wrong. It needs to trace a circle with your shoulder as the center.

That practice has to come from somewhere. It comes from the shield cast and a solid foundation in the rest position, with the elbow locked at 90 degrees.

The grip. It must be light, not super tight. Same rule as the circles: let the club move in your hand.

Doing the arithmetic

The reverse mill doubles the bookkeeping. Two directions, two sides, and a rule that says the pair has to match before either moves on. That's easy to lose track of, especially since the mill is the fun one. The system in this article is free to run with a notebook. Perside just never forgets and never rounds in your favor.

Your first session

Use the same club you mill with. Reverse mills, 5 sets of 5 per side, slow. Pause in the rest position any time you need it, and watch the arc. The club should circle your shoulder.

Keep your grip loose. Next session, 6 sets. When the reverse mill logs the same session as your mill, they're a pair again.

Perside programs volume, density, and timed cycles for clubs, maces, and kettlebells. See the full progression at The Path, or size your first implement at getperside.com/learn/start.