Love the concept of the Jammer training tool but don’t have the equipment piece? Us, too. That’s why we messed around and came upon this one: The Poor Man’s Jammer.

I refer to this modified version of the Jammer as a “poor man’s” version because it can be used in smaller facilities and requires only a Cook-type bar to perform.

Although the traditional Jammer does allow for a more explosive, dynamic effort because the handles can technically be thrown out of the hands, the poor man’s version represents a decent alternative.

The setup is as simple as clasping the Cook Bar across a functional trainer machine onto each pulley:

The relative lack of inherent rigidity in the cable wire adds a perturbatory stimuli to this version of the exercise. This perturbatory effect is increased as the grip on the bar is narrowed, tipping the scales toward a more real-to-sport action and incorporating a greater contribution from the wrists, triceps, deltoids and the shoulder protractors.

To set up perfect repetitions, decide whether you want the exercise to be for the purpose of improving acceleration; a full-body press to develop more sport-like horizontal force generation, or a purely upper-body press to build concentric strength in the pushing pattern.

For each of the three following exercises, place your hands on the bar at an equal distance from the pulley attachments and step forward so you’re starting from a place of slight tension.

1. Upper Body Press

Develop strength on your feet with this horizontal press. This is a great complement to the traditional Bench Press because of its transfer to sport-specific actions.

2. Full-Body Press

This version of the press involves an explosive step forward to teach the athlete to generate horizontal force with the entire body. It’s a great tool because the nature of the cable is that the athlete must push forward while also fighting to not be pushed backward.

3. Explosive Plyo Step

This version of the press involves the Plyo-step, a movement generated by our evolutionary instinct to escape danger and move quickly wherein the foot is planted outside of the hip to get the body moving in the desired direction as fast as possible. It is therefore a great tool for honing speed in contexts where the athlete has no prior warning of the need to accelerate.

Now, everybody can have access to almost all of the benefits of a Jammer, even without the space or the super-bag.

Put this one to work!

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