Dear all, following Tim's and Jason's advice I bought "The naked warrior...", great stuff (thanks)! Now I've found another, apparently promising, book: "Clubbell training", do you know anything about it?

Who wrote it? I know Scotto Sonnen has one or two books on clubbells. Mike Mahler has a lot of good information on kettleballs. All that stuff is good, but you can also be a little boring and use dumbbells

I have the book. It's very good. I highly advice it and the video.

if nothing else, (i've only sort of 'played' with clubbells myself) it seems like just working with the clubs are going to increase your forearm/grip strength.

There is a high correlation between grip strength and non-cooperative application of a variety of martial arts techniques, from catch wrestling to judo to boxing.

PS: I made my own clubbell by buying an old 'wiffle-ball bat' and filling it with sand. This makes it weigh about 3 pounds or so, at about 35" length. I sometimes use it as a shoulder/wrist warmer upper before judo or upper body lifting.
At 150lbs, with higher than average grip strength for my size, i find my little homemade clubbat very taxing on my lower arm!

For Richard: Yes, it's Scott Sonnon's book, I was captured by the concept of "circular strength";)

Thanks Jason (and Backarcher), precious info as usual!