Weds 3/25/15
Just a little GPP and some active recovery for the legs.
Sled Drag x 2 1/2 plates x 16 trips
Get In Shape to Train!
There are basically 2 things that I really like about the sled. First, it almost completely eliminates the need for a bunch of high rep lower body training. The type that leaves you SORE for days and impacts your ability to do any heavy squatting or deadlifting later in the week. The sled is a complete workout for the hamstrings, quads, and calves, and you can shift the emphasis from one muscle group to the next just by changing your posture and stride. Walking tall and upright with an arched back and using long strides will hit the hamstrings. Leaning forward or dragging the sled backwards is great for building up the quads. Increasing your work capacity on the sled will give you not only bigger legs, but legs that are better conditioned and more resistant to fatigue. All the while – you don’t get sore from pulling the sled. In fact, if you are sore from squats or deadlifts, a little bit of light sled dragging like I did today, goes along way towards speeding up the recuperative process and flushing out the soreness. If you have a back injury, sled dragging can make a great short term replacement for squats and deadlifts while you heal, without your legs shriveling up into toothpicks. .
Secondly, sled dragging is a great method of building up “weight room conditioning.” Weight room conditioning, as I define it, is how well or how poorly you handle training volume in the gym. Within a given amount of time, say 60-90 minutes – how much quality work can you get done? This is basically influenced by how long it takes you to recover between sets or between exercises. How many sets can you complete of a given exercise at a fairly high intensity? Take the classic 5×5 protocol. One of the tried and true muscle and strength builders that can be used on just about any barbell exercise – the main drawback? It’s really really hard to do 5×5. A strong and very well conditioned trainee can do 5×5 across with probably close to 85% of his 1RM on a good day (for a very strong trainee, that number will likely be closer to 80%). A well conditioned lifter can probably complete all his sets on 5-8 minute rest periods if he has his mind right.
However, the less conditioned you are, the more you have to “give” on some of those parameters. For instance, a less conditioned trainee might have a set and rep pattern that goes like this: 5 x 5, 5, 4, 4, 3 if he attempts to complete a heavy 5×5 on 5-8 minute rest periods. In order to complete the protocol next time he has to do one of two things: (1) lighten the load down 5-10%, or (2) expand his rest periods out to between 10-15 minutes between sets. Not including warm up sets, changing plates, etc, 15 minute rest periods for 5×5 means 1 complete hour of rest time alone! Maybe you have the time for that, but I certainly don’t – especially if you want to do anything else in your training session that day.
A better solution is to get yourself conditioned enough to make it through the workout with the prescribed loads, at the prescribed volume, in a reasonable amount of time! The sled is an excellent way to do this because of the lack of soreness it produces due to the concentric only loading pattern it follows. Additionally it can be scaled. Over time you can load the sled up heavier and heavier and increase the distance you drag it, shorten rest intervals between trips, etc. It becomes a very very useful tool for getting yourself into shape for volume squatting. Most people have it in their head that you have to train in order to get into shape. But think about it a different way. As Louie Simmons always likes to say…“You gotta be in shape to train.” Think about that for a minute. It’s powerful.
If your lifts are stuck it may be that you simply aren’t doing enough work in the gym to spur on new progress. However you may not feel like you can do anything more than what you are already doing. But maybe you could do more if you were just in better shape? Something to think about.
Great article, Andy! What would you suggest someone at home use that would duplicate a sled? My gym does not have one.
Usually the recipe for a homemade sled is an old tire screwed into a piece of plywood. Then you add weights inside the tire. Or you can just drag a tire. If you wanna do it right, you can order sleds fairly cheap from places like Rogue or EliteFTS. If you would rather just use cardio equipment I like treadmills set at a high incline
Hi Andy.
For general cardio conditioning, is a sled in your opinion any less effective than the prowler? I have a sled, but don’t own a prowler, is it worth upgrading?
Thanks David
No question that the Prowler is harder. So it depends what we are conditioning for. If you want/need to get into PEAK physical condition then you need a Prowler. For developing general weightroom GPP the sled works very well.