My son and a one of his friends (juniors in HS) have discovered car pushing as a supplement to their leg days in the gym. They’ve started with 5 set of about 30-40 yards. One drives while the other pushes, swithching to rest. Does this sound like an appropriate way to train for football or would different distances, reps, rest periods, etc be better?
John,
I am an old guy (46) that loves pushing his 4Runner around. I think it offers terrific all over conditioning, especially cardio. This is just Prowler with an attitude and I don’t see how they couldn’t gain both strength and fitness from doing it. The scheme seems fine for a workout but I’d suggest they try other workouts as well.
We do horizontal pushes on a long parking lot (100 yards) on a slope. The driver turns downhill and then turns back. The car gets away from me so I have to haul @$$ to catch it, (it’s probably not that fast but I’m starting to get pooped at this point) then I have to re-establish momentum. By the time I’m done I’ve pushed or run after the vehicle for about 200 yards.
Some folks recommend vehicle pulls, I’ve not tried it but be careful not to pull of the bumper! I think it sounds dangerous for a couple of teenagers to be doing unsupervised.
Good luck,
B
Thanks for the suggestion. I agree pulling a car supervised or not probably isn’t the best idea. Would just take a slip and a second of inattention to cause a problem. We thought about trying someting like this. Push hard for 7-10 seconds, light jog for 25 seconds and repeat for 15 or so pushes. Idea being this would simulate a long drive in a football game.
We did this in high school!! trainer will chill in his GMC Sierra, it looked like the Chevy Tahoe, and 2 of us would get behind and push for 10 seconds, than sprint 40 yards…rest a few seconds, and repeat…prtty much did it til we were completely spent…i went to a pretty seroius high school who prided themselves big time in football, 10 of my freinds are playing D-1 ball these days…1 at USC, Stanford, Maryland, New Hampshire, and a few other schools, cant remember them all, but definitely do it! it will give you a huge boost in conditioning over the competition…have fun! we also did keg tosses, just get a keg, im sure it cant be that hard in high school to find a keg somewhere!!!
Pushing backwards (with your back against the vehicle is great for the quads. Forward for the posterior chain. Lean your shoulder into it and do side steps for lateral leg strength. A car costs a lot more than a Prowler though. Can’t pick up many chicks with a Prowler…unless it’s made by Chrysler.
TNT
[quote]TNT-CDN wrote:
Can’t pick up many chicks with a Prowler…unless it’s made by Chrysler.
TNT[/quote]
Even then it’s going to be a struggle…
we used to push my buddies expedition in the off season to get that power for O and D line in highschool. great exercise. i cant really think of anything else that replicates the motion of engaging/overpowering someone. its probably the most functional training tool besides actually strapping it up and running plays.
[quote]TNT-CDN wrote:
Pushing backwards (with your back against the vehicle is great for the quads. Forward for the posterior chain. Lean your shoulder into it and do side steps for lateral leg strength. A car costs a lot more than a Prowler though. Can’t pick up many chicks with a Prowler…unless it’s made by Chrysler.
TNT[/quote]
ashamed to say i never even thought of pushing it any other way than forward. i’ll have to try these