I’ve been watching some of Brian Alsruhe’s stuff lately and just watched a video where he lays out 4 non-traditional exercises to make you more powerful; one of them being a single-arm rope/sled pull from a plank position . . has anyone implemented this in their program? If so, what’s your thoughts from a strength/hypertrophy standpoint? I really like doing different versions of loaded carries and this particular exercise has me intrigued as well; thinking I could maybe substitute it for a cable row or something similar.
From a hypertrophy standpoint, I don’t see it as being a great exercise. Not from a fatigue/results ratio at least.
Strictly for hypertrophy, a more stable environment is more conducive to progress. The reason is that the more stable a movement is, the less of the neural drive is used to contract muscles that will only be used to stabilize the body (or load) so that means that less of that neural drive is left to be sent to the muscle you are trying to grow.
A smaller neural drive to a muscle means that it will be harder to recruit the fast-twitch fibers (which are part of the high-threshold motor units, high-threshold meaning that they need a strong excitatory signal to be recruited)…
If you don’t recruit as many fast-twitch fibers, you will stimulate less growth (FT fibers have more growth potential).
Also consider that this exercise has no eccentric phase, or, at least, a high level of tension when the muscle is in a lengthened state (like farmer’s walks on traps, for example). So even before considering the stability argument, it loses roughly 50% of of its hypertrophy-stimulating potential compared to a regular exercise which has tension during both the concentric and eccentric phases.
Does this mean that this exercise is worthless? No, of course not. Any exercise performed against resistance that creates enough fatigue in the target muscle will “work”, to some extent.
But if my main goal was hypertrophy, this would never be put in my program.
However, I do see potential benefits, mostly in terms of improving core and shoulder stability, which could eventually help with strength (the more stable a joint is, the more force you can produce).
It certainly looks cool and impressive. And you will certainly look badass if you do it properly. But I’m personally not sure if it’s worth adding. If it were, you’d have more than one guy pushing it.
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I really appreciate the detailed response . . I’ll leave them on the shelf for now