Hi, this is my first post, though I have been lurking for over a year now. I have a question about sled training, specifically how effective is it for developing a solid and strong lower body. Ill be honest, I’m using the sled as a workaround for the squat.
Squats have aggravated my back for years since an injury I sustained in highschool. Since I dont plan on doing any competition, I feel no squats are a loss, but not as significant if they were a required lift. Interestingly enough deadlifts dont bother me. As for the main point, what is the best way to train with the sled for strength and power
Right now I do 6 100ft sprints, adding weight every week with about 2-3 minutes rest in between. My legs feel like jello for the next hour. I would also like to add Id like to lose about 10% body fat while strength training. I know the two goals are contradictory, perhaps there is a special diet?
I would suggest you try to find some sort of squat variation that doesn’t aggravate your back, even if it’s not something you load heavily. Something like a belt squat if you have access to it would be great, if not maybe try goblet squats holding a dumbbell or kettlebell.
When it comes to the sled, that distance seems spot on. My suggestion is that if you’re doing this to gain strength/muscle in the legs, then rest long enough in between to fully recover. You have to decide if this is conditioning or strength training.
You don’t move your leg through half of the range of motion of a squat when you are sled dragging. Unless you are doing it a lot different from me anyway.
Get a hip belt and you can squat with it.
Or just use the leg press. I know it is a sin, but if you say a hail mary per rep you will be forgiven.
Diet advice: 40% protein, 30% of each of the other two and play around with the calories until it works. Figure out what you are at now, and start there with the new macro nutrient profile. You can get fussier than that and the exact %'s will vary and make everyone argue lots if I remember this board right, but if you start there you can find what works for you.
Strength gains and fat loss aren’t completely contradictory; one can gain strength through neurological adaptation as well as muscle size increases. Your aim should be to slowly lose weight if you do want to keep/improve your strength. Sled dragging sounds like a good alternative if you load it extremely heavy but as others have said doing a low spinal loading leg exercise with it would be useful. Bulgarian split squats might be good for this.
I actually started the WS4SB program last week (first version) and I am adding a sled condition day as recommended in the document.
I also cleaned up my diet and I am averaging 40-50% protein, 35-45% fat, 20-30% carbs on a daily basis.
Here is my sled day workout schedule:
2x heavy drags for 100ft
4x sprints, medium weight for 150 feet
4x pulls, low weight for 100 feet (my quads are dead after the first two workouts I really cant load them heavy without failing)
4x drag/pull hybrid, low weight for 100 feet.
The drag/pull hybrid is basically pulling the sled, but instead of using a harness I use a rope and drag it with one hand. You kind of have to run sideways.
Does this sound like a good plan? It certainly tires me out when I’m done.
I can’t comment on how good it’ll be for leg development as I’ve never trained for hypertrophy like this. I can imagine it might work with a high enough calorie surplus. Personally, for pure leg development I would be tempted to do more heavy drags. 100ft is quite a long time under tension so I can’t imagine the low weight drags are as effective.
If you have access to a gym why not do some heavy drags once a week followed by some leg extensions/curls (I hate isolations as a general rule but they have their place) to failure.
While I see a lot of people doing forward movements with the sled (sprints, pulls, etc.), some of my favorite sled pulls are backwards, which is a great quad builder; and lateral pulls, which work the gluteus minimus/medius on the side of the hip. I’ve resolved some back pain issues by paying attention to the smaller gluteal muscles.
With that said, as far as strength is concerned, I would try to go heavy instead of far. You can’t necessarily do “reps” like you can do a 3-5 rep max on bench or deads. But I try to think of it in a similar fashion as doing heavy lifts vs. hypertrophy. If the goal is strength…go heavy.
Here is a leg workout I’m currently doing. I’m 1 yr post back surgery
Lying Leg Curls 4 x 12
Bulgarian Split Squats 4 x 8
KB Front Squats 1.5 3 x 10 (all the way down, half way up, back down and up. That’s one. This allows a lighter load while frying the legs)
Pull throughous 3 x 15
Backward Sled Drags 5-6 x 100ft drags on 90s recovery
I’ve actually use a weighted sled exclusively for lower body for 1 to 3 months at a time during the year.
It was all I could do after surgery and after some other injuries. I not only built my legs back up to normal doing this but surpassed my pre-surgery size.
I’ve done everything thing from daily sled pushes/drags to once a week sled pushes/drags. What has worked best for actually hypertrophy is to pick a set volume and work on increasing weight and decreasing rest periods. Decreasing the rest periods actually helped the most.
Now to be specific on volume I would train 3 days a week with the sled. Each day I would drag backwards 40 yards then immediately turn around and push 40 yards. Think of it as a superset. I would do this 10 times for a total of 20 trips.
The key for me was when I stopped sprinting and started pushing/pulling hard. I got this from Louie Simmons. Louie told me to step deliberately as if I were stomping and pull through hard on each step.
I gained 3 1/2 inches on my thighs in a 3 month period the first time I did this.
I’m currently starting over with this. I’ve had to start over due to a knee injury. Hopefully it will work it’s magic again.
On a side note I also lowered my body-fat percentage around 10% with this type of training. Went from 25% to close to 15% bodyfat. It took more than 3 months though. More like 6 months.
Sledge pulls are similar to tyre flips, they use a lot of muscles for moving weight over a distance and therefore, it cannot be compared to squats and deadlifts which are static.
You will burn a lot more calories and increase endurance doing sledge and tyres than squats and deadlifts, trust me on this.
I would never do a tyre/tire flip as they are extremely technical and have plenty of room for back injury. Most kids today lift them with a rounded back and dont even realize it.
[quote]Aero51 wrote:
I would never do a tyre/tire flip as they are extremely technical and have plenty of room for back injury. Most kids today lift them with a rounded back and dont even realize it. [/quote]
And are you one of them or somebody that wants to learn how to do things differently? The same can be said for deadlifts sand back squats.
There is a way to rip your biceps with a tyre and a way to run at it shoulder first and flip it like a man. Which one do you want to learn?
Neither because I don’t have an experienced lifter who can show me exactly how to perform the lift and correct me as I am doing it. In many ways it is like the squat: useful and highly technical. You see so many people in the gym screwing up squats because they don’t have anyone to teach them proper form. Reading about it only goes so far, videos may work after trial and error. I don’t see how you can video tape a tire flip though without at least one other person. I do not have a workout partner so this isn’t feasible.
[quote]Aero51 wrote:
Neither because I don’t have an experienced lifter who can show me exactly how to perform the lift and correct me as I am doing it. In many ways it is like the squat: useful and highly technical. You see so many people in the gym screwing up squats because they don’t have anyone to teach them proper form. Reading about it only goes so far, videos may work after trial and error. I don’t see how you can video tape a tire flip though without at least one other person. I do not have a workout partner so this isn’t feasible.[/quote]
Put the camera down, and flip the tire in front of it?
[quote]Aero51 wrote:
Right now I do 6 100ft sprints, adding weight every week with about 2-3 minutes rest in between. My legs feel like jello for the next hour. I would also like to add Id like to lose about 10% body fat while strength training. I know the two goals are contradictory, perhaps there is a special diet?[/quote]
For conditioning, sprints are your best bet. 30 yards is a common distance. Vary your rest times.
For hypertrophy, go at a moderate pace and really focus on the muscles…quads during backward drags and glutes/hams during pushes. Again, 30 yards is a good distance but the TUT will be 20-30 seconds since you go slower that with the sprints.
CT wrote an article in the LiveSpill or something 1-2 years ago that was awesome, instructing on 3 speeds/techniques to use a sled for 3 different goals. I can’t find it.
Here is that livespill article from CT that I spoke of, compliments of dlee34…
Types of Sled Movements
TYPE 1: moderate weight/slow movements… these are the best to improve nutrients uptake by the muscles… they thus facilitate recovery the most and help with hypertrophy. The also help with fat loss since more nutrients are sent to the muscles, and less to fat.
TYPE 2: light/moderate weight - fast speed: short bursts of 6-9 seconds with short rest intervals. Depending on the rest intervals these have a great metabolic cost. Since they combine both explosive and eccentric-less work, they have a profound effect on muscle insulin sensitivity. Combined with the metabolic cost, it makes it a GREAT fat loss tool.
TYPE 3: heavy weight/“just get there” kinda speed: I use very heavy 15m pushes/pulls with as much weight as I can do for that distance. I actually treat this as I would a strength lift and gradually ramp the weight up. I find this a great way to increase muscle mass. It is a great way to boost squat, deadlift and olympic lifting performance.
Since I’ve joined a new gym about 3 months ago which has a prowler I’ve been hooked on it. I use it as a finisher to my leg workouts and I usually go moderate to heavy. I do “lunges” with them using the whole feet to push off instead of the balls of the feet.
