Prowling for weight loss?

Courtesy of Travis self training

Looking for a better way to condition yourself? Countless hours spent plodding away on an elliptical or recumbent bike can be very boring and in reality not tremendously productive. Additionally, as I’ve said before, keep your goals in mind; are you training for a marathon or high endurance event? If not, why spend countless hours doing long distance cardio if you’re never going to need that level of endurance? If cardio is strictly being used for weight loss there are better options, try something with more intensity and less duration. Limiting the duration will reduce the chances of overuse injuries and not require you to mortgage large shares of precious time just to stay in shape. There are a number of options such as intervals on a treadmill and sprint variations, but the ultimate, in my opinion, is sled work. Nothing really comes close to the intensity of weighted sled repeats.

There are many sled options and all work well, but one of the most popular in the strength and conditioning world is the prowler from Elite FTS.

Who says you can't look good while prowling? "Blinged out" prowler 2

This versatile sled can bring even highly conditioned people to their knees. It has a couple of pushing options from low to high as well as attachment points for pulling. This gives the operator many choices: push, pull, skip, side shuffle, offset pulling for training anti-rotation and more. This sled can be used for conditioning only or as a full-fledged workout itself. You could load it up, press it down one way (like a moving bench press), row it back (think standing cable row), then do a host of pulling and pushing varieties driving with the hips and legs before returning to the first exercise. You can also go heavy and march the sled down and back for more of a strength focus or lighten the weight up a bit and sprint it down for training power. The one thing that is never missing no matter how you use the prowler is cardiovascular conditioning. Your heart rate is guaranteed to be elevated the whole time.

Doesn't this look like fun?

If all of that weren’t enough, another beautiful thing about sled work is that it doesn’t create much soreness if at all. Because the effort is all concentric (all acceleration) you tend to feel fatigue the next day rather than soreness. If you’ve ever done “negatives” then you know what I’m talking about; negatives are all eccentric (all deceleration) which tends to elicit a good deal of soreness. This fact makes sled work a great option for athletes in season that can’t afford to be sore all of the time but need to keep their strength and conditioning up. Though I’m not an athlete in the traditional sense, I don’t participate in organized sports, I do appreciate being able to add the prowler into my programming because it can be done on my non-lifting days without negatively affecting my strength training. It can also be added as a finisher on lifting days because post-workout a couple of repeats can be plenty so it doesn’t add a lot of time or volume.

Drive Sled II from Perform Better

Sled Dawg Elite also from Perform Better

Power Sled from Power Systems

If you’re ready to take your conditioning and weight loss to the next level weighted sled work could be the answer. To avoid catching the “prowler flu”, make sure to moderate your volume at first. This type of conditioning is sneaky and more intense than it initially feels. IF you think your recumbent bike is giving you an intense workout, try using a sled and compare because there really is no comparison.

-KO