IN MOST GYMS, we are starting to see a far better setup when it comes to gym equipment and layout on offer. Long gone are the days where we had clunks of gym machinery taking up the whole gym floor that really only isolated one body part at a time.
Nowadays, people are more aware of what type of setup and equipment they need for a good effective workout. It’s great to see a lot more people start to take an interest in movement, mobility, and strength training and that can be reflected in how a lot of commercial gyms are designed. It’s pretty standard to see gyms kitted out with racks, barbells, resistance bands, kettlebells and so on, along with some open turfed space.
In a lot of my previous articles, I have given you smart ways on how to get the most out of each piece of equipment. I have covered as much as I can from bands, bells, mobility tools and so on. Today I am going to focus on the sled, or the prowler as others like to call it.
In a previous article I included 5 ways to increase your power on the field or in the gym. A lot of tools were covered, from battle ropes to medicine balls, and this is where the prowler could have fallen in as well.
Anyone that uses the prowler generally has a love/hate relationship with it, and I’m no exception. I love it because it’s so versatile. I also love the extraordinary results it produces in an extraordinarily short period of time. The prowler is the ultimate piece of equipment when it comes to getting the most bang for your buck in the least amount of time. Bodybuilders can use it to add extra volume and put size on, athletes can use it to get faster, or gym goers can use it as a nice finisher to their session.
Performing high intensity work and rest intervals of 20-30m sled sprints is something that is far more beneficial in terms of burning calories than going for a 30-minute jog. Doing things like hill springs or kettlebell swings are also a far better choice here and is something I have mentioned before in a previous article.
In most gyms I generally see the prowler being used in two ways. I tend to see either the light and fast approach, or the slow and heavy approach. These both are great ways of using the prowler and something you should continue doing but there are also a lot of other ways that you can incorporate the prowler into your workout.
Below is a snippet of my session last week where I spent 20-30 minutes on working the prowler. On that particular day the goal of this session was to keep my heart rate in a certain zone and not to push the body too much. I generally stayed away from high-intensity sled sprints and wanted to get a light sweat on, moving a load that wasn’t going to be too taxing on the body.
I put together these different variations below which I hope can give you a handful of different ideas for when you use the prowler next time:
I hope you’ve found this information useful and if you need any more advice, you can pop me a message at the links below.
David Last is a personal trainer based in Dublin. For more information you can follow him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Or you can send him a direct message here.
You can also see some of his previous articles here.
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