Anyone can pull a sled
There is no doubt that the Westside school has given powerlifting and the whole gym culture a great deal. Many Westside-derived influences and exercise techniques have become popular, even standard, in gyms around the world. One of the most useful and interesting techniques that also comes from the Westside school is sled pulling. Plenty of articles have been written about how sled pulling suits athletes for active recovery and for staying in shape, but little has been written about how this interesting exercise technique also works for ordinary people — “weekend athletes”, not just professionals.
So, for what goals, why and how could ordinary people pull a sled too? This exercise technique has many positive benefits.
General athletic fitness and condition
Let’s face it. A great many people are mostly out of shape. Even when they do something now and then — cycle a couple of times a month, kick a ball around while watching their child — it does little for their health. That means people’s performance capacity, their anaerobic and aerobic fitness and their tolerance for endurance-type training load are very low and poor. It would be more accurate to say there is no baseline at all.
Our health, how we feel and how we perform depend largely on these markers. What’s more, both anaerobic and aerobic training help keep body weight under control and reduce body fat percentage.
Muscle balance
Besides being out of shape, a major problem for many people is muscle imbalance. The muscles you can’t see in the mirror — on the back of the body — are especially prone to it. Sled training and sled pulling put all of these muscles to work well: the hamstrings (biceps femoris), the glutes and the back muscles. For people with a sedentary lifestyle, and for their posture, sled training and its different variations are a very good solution.
Functional training
The functionality of sled pulling lies in the fact that this activity is natural to, and characteristic of, our body’s everyday movements. It is a functional movement for our body — in many situations we operate in exactly this way, through exactly the kind of movements that are needed when moving along with a sled like this.
Moreover, pulling a heavy sled like this demands many different coordinated movements from the body, made up of both extensions and flexions, static and dynamic work. To get one piece of equipment moving, many different muscles and joints are at work: arms, legs, hips, back. All you need to do is pull a small sled.
Easy to learn
Honestly, there is nothing to learn here. It is even impossible to do anything wrong. Besides, the risk of injury with this training is extremely low. The sled won’t start moving on its own and won’t go anywhere, yet it isn’t so heavy that you’d wear yourself out pulling it. Both a 16-year-old and a 60-year-old can manage it.
Sled training isn’t complicated, and people can do it right away. That motivates them to keep trying it — longer distances, more weight. Succeeding straight away also gives people a positive feeling; they sense that it is good for them (and it is).
Sled training works well for those who normally have problems with squatting, very deep lunges or their back.
Group training and variety
Sled pulling is also a great, lively option for group training. Quite a few gym exercise techniques can be run as a group, and sled training is one of them. You can take turns doing stretches of different lengths, pull the sled for a set amount of time, or use it as a station in circuit training.
What’s more — sled pulling is a perfectly good, very effective substitute if you hate traditional long-duration aerobic training as a way to burn fat. You get the same benefits, only faster than by doing hours of low-intensity aerobic work.
Sled pulling is used by strongmen, powerlifters, soccer players and even bodybuilders to stay in shape. It builds endurance, while the calorie burn can be enormous (depending on the surface, the time and the weight). Naturally, here too fat burning produces visible results only if your nutrition is in order. And since this kind of activity is considerably more intense and energy-demanding than ordinary low-heart-rate aerobic training, you don’t have to do it for as long.
How to pull a sled
Sled pulling basically means that you have a metal plate with a metal tube or pole standing upright in the middle, onto which you can add extra weight in the form of plates. A rope or chain can be attached to the sled, and that is what you pull by. You can put a belt around your waist and pull, or pull using various handles. You can pull over different distances and/or pull your sled in different directions.
You can move the sled by running fast, walking at an easy pace, or pulling it backwards, which puts more training load on the glutes and biceps femoris.
If you attach two different ropes to your sled, you can tie each rope to a separate leg and move forward that way. It’s a training variation you’ll hardly be able to do in a gym.
You can also use two chains or ropes and move forward holding them in your hands (at your sides or overhead), so the training load shifts more onto the upper body too.
When you pull a sled or do sled training, the negative phase of the weight, or the yielding phase, is practically nonexistent. If you strap a 50 kg weight behind you with a harness and pull, you’ll see that there is no negative phase. You notice it clearly when you stop for a moment, because the sled also stops automatically.
Sled pulling is also a better fit for people whose joints simply can’t tolerate the typical long-lasting aerobic training. When you move slowly forward or backward with the sled, you make no sudden movements and you have chances to rest in between, yet the energy expenditure of this kind of activity is still considerable.
So if you hate typical fat burning, sled training is an alternative worth considering. Of course, you don’t have to give up low-intensity cardio (brisk walking, jogging, cycling), but replace some of your aerobic sessions with this kind of sled training and then see whether it’s a change from regular fat burning or not.
Translator’s notes
Very interesting in any case, and as soon as the snow is gone, I intend to start practicing this kind of sled training myself. For now I’ll do it with a big “Mass” (truck) tire, and if I manage to get such a sled welded together, then definitely with a sled too. I don’t think you even have to run with the sled; ordinary walking is enough. There are also many ways to set up this kind of training. Get 2–3 training partners together, and each guy pulls the sled for, say, 1 minute. You can also do the same over some distance, with each guy pulling the sled for, say, 100 m. While one works, the other rests.
I’m not insisting that dragging a sled like this could replace gym workouts. Rather, as the article also says: first, it’s varied and, I think, emotional. Second, this kind of activity is very functional. And third, if people could be bothered to do this in 2–3 workouts a week (you don’t have to drag all day), what an overall rise in performance and work capacity that would bring. Doing something like this outdoors with a group in summer, both for the training and, now and then, to compete, is a lot of “fun”, after all.
And of course strongmen: this kind of endurance and movement is downright essential for them!
Finally, I’m adding a couple of links:
Articles “Benefits Of Sled Training For The Non-athlete” by Josh Henkin and “Sled Dragging – A Fun Way To Burn Fat Especially If You Hate Cardio!”
Translated by Janar Rückenberg
Come and work out! ArtGym
