Push. The. Prowler. If you don’t know what a Prowler is or your gym doesn’t have one then you need to either buy one or join a gym that’s got one. Here’s what it looks like:
So there are high bars and low bars to push from. I usually grab the Prowler post workout and do about 5-7 rounds of a down and back push of roughly 15 Meters each way. High bars down and low bars back. So 30 Meters = 1 Round. I’ll start with an empty Prowler, then add plates until it gets pretty heavy and I’m moving pretty slow. Then I take one set of plates off and do one round until the Prowler is empty again. Then I’m done. The beauty of the Prowler is that I’ve never been sore or felt over trained by adding it to the end of my workouts. Don’t get me wrong, it sucks. You may very well puke. It’s horrible and awesome at the same time. I think every runner would benefit from adding a Prowler session to their training.
Have you seen benefits to your running with prowler training (measurable or not)? I can see this benefitting sprinters, but I’m not sure about distance. Having said that, I am still thinking about buying one because it looks so dang fun! Well, in the sick kind of way we find fun.
I’ve never done any measurements, but I’m convinced it should be part of any endurance athletes training at some point. I learn a LOT mentally about myself when I reach that point of exhaustion where I just don’t think I can go anymore. I get that way with a heavily loaded prowler toward the end of some heavy prowler pushes. For me, I think it is important to learn what it’s like to bring yourself to that point and know that you can keep going. Since I don’t run a lot of long distances in training, when I hit that mental wall during an Ultra it is not a foreign feeling. I know what it is, and I know I can keep going. Hope that makes sense. I don’t have any scientific answers. 🙂
That’s a good answer. I think the prowler is the definite tool for finding that limit, from watching the Youtube videos!