Your breathing is uncontrollable, you’re panting like crazy that your heart could jump outside of your chest any second. You no longer feel your arms or your legs and you suddenly have a realisation that this is the closest you will ever come to death. Is this death? It certainly feels it. You’re still going as you feel a bead of sweat roll very slowly down the side of your face, but suddenly it hits you and you’re sure you’re about to pass out on the track very soon. One more lap, just one more and the only thought racing in your head is, is this really worth this trauma?
MY EXPERIENCE OF THE PROWLER
Recently I put up an Instagram post where I showed one of the earliest pieces of footage of me pushing the prowler and then when I hit my PB of pushing 125kg in 2020! The prowler was always that type of gym equipment which Anton would always have in my programme, and I would ALWAYS dread. If there was anything that was ever close to me passing out, vomiting on the gym floor or worse, dying, then it was this! Yet, despite this love/hate relationship with the prowler, deep down I knew it was good for me. The feelings of intensity were beyond anything else and yet it is and will always be an amazing source of equipment to build strength, drop body fat and improve your cardio.
SO WHAT CRAZY MOTHERF****R INVENTED IT?
Apparently it can be traced back to the year 2000s. Joey Batson helped another guy called William Strength (a Coach at the Clemson University of Carolina) to improve the gym equipment. Williams Strength presented him with the prowler originally made of wood. In his head, it was to improve and increase an athlete’s hip drive from a low position, in his head for American footballers. Batson admired Strength’s contraption and improved it further by adding 3 skids and 2 vertical handles and so the prowler as we know it today was born. In 2005, Dave Tate who had been banging on about the benefits of the sled, collaborated with Williams. It was only from Youtube videos from 2007 onwards that it started to become more popular as people loved watching the videos that were going viral of people who were having their asses kicked on it! If you get a chance, take a look at some of those crazy people who were self-inflicting their pain in these videos. So, we have social media to thank for its role in influencing the rest of the world to have this piece of equipment in their gyms. Prices currently range between £250-300.
THE BENEFITS
Despite the pain that this piece of metal inflicts, it can be used for both pushing and pulling-to be honest both equally painful. It is a great conditioning tool that mainly works your lower body but with the different variations and overload, it can in fact work your whole entire body. The fact of the matter even with the overload, it’s hard to get injured on this especially when you compare it to other big compounds like squats and deadlifts, as the prowler won’t strain your joints or back as much. It really does enhance your hip and ankle mobility due to the dynamic stretch of the hip flexors and the calves and Achilles. Especially if you’re a sprinter, it is amazing to improve your speed and create faster and stronger strides even helpful in other sports. Ever heard of the ‘Prowler Flu’? Well, that is the term most commonly used to describe the effects I mentioned at the start of this: that point of overexertion where you feel nauseous, on the brink of vomiting or close to fainting.
TOP TIPS
· Keep hands in a mid position (I like quite low)
· Keep the core tight and engaged the whole time
· I like to stay on my tiptoes but you can plant heels down too
· Take big strides
· Focus on your breathing
· Keep your head down
DIFFERENT VARIATIONS
· TO BUILD STRENGTH: Make a note of your weights weekly and to get stronger, keep increasing the kg weekly-push a person on the prowler if you have to! If you’ve seen my IG stories, I have often made clients push me on it!
· For more cardio, go lighter and push 1 way and pull the other for at least 20 mins.
· Count how many laps you complete in a minute and work on building up the laps to get more speed
· Go by distance: for 75m, see how quickly you get it done and work on improving your time
So guys, if you’ve not trained using this before, then get on it. You won’t (will) regret it. Well, you won’t regret you’ve had an intense workout, you may regret vomming your guts up in the gym car park. Sorry not sorry.
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