The Push-Pull Sled: A Complete Guide

The Push-Pull Sled is a versatile piece of equipment designed to enhance your strength, power, and conditioning in a low impact, joint friendly fashion. Incorporating sled exercises into your training regimen offers a multitude of benefits, from building muscle to improving cardiovascular health, joint health, and work capacity. This guide discusses the build quality of the Push-Pull Sled, and delves into various sled exercises, their advantages, and the overall utility of sled training.

The TBG Push-Pull Sled is Heavy Duty

The Push-Pull Sled by The Tib Bar Guy is engineered for serious training. Constructed with commercial grade steel and built like a tank, this sled is built to endure high intensity workouts, whether you're dragging super heavy weights or performing explosive spri

Durability and Design:

Reinforced Steel Frame: The sled is made from high-gauge steel, ensuring it can handle substantial weight without bending or breaking under pressure.

Powder Coated Finish: The durable powder coating protects against rust and corrosion, making it ideal for both indoor and outdoor use.

Curved Smooth Glide Skis: Designed for performance on multiple surfaces, including turf, concrete, and grass, ensuring consistent movement regardless of where you train

Versatile and Efficient:

Solid Push Posts: The sled features four solid push posts that provide multiple grip options, allowing you to grip high, low, or anywhere in between.

Wrap Around Rail: The clever wrap around rail allows you to seamlessly drag the sled forward and back without ever having to turn the sled around! Instead, your clip that attaches your harness to the sled can simply slide from one end of the sled to the other via the wrap around rail when it's time to change directions.

Compact Yet Stable: While designed to be compact enough for easy storage, the wide base provides stability during high intensity work.

Easy Load Capacity: With a spacious weight plate holder, the sled can be stacked with loads of heavy plates to challenge even the strongest athletes.

If you're looking for a sled that can withstand brutal training sessions, whether for strength, power, endurance, or rehab, the Push-Pull Sled delivers durability and versatility that few other sleds on the market can match.

Heavy Sled Drag

Heavy sled drags are the king of sled exercises. To perform heavy drags you can either attach a harness to your body and pull, or you can attach handles to the sled and grab them behind you. Make sure to get a really big forward lean and keep driving your feet nonstop like a piston. This exercise primarily targets the quadriceps and glutes

Benefits:

Strength Development: Dragging a heavy sled builds lower body strength by engaging major muscle groups. It builds straight up brute leg power unlike anything else.

Better Running Form: Dragging a heavy weight behind you forces you to mimic the exact joint angles present during acceleration. Not only does this strengthen those muscles in a fashion specific to running, but it also has the double whammy effect of ingraining this proper patterning into the nervous system. This is highly beneficial for athletic performance!

Low Impact: Unlike traditional weightlifting, sled drags lack an eccentric phase and are low impact. The sled simply produces less overall joint stress as compared to weight training, reducing the overall systemic fatigue and risk of injury while still providing an incredibly effective and unique workout.

Heavy Sled Push

Basically the same as dragging but the sled is in front of you instead of behind you. This exercise works best on a surface with less friction, such as turf with plastic skis on your sled. This is the variation that will allow you to handle the absolute most weight (which can actually be a negative thing once you realize how cumbersome loading and unloading 20 plates is). Trying to push a heavy sled with plastic skis on concrete, however, creates an awkward resistance. If you only have access to concrete then you will most likely see better long term results by focusing primarily on heavy dragging, not pushing

Upper Body Drags

The sled can also be pulled with the upper body instead of the lower body. You can attach a long rope to the sled and pull it all the way back to you, similar to a rope climb. Alternatively, you can attach handles to the sled and “row” it back towards you, then take a step back and do it again.

Another choice is to do it the opposite way. Set up in front of the sled but facing the same direction and “push” the sled forward using your chest. This can also be done mimicking a front raise or lateral raise to isolate the shoulders.

The sled can be pushed and pulled with the upper body to mimic pretty much any movement that can be done on a pulley. You just have to use your imagination! All of these movements are very joint friendly and low impact, and will therefore be a great way to promote active recovery and boost work capacity

Benefits:

Upper Body Engagement: Heavy sled pulls target the upper back, shoulders, lats, chest, and arms, promoting balanced muscle development.

Grip Strength: Regularly performing sled pulls can enhance your grip strength, which is crucial for various other exercises.

Active Recovery: These movements have a high value, but a very low cost. They are a great way to promote recovery between hard weight training sessions and increase the amount of work your upper body muscles can recover from and adapt to.

Resisted Sprints

Resisted sled sprints involve sprinting while pushing or pulling a sled with low to moderate weight. This exercise is excellent for athletes aiming to enhance power production, and boost their speed and acceleration capacity.

Benefits:

More Power: Exploding into a max effort sprint with maximal intent against resistance builds explosive power in the legs and sharpens the nervous system. Training with different resistances is an effective way to build a comprehensive power profile by working multiple points along the force-velocity curve.

Improved Acceleration: Training short, maximal effort sprints with resistance can enhance your ability to accelerate quickly, a vital component in many sports.

Cardiovascular Conditioning: Resisted sprints elevate your heart rate, contributing to improved cardiovascular health.

Backward Drags

Backward drags involve pulling the sled while walking backwards. This movement emphasizes the quadriceps and can aid in knee health

Benefits:

Quadriceps Strength:  Backward drags effectively target the quads, promoting muscle growth and strength.

Knee Health: This exercise pumps an insane amount of blood into your legs through what is essentially repeated terminal knee flexion against high load, sans eccentric muscle contraction. That blood flow can be very therapeutic for the muscles and joints. The lack of eccentric phase makes the movement very joint friendly as well. The additional strength that is built around the knee joints bolsters general resilience.

Balance and Coordination: Moving backward challenges your balance and coordination, enhancing your overall athleticism.

Lateral Drags

Lateral drags involve pulling the sled sideways, engaging the muscles on the sides of your body. This exercise benefits athletes who require lateral movement proficiency.

Benefits:

Hip Abductor Strength:  Lateral drags target the hip abductors, essential for stabilizing the pelvis during movement.

Injury Prevention:  Strengthening the lateral muscles can help prevent injuries related to side to side movements.

Enhanced Agility:Improving lateral strength and movement can boost agility, crucial for sports like basketball and soccer.

Utility of Sled Training

Incorporating sled training into your fitness routine offers several advantages:

Versatility: Sleds can be used for a variety of exercises targeting different muscle groups, making them a valuable tool for comprehensive training.

Progressive Overload: Adjusting the weight on the sled allows for easy progressive overload, essential for continuous improvement in strength and performance.

Low Impact: Sled exercises are generally low impact, reducing stress on the joints while still providing a highly effective workout.

Functional Fitness: Sled training mimics real world movements, enhancing your functional strength and conditioning.

The Sled Does it All: Strength, power, hypertrophy, work capacity, conditioning, rehab, and more! You can train pretty much any goal with the sled, and you can do so in a fashion that is highly unique and not able to be mimicked with traditional weight room work.

Final Thoughts

Sled training is a versatile and effective method to enhance strength, power, and overall conditioning. By incorporating exercises like heavy sled drags, various upper body dragging movements, resisted sprints, backward drags, and lateral drags, you can target various muscle groups across the body and improve athletic performance. The TBG Push-Pull Sled provides the perfect tool to implement these exercises effectively, supporting your fitness goals for the long run.