Why on earth would you push a sled up and down the turf? It’s tough work and blows those quads to bits in minutes. Not to mention the effect on your lungs!
There are various excellent reasons to use a sled in your training programme. In this article we will look at how the sled can increase speed, power, anaerobic capacity, and help reduce injury rates during intense exercise. There will also be specific focus on the cross overs to Rugby and American football. Helping to demonstrate that sled training can catapult a player’s performance.
THE SLED
The Sled is a simple device that allows an athlete to adopt varying body positions to perform push, pull or dragging based drills. The horizontal bars and upright bars allow the athlete to set their torso angle in the appropriate position for their sport and also means ankle, knee and hip angles can be controlled for specific transfer to the sport.
TRAINING SURFACE
Sled is only as good as the surface you’re training on. To get the most from your sled training the friction between the two surfaces needs to be reduced. We’re aiming to perform, fast, explosive drills, which can only be done if you can accelerate the sled rapidly and then maintain its momentum. Therefore, the turf track, astro turf pitch type materials tend to be the best.
As well as friction between the sled and the ground, it is also important to have good grip with the floor. This allows the athlete to drive off the mark and apply maximal force into the ground and get a good response back from it, often know as ground reaction force.
INCREASE YOUR POWER
Power is best developed by training an athlete across the complete load/speed spectrum. In simple terms this means you need to move high loads where your sequencing of joints (relative timing profile of the joints will be low) will be slower but force output still high. Then low loads at maximal joint speed (relative timing profile will be high) where force output will be high. Load vs speed relationship provides an athlete with the best possible chance of developing power. Using a sled is the perfect training tool for lower body power production, this is because you can easily adjust the load which effects the relative timing profile of the joints but (providing floor surface it appropriate) still maintains maximum force output across the spectrum.
INCREASE YOUR SPEED
Having the ability to move quickly across the ground is essential in Rugby and American Football. Transferring brute power into explosive speed requires training. It requires coordination and efficiency, not just big powerful muscles. By varying the load of the sled both power and speed can be developed. To improve speed specifically it is important to keep the load very low and get the athlete to accelerate rapidly and keep the speed high.
In some of the latest research carried out on joint specific training and cross over to sprinting speed it has been shown that quarter squats (55-65 degrees of knee flexion) had the best crossover for athletes performing a 40 yard sprint. These finding also correlate to sled based training where joint angles are similar to quarter squats and have been shown to increase sprinting speed by twice as much as just non-weighted sprint training alone.
This development of speed and power crosses over to all sports, from cycling to running and practically every other sport. They all require explosive force production.
Unleash the speed and power for downhill, cross country, road, crit, cyclo-cross and more.
REDUCED INJURY RATES DURING INTENSE EXERCISE
Whether the athlete is performing a maximal power drill or HIIT based interval session for anaerobic capacity. The sled is a controlled environment where the loading through the body is minimal in the vertical position; the skill level of the movement is very low and then amount of eccentric forces placed on the body is minimal. For all of these reasons injury risk is reduced dramatically. This makes it a preferred tool for a lot or professional sports teams because they know they can develop the areas of fitness they want, without the risk of their players not making it to game day.
One area coaches should watch out for though is the athletes ability to stabilize the spine and torso in the horizontal position. If the athlete is pushing the sled at maximal force/speed and their spine is as excessive lordotic curve in the spine this could cause injury.
INCREASE IN ANAEROBIC CAPACITY
This is one of the most popular areas for sled training, because of the controlled, low injury risk environment the sled allows for. Athletes can push the limits without risk. The speed and power output produced during sled exercises means heart rates can increase quickly. With the correct programming and interval selection, coaches can work their athletes specifically to prepare their energy systems for competition. The faster and more explosive the drill is the more anaerobic it will be. So Sled based exercises are fantastic for developing the anaerobic energy systems. On top of this, the joint angles, lever actions and muscles used cross over superbly to Rugby and American Football players. Local muscular fatigue can be achieved quickly in the lower body, mimicking driving, tackling and multiple short burst sprints.
References
Daniel West, et. al.Effects of Resisted Sprint Training on Acceleration in Professional Rugby Union Players. Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. Apr 2013. Vol. 27. Issue 4. p1014-1018. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3182606cff
Joint-Angle Specific Strength Adaptations Influence Improvements in Power in Highly Trained Athletes, by Rhea, Kenn, Peterson, Massey, Simo, Marin & Krein, in Human Movement (2016).