The Prowler

KeithReilly

The Prowler seems to be the latest piece of equipment in vogue.

I read a recent article on it on t-nation.

I'm just wondering why would a GAA player for example use a prowler as opposed to any other piece of cardio equipment to increase speed and endurance?

How would the same player structure his training to achieve:
- Endurance
- Speed

Why add weight to the prowler? Could you get greater endurance just be going longer?

Could you get greater speed without adding weight just by trying to push it faster over short distances?

What do you achieve by pulling it as opposed to pushing it?

Alot of questions, I hope someone can educate me

weeman2

i cant answer most of your questions but pushing it is more quads and pulling it is more hamstrings.

It is great for building leg power and alot of sports are using it even powerlifters they are a great piece of equipment and have been around for a few years.

Hanley

The prowler f*cking sucks. It has helped improve my conditioning no end, and it's got to the point where I actually like it. But it f*cking hurts so bad.

I know using it in IP each trip takes 10-20 seconds with 20-50 seconds recovery, so probably roughly similar to match situation. And it's done for a 10 minute block.

You can go heavy (10 trips), medium (12-15 trips) or light (20+ trips).

Each one sucks for different reasons but by the end of all your legs are pumped full of lactate and on fire.

As for why to add weight, I've always been of the opinion that resisted cardio seperates the men from the boys and DEFINITELY increases my sustainability faster than just doing non-resisted stuff on its own.

RE: dragging... Joe DeFranco likes HASD's (heavy ass sled drags) because your shin angle and body position closely mimics sprint mechanics and teaches you to drive hard with each step.

Barry might drop in and give you better answers, or Will might give out to me and tell me to correct some of this.

EDIT: each "trip" is about 13m, turn and 13m back - 25-26m total

KeithReilly

Thanks lads.

Another question, Why would you do them for a ten minute block? why not shorter or longer, why not even go for 30 minutes like a match then a break, then 30 minutes again?

probably a stupid question but just interested to know why choose ten minutes and are there circumstances where you would pick longer and shorter periods. I'm presuming 10 minutes so you can do other stuff? What if thats all the equipment you had? What if you just decided all I'm going to do is the prowler for the next 40 minutes, would that be just stupid?

Inspector Coptoor

KeithReilly wrote: »

Thanks lads.

Another question, Why would you do them for a ten minute block? why not shorter or longer, why not even go for 30 minutes like a match then a break, then 30 minutes again?

probably a stupid question but just interested to know why choose ten minutes and are there circumstances where you would pick longer and shorter periods. I'm presuming 10 minutes so you can do other stuff? What if thats all the equipment you had? What if you just decided all I'm going to do is the prowler for the next 40 minutes, would that be just stupid?

I'd love to see someone do prowler pushes for 40 mins.
I dont think it'd be stupid as such, maybe just brave and ill informed

Hanley

Because you probably wouldn't be able to work at a sufficient intensity for that time. Yeah, you coud push light weight slowly for 40 minutes, but when you're trying to train repeated short sprints and explosion, why would you do that?

Basically, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, I believe it's done in 10 minute blocks because you can't sustain your effort much past that and still achieve what your'e trying to achieve. It stops being explosive speed and power work, and becomes more like a jog pushing a pram

EDIT: And it should probably be noted as well that in the context of how it's structure in IP you typcially do;

10 minute prowler block
15 minute 3 station weights block w/ sub max weights tryign to increase volume of work each time you do the workout
10 minute prowler block
15 minute 3 station weights block as above

So you end up getting around 50 minutes of total work time, and 15 minutes of recovery (5 between rounds)

Liam Henners257 wrote: »

I'd love to see someone do prowler pushes for 40 mins.
I dont think it'd be stupid as such, maybe just brave and ill informed

100kg - max rounds in 40 minutes?

itsallaboutheL

[QUOTE=Hanley;70207124
100kg - max rounds in 40 minutes?[/QUOTE]

Prowler mile ftw

Hanley

itsallaboutheL wrote: »

Prowler mile ftw

Bodyweight prowler mile.

62 trips on the IP run. Doing it.

itsallaboutheL

Hanley wrote: »

Bodyweight prowler mile.

62 trips on the IP run. Doing it.

Tarnmac or doesn't count.

Hanley

itsallaboutheL wrote: »

Tarnmac or doesn't count.

Eh no? I'm doing it where I always do it.

KeithReilly

Hanley wrote: »

Because you probably wouldn't be able to work at a sufficient intensity for that time. Yeah, you coud push light weight slowly for 40 minutes, but when you're trying to train repeated short sprints and explosion, why would you do that?

Basically, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, I believe it's done in 10 minute blocks because you can't sustain your effort much past that and still achieve what your'e trying to achieve. It stops being explosive speed and power work, and becomes more like a jog pushing a pram

EDIT: And it should probably be noted as well that in the context of how it's structure in IP you typcially do;

10 minute prowler block
15 minute 3 station weights block w/ sub max weights tryign to increase volume of work each time you do the workout
10 minute prowler block
15 minute 3 station weights block as above

So you end up getting around 50 minutes of total work time, and 15 minutes of recovery (5 between rounds)



100kg - max rounds in 40 minutes?

Yeah I meant max rounds going on your earlier explanation.

Would you still want to do the "15 minute 3 station weights block w/ sub max weights tryign to increase volume of work each time you do the workout" if your were just trying to get fit for football as opposed to general fitness or looking good? I guess what I'm saying is there other alternatives for the 15 minute block or are you working your body in a different way so that you can go at the prowler again and while not being recovered you are better able to do it then if the prowler was what you done straight after the 5 minute rest period.

Hanley

KeithReilly wrote: »

Yeah I meant max rounds going on your earlier explanation.

Would you still want to do the "15 minute 3 station weights block w/ sub max weights tryign to increase volume of work each time you do the workout" if your were just trying to get fit for football as opposed to general fitness or looking good? I guess what I'm saying is there other alternatives for the 15 minute block or are you working your body in a different way so that you can go at the prowler again and while not being recovered you are better able to do it then if the prowler was what you done straight after the 5 minute rest period.

I'll try to answer as best I can, but I may be off the mark when it comes to why things are done as they are.

With the workblocks (the 15 minute weight things) you're basically looking to escalate density each time. so you want to do more weight, do more reps or do more rounds. A GAA team did the following earlier as part of their training session;

-5 guys, 15 minutes, 3 stations
-60kg trap bar DL x5
-50kg bench x5
-Pull ups x5

They did some other stuff, which included a prowler block, a sprint block with rows/push ups and a kettlebell block. 4 total.

you're not gonna be able to do 4 prowler blocks. You might get thru one workout, but you wont recover sufficiently to be able to hit it again hard and keep making progress.

Wit the other blocks in the same workout you're still putting a cardio demand on to an extent, but you're going to be limited by your muscles ability to perform repeated resisted actions. Which happens on the field too... you don't want to get soft in contact, shrugging tackles off or trying to hold onto your man. They're the qualities you're training there to a larger extent, I believe.

So if you want to look at it this way... Prowler's for your sprinting, your general conditioning and chasing down breaking balls. The 15 minute weight blocks are toughening you up for contact, for marking, for fighting for the breaks etc etc...

So you're training multiple properties, multiple times per week, instead of just one f*ck yourself in half session that you can't recover from. The more often you can train, the faster you improve. So it's as much about managing that as anything else.

Again.. there's people who are running this every day that may want to jump in and correct me.

Inspector Coptoor

Great post that I was too lazy to try and put together!

Barry.Oglesby

Pretty accurate Hanley. One thing to add is that the 15min work blocks also have a systematic conditioning effect for more seasoned guys and are almost like a strength block for the weaker lads.

So you're training multiple properties, multiple times per week, instead of just one f*ck yourself in half session that you can't recover from. The more often you can train, the faster you improve. So it's as much about managing that as anything else.

And if 20% of people realised that this is a great goal to have, then a lot more people would get results.

The Prowler is just one of the best tools for the job we're doing. It's not an end unto itself.

cmyk

KeithReilly wrote: »

The Prowler seems to be the latest piece of equipment in vogue.

You're right, but so are kettlebells/blast straps/trx or whatever. They are only as good as the coach that's using them or more importantly understands how/when and why to use them. I've witnessed 3 other gyms (outside IP) use them, with seemingly no structure to the sessions and I suspect if I'd asked about it I'd have been met with a blank expression.

They are effectively using them as a fat loss tool, which is fine, but don't market it as an athletic conditioning tool. Any reading that I've done on a similar subject has been regarding repeated sprint efforts of which I'm joining certain dots, suffice to say the length of the work efforts in relation to rest periods in IP are not arbitrary numbers.

Barry.Oglesby wrote: »

The Prowler is just one of the best tools for the job we're doing. It's not an end unto itself.

Exactly, people were eliciting a similar training effect using other methods before the prowler came about.