Sleds: Not Just for Santa - The real physiological and psychological benefits of sled strength training

We love it, you look forward to it with happy, smiling faces: The Sled™!

I’d like to dive into the real reasons we love the sled so much, more than just “it’s hard.” Although, that is kind of the crux of what we will discuss today.

Many tools in the gym serve specific purposes or require high degrees of technique focus to make long-term strength gains. The sled serves a large number of purposes, as you will learn about today, but is also highly accessible and scalable to anyone’s fitness level.

It sits at the crossroads of everything we do at Method: strength work, conditioning, injury mitigation, and athletic development. It isn’t just pushing something heavy that makes the sled effective in strength training; it’s that its ease of use allows it to get heavy quickly and creates an easy entry point for high-effort work (I’m sure you can attest). The more comfortable you get with pushing yourself, the more gains you will make across time. So what are the physiological benefits of doing it? In no particular order:

Force Production with a Natural Pattern: You are training your body to generate force through a forward-moving body, something that helps you in your daily life. Getting used to structured, high-effort force production allows you to get better at other types of structured, high-effort force production! The added benefit is that it is a low-skill, high-effort horizontal pattern, whereas most of the force we tend to produce in the gym is vertical (deadlifts, squats, presses, etc).

No Eccentric Loading: Eccentric muscle contractions are defined as a contraction that produces force while the muscle lengthens. You may have heard this referred to as the “negatives” of the movement. Eccentric movement is strong, but it results in the highest levels of soreness in comparison to other contraction types (concentric, isometric). Eccentric movement is fantastic, but since we do a lot of it with weights, we get a chance to break from it with high-effort work, especially at the end of workouts.

Joint-Friendly Strength: There is minimal shear force (side-to-side forces) and high compressive force on the spine due to the orientation of the spine while you push the sled. Barring any disc degeneration considerations, it helps create strength in the surrounding spinal musculature without the same form considerations that a deadlift or squat might place on the spine.

Reflexive Core Engagement: This is a benefit to both coaches and clients alike! Core engagement is automatic; it sort of has to be to get the sled moving forward. Additionally, it helps your trainer teach you core engagement without micromanaging your core positioning and cueing. You also learn to generate “core to extremity” force production, which is when you transfer force from your rigid core to a force-producing extremity (like your arms and feet).

Mixed Energy System Training: We can train both aerobic and anaerobic power and capacity by utilizing this item. While we don’t often use it for aerobic efforts, it absolutely can be used as such (think 5–10 minutes of lightweight sled dragging). Our primary efforts here are high-effort interval-style work, but your recovery period between bouts of intensity helps you train your aerobic system as well.

Psychological Benefits: It’s hard work with an obvious external target (A to B) and helps people overcome pushable limits without tracking complicated numbers, technique, etc.

There are more, but this outlines why we love it so much. I’m sure you’re aware of how by now, since you’ve likely used it, but we often use it at the end of programming to aid in conditioning or before big primary lifts to help prepare you for a high effort. We mix and match pushing and pulling, sometimes slow and controlled, sometimes powerful or fast. Whatever your effort, the primary way we progress is simply by adding weight or adding distance. It makes it easy to progress and helps contribute to that confidence that we love to build in here.

There is zero doubt in our minds that it gives you transferable strength and skill to the real world, and at the end of the day that’s why we do it. But seeing why is important to us; feel free to ask questions about your progress and where you are going!