Category: fitness

This is something that too few people understand. You WILL get injured during your fitness quest. It might happen when you least expect it, it might have been easily avoided, it might have been something stupid you did, or it might have been almost unavoidable. But one thing is for sure — if you exercise long enough and/or hard enough, you will eventually get injured in some way and have to deal with it.

This seems to be a major shock to people new to fitness. They expect exercise to be powerful enough to change their bodies but somehow not powerful enough to hurt them. Anything that is powerful is potentially dangerous. One comes with the other.

The main thing is this — how do you react?

You’d be surprised at the number of people that react to even the slightest pain by outright quitting. It’s crazy. “My knee hurts a little today so I better take six months off.” They seem to be looking for any excuse to give it all up and a little pain here or there provides that excuse.

Obviously injuries need to be dealt with and you should take them seriously but don’t let a little ache or pain prevent you from exercising.

Instead, see it as a test of your resolve. A test of your will. Are you a quitter just looking for an excuse to give up or will you persevere and find a way to train?

How you deal with a potential injury says a lot about you.

Welcome to my favorite new workout.

I’m always looking for new ways to get a full body workout in a short amount of time. Building muscle and losing fat at the same time would be nice, too. Having a routine that would allow lower body strengthening by folks who can’t squat or deadlift properly adds the final touch. The tire sled provides all these benefits and more!

Pulling sleds and pushing Prowlers are popular activities in the more progressive gyms in the States but we don’t have those tools here in Taiwan. I struggled for some time to figure out how to bring the benefits of those tools to Taiwan or other people that can’t afford to get a Prowler of their own. Tire sleds are a cheap alternative to those more expensive tools.

Getting a used tire is easy as they are readily available at any automotive repair shop that sells tires. The shop has to pay a fee to get tires recycled so they’ll be very happy to let you have one or more. It’s a bit hard to get any better than free, isn’t it?

I drilled a small hole in the steel belted radial and inserted a simple eye bolt through it. On the other side, I used a large washer to keep the bolt from pulling through. A regular nut would not likely be enough. Make sure it’s good and tight before you pull it but be aware that you will have to retighten it up after using the sled for a while.

For handles, I use a suspension trainer with a lengthening strap between the handles and the eye bolt. This extra length is necessary on moves like the chest press or triceps press because without it, the tire sled might bump into your heels. Also a longer strap allows for a more acute angle for the straps, preventing the tire from coming off the ground and dumping the weight.

For weight, you can put kettlebells or dumbbells in the middle of the tire by wedging a piece of wood inside the tire. Even easier is to simply stack weight plates on top of the tire, rubber bumpers being best because they don’t slide off the tire too easily.

The uses of the tire sled are many and you’ll notice that almost any standing exercise that can be done with a suspension trainer can be also be done with a tire sled. In fact, some of those exercises are even better on the tire sled.

Your basic exercise will naturally be pulling the sled. Face away from the tire, let your arms trail behind you and pull the sled with your legs.

You can also bring the handles into your chest and pull it that way.

An alternate way to pull the sled is to turn around and pull the tire backwards. This works the legs much more if you keep the knees and the hips bent.

All moves with the tire sled work the legs and core because you’re always pulling the sled. The core is constantly worked since you have to stabilize it. So doing upper body exercises with the tire sled allows you to focus on the upper body while still using the rest of your body. Pretty cool, huh?

Start the upper body work with a row. Face the tire and bend your knees. Allow the arms to be fully straightened so you can get all the range of motion possible. Push up with your legs and row the handles to rib cage. Step back and repeat.

Balance that pull with a push via the chest press. Turn away from the sled and get into a lunge stance. Hold the handles vertically on the sides of your ribcage, chest stretched, then push forward. Step forward and repeat.

Bicep curls are up next and if you try these out, you’re in for a real treat. Going any distance will really give you a crazy pump! Face the sled with your arms fully extended and pull the sled only with your biceps. I squeeze my whole upper body and make sure that my elbows don’t move.

Flip around and do triceps next. Start with the handles behind the head and the elbows bent. Make sure you’re in a lunge stance. Feel free to switch sides liberally during all the moves that use this stance. Move the sled forward using only your triceps, step forward and repeat.

One of the great things my clients are discovering about the sled is how it fills in the gaps in our training. These next few moves will show you how that happens. Let’s start with a pull facing away from the tire. Stand again in a lunge stance and allow your arms to trail behind your body, keeping the elbows bent a bit. Maintain the bend in the elbows and pull the sled forward. You’ll really feel your lats and chest firing on this one. Walk forward and repeat.

Now turn around and face the tire sled. Squat down with your arms out in front of you – keep a slight bend in the elbows at all times with this one. Now pull the tire sled backwards with your bent arms. Feel your triceps struggling? You’re doing it right!

Back extensions are pretty tough on the tire sled. Face the sled and bend forward at the hips. The arms should be fully straight. Keeping them straight the whole time, bring the hips forward and pull your arms overhead. You might need to lower the weight on this one! It will really hit your stabilizers hard.

Rotation is a movement that’s even better on the tire sled than on the suspension trainer. Stand sideways to the tire sled and rotate your torso to face the sled. Grab the foot strap part of the handles in both hands and put your hands directly in front of your belly button. Struggle to keep them in front of your belly button the whole time! Both elbows must stay bent throughout this exercise. Using only your core, rotate your body away from the tire, pulling it forward. Walk forward and repeat the process. Be sure to train both sides. And don’t expect to cover much ground quickly with this one.

An even better rotation exercise is the cross body rotation. Stand sideways to the tire but this time get into a side lunge position. Grasp the foot strap portion of the handles again. Your body should be twisted to the side from the hips. Allow the hips to turn, don’t plant the hips and turn from the lumbar spine! Push off with the legs and then pull with your arm all the way across your body. Make sure the shoulder stays down!

There are a lot more exercises you can do with the tire sled so have fun exploring other options.

It’s important to remember that sets and reps don’t matter much with the sled. Instead, pick out a distance like 30 yards, 50 meters, or whatever works for you. Do one exercise down and back or do one down and another one up. Mix it up and do more of the exercises that you feel weaker on. You can throw sprints into the mix if the weight isn’t too heavy. I also like to end a tire sled session with several non-stop rounds of pulling with my legs as a finisher.

So there you have it. Get a tire and a suspension trainer and get started!

Need an STX suspension resistance trainer? Get them here.

The 20/100/200 Club — Chin-ups-20 reps dead hang no kipping, Push-ups-100 reps, Sit-ups-200 reps, Air Squats-200 reps. I saw this on a forum and thought I’d share. It’s a type of 200/300/400/500 club for body weight guys and gals. It’s missing lower body pulling (a must!) but looks good otherwise.

So I set a goal for myself that was a little ambitious. Okay, it was a lot ambitious: 100 burpess in under 5:00. Yeah it was daunting but I wanted the challenge and I had read another trainer say that NO ONE got their 100 burpess under 5:00 who was unhappy with their body composition results. Cool. I’m there. I also know from my experience that tying a body composition goal to a performance goal is a great way to get you looking great. You focus on the performance and the body results just follow.

But in pursuing the goal, I got off track.

I started my burpess with 100 and timed myself. The first time was already the fasted I had ever done. I started well. Two days later I did them again and got a slightly better time. So far, so good so I started doing them every day. It was really, really hard and I felt sick a few times, but I stuck with it. The times came down slowly and I thought I was making progress.

So one Sunday I wanted to knock out 100 for time just before dinner. We had ordered pizza and I had my wife film me just before it was supposed to get here. The pizza came early, which meant I only did 10 or so burpees but I looked at my form and was disgusted with what I saw. In pursuit of an ever faster time, I was really sacrificing my form. The form in my head that I thought I was doing was NOT what I saw on the camera. All that progress and the self-esteem that came with it got thrown out the window. I felt depressed. The times I was getting didn’t show the whole picture.

So what to do? I could just quietly forget the challenge I made to myself even though I had made it public on my Facebook page. Heck, personal challenges come and go, right? But I couldn’t do that. It didn’t feel right. So instead, I went back to my form by slowing things down and doing the burpees in sets.

My form has improved but of course, my time now sucks. I added about 1:30 to my time. But that’s okay.

The point of all this is to put integrity back into the process. Like me, are you half-assing something to get a better time? Are you cutting corners to beat other people when you know you should be doing it better? Is that having integrity in your fitness?

Taking this route ain’t easy by a long shot. I’m sitting here feeling uncomfortable about all this. The burpees just got a whole lot harder and can I REALLY get them under 5:00? Well, maybe and maybe not. But maybe I can feel proud that I did them the way I want them done. And maybe that’s worth more at the end of the day than just a fast time.

Happy training.

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