Friday, June 18th, was a great day. Was it because I went to work early in the morning, was the first caddy out, and carried two up two down? Was it because after work I went to a friends house for a barbeque? Maybe it’s because I went out to dinner with my family and had tortellini carbonara. Plenty of things occurred that made the day great; however, the greatest part of the day was this:
This was the last push out of 6, and I needed video proof for somebody. The first three pushes were in the parking lot of our gym, but a higher-up kicked us out, so we did these at the town’s middle school. It was pretty legit; while moving the car from a stand still was difficult, the last 10 steps were equally demanding. After our second pull sled broke (maybe yoga mats are NOT the best idea…) we needed to do something for our conditioning work. On Tuesdays I do 15 minutes of HIIT on a bike, and I wanted something that had a slightly higher ‘strength’ component. Based on how I felt after the 6th push, I’m pretty sure I’ve found a keeper. In fact, the 4 guys involved in the 25 or so minutes all agreed to make this a consistent Friday night activity. I’m honestly hoping that we can get even more people involved in it. There were four of us pushing, using two cars; a Honda Civic Sedan and a Hyundai Elantra. I’m not sure which model civic was used, but the Elantra weighed in at 3,835lbs while the Civic was about 300lbs lighter. With two teams of two, it was pretty simple; two guys per car, you steer after you push. With this set up you had approximately a 1:2 work/rest ratio, but I think that having to sit down after you pushed made it feel like a 1:1. Once the entire group had the rhythm down, there was a powerful flow; push your 10 parking spaces, car is driven back to the start, switch drivers, steer him down, drive back, your turn again. With the two cars alternating, there was seldom any waiting, and we got everything done rather quickly. I’ll be counting on this being a repetitive Friday conditioning event, following up a maximum effort deadlift/ dynamic effort squat day. Between that combination and bike sprints after my maximum effort squat/ dynamic effort deadlift day, I’ll have legs of steal, and some decent conditioning to boot.
Now, as much as I loved the car push, I’m coming to love the bike sprints, and I’m fond of my new training program, I’m still going to push for a prowler or some other type of sled at my gym. You can never be strong enough, whether it be picking up heavy stuff or pushing heavy stuff. Yes, I still think steady-state cardio (aerobics) is waste of time for the majority of us, but doing interval based cardio (conditioning) is a far superior tool for increasing cardiovascular fitness.
(Disclaimer: Don’t randomly decide one day that you want to try pushing a car. You might not want to try some other things first before you accidentally run yourself over with your dad’s range rover.)
Harold Gibbons 