Not really, I think the heaviest I ever went on the prowler was 180, the weight itself wasn’t really challenging but after a few rounds with short breaks it gets hard. I was going 40 or 50 yards (can’t remember exactly, but I did measure it) and depending on the day it was between 8 and 14 rounds, breaks were 30 or 60 seconds. The surface makes a bigger difference than a few pounds, I was pushing it in a rough, old parking lot, a couple times I did it in the rain and I had to take weight off because the wet surface made it way harder. When I used to do farmer’s walks it was with 135lbs dumbbells, the biggest that the gym had, I was probably walking 50 metres or something like that. Again, the weight wasn’t a huge challenge but I found these to fatigue my back (upper and lower) unlike the prowler. Sprints are OK I guess, although they obviously aren’t a strength exercise, but they were kind of hard on my ankles after a while which is the main reason I stopped doing them. Running on grass probably would have made it easier.
So maybe I should correct myself on this statement:
If you were to do real heavy prowler pushes, like something that makes you stop because you can’t physically push it any further, that would definitely do something for building strength and muscle. However, it’s not really specific to squatting or deadlifting so the actual carryover is questionable, but you would get something out of it. Same with farmer’s walks. But again, that would not be an HIIT training protocol (which is the subject of this thread), and if you do HIIT until you can’t physically continue it will cause a hell of a lot of fatigue and won’t be worth it. I’m also pretty sure it won’t make you stronger, unless you are weak and out of shape to begin with. There were a few times I went a little overboard with the prowler and spent 20 minutes laying on the floor gasping for air, it wasn’t fun. So for an offseason or just to mix things up once in a while if you’re not training for a meet then heavy prowler/sled/farmer’s walk/yoke/etc. can potentially have some benefit but you will have to reduce training volume to make room for it in your training.
No, not really. I read a lot of Louie’s articles but I can’t say that I have ever actually done anything resembling Westside.