TRAIN HARDER LONGER Dragging tyres will get you in better shape, but in order to understand why, we need to be more specific. In this case, we’re referring to something called work capacity—the amount of time you’re capable of training at a high enough level to experience significant benefit from the type of exercise you’re doing. If you increase your work capacity, your training volume will increase, and you’ll get stronger and build muscle at a much faster rate. Along with recovery methods like contrast showers, massage, ice, and heat, work capacity is the most important piece of your training puzzle in terms of what you need to do to support your actual gym lifting foundation. Adding tyre dragging to your regime will allow you to raise your work capacity in each individual muscle group—which, in turn, will enable you to train for longer periods of time with heavier weight and more sets and reps for each body part.
ELIMINATE THE NEGATIVE Dragging takes away the eccentric— negative—portion of conventional gym movements. To see how this works, let’s examine the tyre row exercise. All you have to do is step back until all the slack is gone from the straps you’re using, then row the tyre as far as you can towards you. What you’ll notice here is that the tyre isn’t pulling back. The only resistance you’ll encounter is the friction between the tyre and the ground. It slides wherever you pull it, but the resistance isn’t constant, and comes to an end when you’re finished pulling. Moving this way will allow you to improve the work capacity in your lats without beating them up like you do with conventional weight training. Research has shown that it’s the eccentric portion of each lift that does the most tissue damage, so when you remove this part of a movement from the equation, you’re not breaking down muscle like you do when training with weights or machines. Instead, you’re encouraging blood flow to the area you’re working. This causes muscle
62 MUSCLE&FITNESS
ADDING TYRE DRAGGING TO YOUR REGIME WILL ALLOW YOU TO RAISE YOUR WORK CAPACITY IN EACH INDIVIDUAL MUSCLE GROUP.
tissue to repair itself much faster than it otherwise would. In concentrating solely on the concen-
tric—positive—portion of each move, you’ll build work capacity and encourage tissue repair in whatever muscle group you’re focused on without the additional negative stress that’s so taxing on your joints, ligaments, and tendons. This will enhance the work you’re doing in the gym by accelerating the regeneration of the muscle tissue you’re trying so hard to grow.
GEOMETRY LESSONS Targeting specific muscle groups through tyre dragging is a matter of
angles—and you can train any body part for either power, endurance, or recovery purposes. Just align your body and the strap handles to provide resistance for the muscle you’re looking to hit. For example, if you want to focus on your biceps, stand facing the tyre, hold the handles in an underhand grip, then adjust your stance and arm angle so that the only way you can move the tyre is with a curling motion. This is where you can be creative, and
there’s virtually no limit to the moves you can invent. The list we’ve provided here is a great place to start, but don’t stop there. If there’s a particular gym exercise you like, figure out how to perform it with
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