If you’ve trained with us for any length of time, chances are you’ve pushed, pulled, dragged, or carried something that really didn’t want to move.
Sleds have been a big part of my past — from my early days training for the fire service, through CrossFit Liverpool, and right up to how we train at The Stronghold today. They’re simple, brutally effective, and quietly honest.
No momentum.
No hiding.
Just work.
Where It All Started – Sefton Park, 2007
My first real exposure to sled pulling came back in 2007, when I decided I wanted to get into the fire service.
The setup was as basic as it gets:
a tyre filled with concrete, a rope, and a lot of determination.
That first photo captures it perfectly — myself, Danielle, and our good friend Dave dragging that tyre up and down Sefton Park. We’d alternate long sled pulls with heavy sandbag carries until our legs were cooked.
At the time, I was hugely influenced by Dan John, whose philosophy around simple, repeatable hard work still underpins how we train today.
Dan famously describes sled work as:
“The closest thing we have to a miracle.” — Dan John
His reasoning is simple: sleds allow you to train strength, conditioning, and work capacity with minimal eccentric loading, meaning you can work hard, recover faster, and train again.
That idea shaped how we approached training back then — and still does now.
Around the same time, we regularly borrowed from Dan’s Litvi Sprint work, originally shared on T-Nation. Sessions often looked like this:
Heavy squats or kettlebell swings, straight into short, aggressive sprints with the tyre sled in tow.
Strength into speed.
Fatigue into focus.
Simple, savage, effective.
CrossFit Liverpool & Organised Chaos
When we opened CrossFit Liverpool in Wavertree, and were still living near Sefton Park, it felt only right to bring our members along for the ride.
Tyre drags, sled pushes, carries — they all became part of the culture. Around this time, we were also heavily influenced by Jim Wendler, particularly his writing on conditioning and the prowler.
In his now-infamous article “Moving North of Vag”, Wendler makes the case that hard conditioning work — especially prowler pushes — builds something deeper than fitness. He sums it up perfectly:
“The prowler will tell you exactly who you are.” — Jim Wendler
That mindset resonated deeply with us. The prowler didn’t care how strong you were on paper. You either moved it — or you didn’t.
Love Lane – Empty Streets & Big Ideas
When we moved to Love Lane, we struck gold.
The street was empty all weekend, which gave us the freedom to really get creative. This is where sleds and prowlers truly came into their own — long slogs, brutal team workouts, and partner sessions where the only rule was to keep moving forward.
This style of training also aligns closely with the thinking of Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell, who was a huge advocate of sled dragging for both strength and longevity.
Louie regularly prescribed sled work for recovery, general physical preparedness, and long-term durability, saying:
“Sled dragging builds strength without beating you up.”
That idea — building capacity without destroying the body — has always mattered to us, especially when training real people with real lives.
Why Strength Has Always Come First
From the very beginning, strength development has been the centrepiece of our training programmes.
Strength takes the longest to develop, but it carries forward into everything else:
better movement, resilience, confidence, and long-term quality of life.
Sleds fit perfectly into that philosophy. They’re scalable, joint-friendly, brutally honest, and accessible to almost everyone. Whether it’s pushing, pulling, dragging, or carrying — the principles remain the same.
As Dan John often reminds us:
“The goal is to keep the goal the goal.”
And for us, the goal has always been building strong, capable humans — for the long run.
Where We Are Now – Crosby Beach
These days, we’re keeping the tradition alive on Crosby Beach.
Most weekends you’ll find us dragging sleds, carrying awkward objects, and getting some honest work done outdoors. My work schedule is a bit unpredictable now, so it might be a Saturday or a Sunday — but the invite is always open.
If you fancy getting involved, just drop us a message and come along.
No egos.
No nonsense.
Just good people doing hard things together.
Good days, sorely missed
Thanks for the memories and the motivation
Looks fun guys! Fond memories of Love Lane prowlers and sled pulls ❤️
Great days, CrossFit Liverpool,, still miss training with Matt and Danny,, made a lot of good friends,,who all had the same goal,, train hard, get strong,r also learnt a lot through Matt, which still play a massive part of my training,
I still miss training with Matt and Danny, CrossFit Liverpool is we’re I learned to train, different ways, movements,, skills, which still have a impact on the way I train now,, also made a good few friends,, they were great days,,, some hard , some easy,