Jason, just to play a little devils advocate; I’ve had good results from doing a lot of heavy prowler work for lower body strength. I also had a friend who was a good sprinter. He never lifted in high school, but after learning the lift he was able to easily do a double BW deadlift. Coach Sommer has anecdotes about his gymnasts preform incredibly in the weight room.
Basically, any form of resistance training can produce unexpected adaptations. Getting stronger and more powerful makes everything easier, regardless of the modality.
Andy, thank you for a clear, and helpful, response, see how easy that was everyone? I've never trained with prowlers, nor have the powerlifters I know, so that's been off my radar. Not so practical here in NYC. Just to be clear, did you see improvement in your deadlift from doing them? I could visualize it, sort of, now that you mention it, but it's not something I knew of, so thank you for adding to my knowledge base. Probably not a modality I'll be using myself of with those I train, but good to know about nonetheless.
With your sprinting friend, that is also very cool, although there is a big difference between 2bw and 2.5, that is still quite good for a non-powerlifter. When you say after he learned the lift, do you mean the same day, or after weeks/months of practice? I've never done any sprinting, but keep hearing great things about it, and it's something much more practical for me to incorporate than prowlers. Dan John has sung the praises of hill sprints, so I'd like to give those a go as well.
As far as Coach Sommer, that is a very valid example. There are a few caveats though; one, the athletes Coach works with are national level gymnasts, knocking on the door of "elite", putting in several hours a day, under expert coaching, and using a variety of specialized equipment, some easy to replicate (rings), some less so (stall bars). Furthermore, they are youths, who weigh very little, and numbers do matter; some one deadlifting 300 at 120 lbs is great, but not as impressive as hard as pulling 500 at 200. I take Coach Sommer's word for it, since I have a lot of respect for him, but I have yet to see video of any of his gymnasts doing it, or hear more than one name mentioned. On his forum, he mentioned that he himself, when he tried barbell work, could not pull that much, despite his gymnastics training.
See, with actual answers, we could have an intelligent discussion comparing pro's and cons. To put this all in perspective, with maybe a dozen or less exceptions, I've never spent more than 10 minutes doing kettlebell swings, snatches, or cleans in my life, using a few kettlebells that take up a tiny bit of closet and corner space in my apartment. I bought them for far less than a year's gym membership at most of the gyms where I live, and I use them for many other things besides improving my deadlift and pullup numbers; upper body strength, upper and lower body flexibility andjoint mobility, injury rehab, etc. Significantly, many of the same kettlebell exercises that improved my deadlift also improved my conditioning at the same time, which is very time efficient for me. And I rarely work out more than 20 minutes a day, often less on average. So, for me, the kettlebell is a very well-rounded way to achieve a lot of things at once, in a way that I enjoy, which does not require paying for a gym or leaving my home, in a very time efficient manner. Some things, like sprinting, might make a good complement, some, like the prowler, probably not. But for me, and many people I work with, it does an excellent job for what I ask of it.