At SF Iron, the backbone of our coaching will always be training the basic barbell movements. Although strength is specific to the task at hand, using the barbell lifts seems to be a pretty darn good way to get stronger, or maybe that’s just my bias. They often employ a nice, large amount of muscle mass, through a large range of motion, and can be progressively loaded to improve strength. The specific training is lifting 2-4 days per week, constantly improving mechanics, weight on the bar, training volume, and driving training outcomes. While, first and foremost, I want you to get really freaking strong and jacked, it behooves the trainee to do a little bit of conditioning … Enter GPP!
Strength training 3 times per week or so is the “specific physical preparation” needed to add muscle mass and increase strength, we can refer to this as “SPP”. GPP stands for “general physical preparation”, which is additional training that supports the primary goals of getting stronger and adding muscle mass. I know, I know, that sounds really wordy and nerdy, but bear with me here. GPP training typically can be split up into two components – cardiorespiratory training (read: cardio), and accessory lifting (read: bro-lifts).
The first component of GPP, and probably the most important part for the majority of trainees, is cardiorespiratory training, or plain-old “cardio”. Increased levels of cardiorespiratory fitness are associated with improvements in health such as a decreased risk of heart disease, obesity-related diseases, and mortality in general. If you’re a human, it is necessary to spend a little bit of time each week getting your heart rate up to take care of your machinery. Only about 20% of folks in the US currently meet the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, so get your butt into gear and move around each week.
There’s probably a few of you out there thinking, “Matt, I’m a hardcore powerlifter or weightlifter, I thought cardio would destroy all of my huge gainz, bro!” First off, I’m glad that you’re competing! I think more folks should step out on the platform. Second, responsibly adding in a modest amount of conditioning can certainly help you get stronger especially when you’re a month or more out from a meet. Barbell training is primarily anaerobic in nature. Increasing a trainee’s aerobic capacity will help augment their recovery between intense bouts of anaerobic training (such as a heavy set of squats), improve their ability to remove blood lactate, and improve the efficiency of a movement. In short, if you are out of shape aerobically, it’s tough to be able to train with enough volume or intensity to get stronger.
The second piece of GPP training is accessory lifting. After walking a new trainee through their first couple of sessions of barbell training, it’s common for folks to ask, “where can I add muscle in XYZ?” I’m of the opinion that if you squat, press, bench press, and deadlift you already have a pretty darn good training program, but it’s okay to want to do a little more. Accessory lifting during GPP training is a good time to give some attention to your mirror muscles. For most trainees, we program upper back work (chin-ups, pull-ups, and rowing variations), direct arm work, and abdominal training. The accessory work is typically done for just a few sets and on a time cap to keep the trainee from going “full-bro”. You don’t need to do Ronnie Coleman’s back day (YAAA BUDDY!), and you certainly don’t need to go do a full 50-minute class to blast your core. However, consistently adding weight, or reps to your accessory movements will yield sufficient results over time.
Putting all of the above together, a sample training week of GPP for an intermediate trainee might look like the following for someone who would like to do GPP on non-training days:
Monday: Barbell Training
Tuesday: GPP
25 minute on C2 rower with heart rate at 120 BPM or RPE 6
DB Row 8 min AMRAP
Hanging Knee Raise 8 min AMRAP
Barbell Curls + Lying Triceps Extensions: 12-20 reps x 2 sets
Wednesday: Barbell Training
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Barbell Training
Saturday: GPP
Assault Bike Intervals: 5 min warmup, (20-second sprint followed by 100 second easy pedaling) x 8 rounds, 5 min cooldown
Chin-ups: 8 minutes AMRAP
Ab Roll-Outs: 8 minutes AMRAP
Arm superset: 3 x 12-15 reps bicep curls and triceps pushdowns
Sunday: Eating brunch to avoid the Sunday scaries…
In short, get your butt into gear and commit to doing just a little bit of a GPP training each week. You can do it on separate days like in the example, or you can add it in after your normal training sessions. Your priority should be first getting the cardiorespiratory portion done, and the accessory lifts if your schedule permits it. Improving your fitness will increase your training workload tolerance, performance in physical tasks that challenge your endurance, and keep you from dying, so let’s get after it!
Matt Bickford