My “GPP” Training journey (Why I’ll never go back)
Since I’ve started training more regularly in the last 9 ish years, and more seriously the past 7, my own training has taken lots of turns and has looked different over that time span.
Not inherently a bad thing, as goals, interests and curiosities change and evolve as we move on through life. And I’m grateful that I got to dive into these specificities of the fitness world to prepare me for whatever task or goal it was, or to learn about whatever was piquing my interest at the moment.
As I reflect on how my training has evolved, two things are for certain;
I wouldn’t want my fitness journey to have evolved any other way.
The way I train now is a reflection and culmination of what I’ve learned over the years, and it’ll be really hard to deviate from this.
My second point is what I wish to speak more about today, and why I don’t think I’ll ever steer too far away from this “type” of training.
My fitness and training journey has been a series of experimentation, evolvement of curiosities, failure, trial and error, and sometimes even ignorance.
It’s been a reflection of the following;
Training for high school sports
Training for Marine Corps bootcamp
Training to maintain a level of fitness where I can meet the demands of being a Marine Corps Infantryman
Training to put on muscle mass & strength
Training specifically for powerlifting
Training for speed development
Training general qualities that carry over to specific tasks and demands (where I’m at now)
Over the years of my own evolution, all these aspects have greatly influenced the way I train and impact how I approach my own training now; Training all general qualities, or in fitness terms, General Physical Preparedness.
What is General Physical Preparedness?
The term General Physical Preparedness, or GPP, is thrown around a lot in the fitness space and yet much of it’s conceptualization is bastardized throughout the community.
It is not just work capacity or accumulating more volume, simultaneously it is not executing more “hypertrophy style training”, or emphasizing accessory work.
I’ve seen many programs emphasize “GPP” in their programming and all they throw on is some additional bicep or tricep variations.
GPP, as it were, is the development of strength, speed and endurance, all of which are universal, general qualities, that carry over to specific tasks that is demanded of us, regardless of what that specific task is.
Notice that these universal qualities like strength, speed and endurance are all things that we must develop and build upon over time; they are competencies in which they must be trained through repetition.
No, adding more volume to your strength training, although possibly more taxing on the body, is not purely GPP work.
Sure, it is an aspect of GPP (More volume in resistance training working sets → Strength based work). However, if this is your form or idea of tackling the “endurance” characteristic of GPP, it misses the box.
Moment of Enlightenment
As stated previously, my fitness journey has gone through various changes over the years as I would train for certain tasks and demands.
When I was training for Marine Corps bootcamp and to be an Infantryman, I focused on lots of running, calisthenics, and ricking, with little resistance training.
When I was training for mass, I focused on pure resistance training, with no cardio or endurance based qualities involved.
When I was training for powerlifting, I focused solely on the 3 main lifts, and other accessory movements without touching any form of cardio or endurance training (I barely did any exercises outside of the sagittal plane). So on and so forth. When I decided to pursue primarily powerlifting, as much as I enjoyed it and experienced many of the highs that came with it, I also started noticing something drastic; I wasn’t able to partake in other activities at a high enough level.
This was highlighted on a quick hiking trip I took. I remember one time when I was living back up in Pennsylvania, around 2023, a good homie of mine and I decided to do a days hiking trip about an hour and a half north of us from Philly. I missed being outdoors and wanted to get out in nature more often. It wasn’t a super far hike nor was it anything crazy elevation gains wise. However we did go at a pretty good pace.
Towards the end of the hike I was cooked. Cramping, winded, tired. He was totally fine but I was struggling. Humbling to say the least, since only a few years prior I was rucking the west coast mountains of Camp Pendleton, CA with about 100lbs of gear on my back, although not “easily”, I could still manage.
The thought of anything on my back on this particular hike, in the far less intense mountains of Appalachia, daunted me. This moment here, I think, was the beginning of the end of my powerlifting specificity.
I had competed in another meet about 4 months or so later, and I remember being less and less motivated to train that way as the meet got closer. I completed the meet, (was by far my best one to date), and immediately after I decided to change up my training.
I slowly started incorporating more endurance and speed work, while still hitting strength qualities, and also hitting exercises across all three planes (sagittal, frontal, transverse). Essentially trying to hit all different characteristics of movement. I haven’t looked back since.
Moving Forward
The hiking journey taught me something big, not just about my total shit levels of endurance, but it forced me to ask myself the right questions again. A big one being “What kind of training do you want to participate in that reflects the life you want?”.
And for me, the simple answer was capability and competence through various physical tasks.
I loved powerlifting, and to this day I still lift heavy with barbells, that I don’t think will ever not be apart of my training. However, I realized that I didn’t want to be just strong. I want to do other things too.
I want to have competencies in speed, endurance, athleticism, power output, and so on.
Since changing up my training to be a little more concurrent, or just training all the general physical qualities, my competence, and really my overall quality of life, has changed for the better.
I take occasional MMA classes and can hang without lying on the ground gasping for air while also learning some technical skills.
I go to the track to sprint 1/2x a week for speed development (not to mention it’s a blast) and feel my proficiency in sprint mechanics getting better.
I can run a couple miles and be completely chilling without cramping up or having shin splints.
I take classes at the gym I work at that are more HIIT based, while not completely exhausted at the end of the.
All of this, while still resistance training and lifting heavy.
And surprisingly enough, my absolute strength hasn’t diminished greatly, while my relative strength (cut about 30 lbs since I stepped away from Powerlifting), is arguably better.
Point being, is that my overall fitness has improved, and so has my quality of life as well. I am able to better meet the demands of what’s thrown at me.
I would argue that those who don’t compete in a particular sport, such as a strength sport or team sport, should model their training this way to hit all different characteristics that they can or are able to. Not only for health reasons, but performance as well.
Even those that do compete in a sport where you need to specify your training, yes, you will get further training more specific to whatever you compete in, especially strength sports (team sports there’s a lot of nuance to this, another article for this sometime perhaps in the future). However, I would argue even integrating slight GPP work to assist your specificity work can do nothing but benefit you, without taking away the time and energy needed toward your priorities.
Why you should incorporate more GPP (even if you have specific goals)
For specificity in training, let’s say a strength sport for example, yes, you’re priority is going to be those specific lifts or to reach a threshold of muscularity (bodybuilding). However, I think to be an extremely effective competitor in one of these domains, it is essential to have a base level of overall fitness, (GPP), to then be able to express those specific qualities extremely well. How can GPP help?
Work capacity → When our GPP supplements our ability to handle higher training volume, we can get more done.
Recovery aspects → With more aerobic conditioning in our endurance aspect of GPP, we are able to recover better from sessions.
Injury mitigation → I’d be bold in saying that GPP “prevents injuries”, however when we tackle different movement qualities and planes of movement in our training, this could help with hitting different muscles we wouldn’t usually work on in our specific work, and in turn make us more robust, lowering the possibility of injuries occurring.
Proprioception → One of my favorite reasons, GPP work has us hitting movement qualities outside of our specific movements, and through the practice and repetition of hitting these different movement patterns, we develop an enhanced sense of how we move in space. As our bodily awareness becomes more efficient, we can then become more proficient in the movement quality of our specific movements. A win-win.
Resilience → Another one of my favorite reasons for GPP, and maybe more so a “mental” quality, particular GPP work, like conditioning, forces us to push ourselves into the uncomfortable unknown, increasing our ability to push through in challenging times and increasing overall mental toughness.
When we have a higher quality level of overall fitness, our ability to express specific characteristics in our competition or sport of choice increases, as our base level of fitness (any one of the general qualities) isn’t a hindering factor in the expression of whatever it is we’re trying to do.
I would also add, if you are a newer lifter or trainee, putting an emphasis on these general qualities and working them before you become hyper specific will pay dividends in your development as a trainee long term. This isn’t to say you can’t compete in one of the strength sports, but try to not to become hyper-specialized too quickly in your training, (ie; only doing clean variations or only doing barbell variations in your programming). Put all your efforts into moving the big rocks of general qualities, then become more and more particular over time.
Again, this shouldn’t take away from your specific work, if anything, it should add to you become a more well-rounded, robust, better lifter/trainee of your sport or competition of choice.
It’s been awhile, school and other life events have picked up drastically, but I’m still tying to make time where I can in my writing.
I have some cool things coming down the pipeline, subscribe to keep up with everything I have coming up.
Much love as always.
Peter