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Programming Improv Gtg - several exercises

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Citizen

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Hi!

So I have been strength training for quite a while with some periods off and others in (life is happening as well)

Having one child now and a second on the way I have looked into gtg training. I happen to have a home gym with a power rack and a lot of equipment.
I know that gtg is most often done with one exercise e.g pull ups.

However, I would like to do three different exercises that involves three different muscle groups, being:
Pull ups
Dips
Hip abductor exercise (foot raise with kettlebell attached).

In addition to this gtg routine that I will do 3-4 times a day I will also have two lifting days where I do a longer workouts that includes legs, chest and back.

I should clarify that when I do gtg workout I do all three exercises at the same time in the following order:
Pull ups
Foot raise
Dips

So my shoulders get a little rest after the pull ups.
I stay below 5 repetitions and have an option to add weight to the exercises if necessary.

Does anyone see any challenges with this routine? I know it might not be ideal, but having a full time job, baby and a house that I renovate from time to time leaves me in quite a time squeeze.
Any feedback is appreciated.
 
Citizen said:
Hi!

So I have been strength training for quite a while with some periods off and others in (life is happening as well)

Having one child now and a second on the way I have looked into gtg training. I happen to have a home gym with a power rack and a lot of equipment.
I know that gtg is most often done with one exercise e.g pull ups.

However, I would like to do three different exercises that involves three different muscle groups, being:
Pull ups
Dips
Hip abductor exercise (foot raise with kettlebell attached).

In addition to this gtg routine that I will do 3-4 times a day I will also have two lifting days where I do a longer workouts that includes legs, chest and back.

I should clarify that when I do gtg workout I do all three exercises at the same time in the following order:
Pull ups
Foot raise
Dips

So my shoulders get a little rest after the pull ups.
I stay below 5 repetitions and have an option to add weight to the exercises if necessary.

Does anyone see any challenges with this routine? I know it might not be ideal, but having a full time job, baby and a house that I renovate from time to time leaves me in quite a time squeeze.
Any feedback is appreciated.
Click to expand...

I think I remember reading that Pavel recommends no more than two exercises for GTG. You might consider rotating those every second week or something like that.
 
Citizen said:
I should clarify that when I do gtg workout I do all three exercises at the same time in the following order:
Pull ups
Foot raise
Dips

So my shoulders get a little rest after the pull ups.
I stay below 5 repetitions and have an option to add weight to the exercises if necessary.

Does anyone see any challenges with this routine? I know it might not be ideal, but having a full time job, baby and a house that I renovate from time to time leaves me in quite a time squeeze.
Any feedback is appreciated.
Click to expand...
I think it looks fine. What kind of "challenges" do you think there would be? Someone might raise an eyebrow at dips and suggest push-ups instead I suppose, but yeah... If you like/prefer/are good at dips, I think it's fine.
 
The only “challenge” will be making sure you keep the volume in check. As long as it doesn’t interfere with your other training sessions you should be good.
 
Thank you all for answering!

I am basically asking these questions because Pavel recommends only doing gtg with two exercises, as "guardian7" wrote. Therefore I am not sure wether to change things up or not.

As mentioned, I have a home gym, so when I go down to the basement I might as well do 3 or more exercises instead of 1. The time it takes does not differ a lot (5 minutes vs 1 minute basically).

To extend this theory a little bit, how about doing 5 exercises in one go, four times daily? Basically gtg with 5 exercises, 1 set per exercise 3 - 4 repetitions per time, according to the max weight I can do for 10 repetitions.

Would this be a good idea?
 
I don't think it's a big deal necessarily to do more exercises for some protocols (grease the groove, EDT, etc). I often do three exercises with EDT even though EDT is generally prescribed with two exercises.

Like blue jeff said though, if you end up adding too many exercises and/or volume, time spent and recovery may become issues, which is kinda defeating one purpose of the protocol imo.
 
Ahh, so basically, the body needs longer time to recover when doing more exercises, even though I am doing gtg (far from failure). So I should keep it within my own limits (listen to my own body), but aside from that I can do 4-5 exercises (if my body allows it)?
 
If you're only doing 3-4 rounds a day (of 4-5 exercises) don't think of it as GTG as much as having your session spread out over the day. If you could do your whole day's training within one training session you should have no problem with recovery when spreading it over the course of the day. Just take some days off during the week if you feel you need to.
 
Have you considered something like Pavels 5x5x5 in beyond bodybuilding?

I think it is one set of 5 reps for 5 movements. There is more to it so you can wave the intensity, but thatd the basic premise.

Richard
 
Thanks for good feedback from both of you.

Benjamin, the difference between spreading my workout through the day and what I do is that I do the same exercises every day, and I do all three of them at once before I taking a 2-3 hour break .

Ricky01,
This training method looks really interesting!! Where can I read more about it?
There is a lot of different information on Google, but can't find the specific one that pavel recommends.
 
Hey

I just searched for it after seeing it mentioned (probably on here). You could maybe just search here. Sorry that isn't more helpful.
 
I just wrote this to someone else....but have you considered the slow twitch programme by Pavel? it isn't everyday, but there are gtg elements.

Richard
 
Citizen said:
Benjamin, the difference between spreading my workout through the day and what I do is that I do the same exercises every day, and I do all three of them at once before I taking a 2-3 hour break .
Click to expand...
Yes, but you are probably staying well below both your max volume per set and max daily/weekly volume.

GTG will usually have you do way more than 3-4 sets per exercise. Unless on a very low volume day.
 
Benjamin Renaud said:
Yes, but you are probably staying well below both your max volume per set and max daily/weekly volume.

GTG will usually have you do way more than 3-4 sets per exercise. Unless on a very low volume day.
Click to expand...

I have seen many people talk about gtg and a lot of them say that doing more than 4-5 sets per day at 40-50% of the reps you can do at your max 10 rep weight is more than enough, actually, many people say that doing more than this are causing them joint issues and fatigue. I have also experienced this myself.
 
I'm curious what the hip abductor exercise looks like. It sounds like you're going to do them for heavy, low reps and I've never seen them done that way. I think if you did them like you would do in physiotherapy (light weight, high reps) that would not interfere with the GTG program, but I am not an expert.

What you're proposing is very similar to several plans that you might want to look into;

Easy Strength / Even Easier Strength <--------- I think these are what you are actually trying to plan for yourself, more or less
Waterbury's PLP Challenge
Nuckol's Bulgarian Manual
 
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3letterslong,
The hip abductor exercise is where I stand on a box, tie a kettlebell to my foot so the kettlebell is outside of the box and then raising my foot up as high as I can and lower it down (2-5 reps). This will help me to do many cool calesthenics exercises.
I also chose this exercise because it has nothing to do with dips and chins.

I played with the thought of adding squats, bench press or deadlift to the gtg routine, but I do not want to do those exercises without proper warm up (and I do not think anyone should!)


ILWEARE,

Interesting! Have you had good experience with gtg? Have you tried it with several exercises in one day? Love to hear more from you, sounds like a good rule!
 
I think reading Naked Warrior and practicing the gtg w Pavel’s original Naked Warrior program (Btw it is squats and push ups) is the best idea. I have done it for a few months, and I think I have learned a lot about myself, strength training and GTG.

GTG is a very powerful tool. Incase used as Pavel’s recommendations.

The limitations in GTG are not physical. It is mental. I would strongly discourage any body to go more than two exercises. At least after working on GTG and ideally NW for a few months.

Start w NW, see where it takes you in a few months. You will learn GTG and appreciate why Pavel selected pistols and push ups. Then only after that change exercises or add any. You might recognize even going down to the basement is a problem w GTG not the recovery.

GTG is my main strength training protocol as of now. I do mobility routine to get ready for S&S and I do dead hangs followed by hand extensions w rubbers. Two exercises. It’s been 3 months now. My grip strength increased so much that it started to puzzle me in my daily life. I will not add a third exercise. Because I know that I will stop GTG in a few weeks if I have 3 exercises in my GTG routine. It is too much. My brain will unconsciously take me away from GTG.



.
 
Ege said:
I think reading Naked Warrior and practicing the gtg w Pavel’s original Naked Warrior program (Btw it is squats and push ups) is the best idea. I have done it for a few months, and I think I have learned a lot about myself, strength training and GTG.

GTG is a very powerful tool. Incase used as Pavel’s recommendations.

The limitations in GTG are not physical. It is mental. I would strongly discourage any body to go more than two exercises. At least after working on GTG and ideally NW for a few months.

Start w NW, see where it takes you in a few months. You will learn GTG and appreciate why Pavel selected pistols and push ups. Then only after that change exercises or add any. You might recognize even going down to the basement is a problem w GTG not the recovery.

GTG is my main strength training protocol as of now. I do mobility routine to get ready for S&S and I do dead hangs followed by hand extensions w rubbers. Two exercises. It’s been 3 months now. My grip strength increased so much that it started to puzzle me in my daily life. I will not add a third exercise. Because I know that I will stop GTG in a few weeks if I have 3 exercises in my GTG routine. It is too much. My brain will unconsciously take me away from GTG.



.
Click to expand...

Thanks for reply! I will buy the naked warrior and look into it!

I want to add that I love strength training and have been doing it on / off for 15 years. The off periods have not been due to lack of motivation, but time and life getting in the way (moving, getting a new born baby, renovating etc.).

I will not get discouraged from doing gtg with those exercises.

I am 6'4, and starting to get older so I so not think pistol squats are a good idea for me. I would much rather do front squats or Bulgarian squats. Can I ask, what is S&S?

Edit: googled s&s and found out it was simple and sinister and have own books. No need to further explain (read a little bit about it).

However, I think I would go for gtg with several exercises, but I agree, too many may make it hard to go down to the basement, especially if I include big movements like squats and deadlifts.
 
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