Other/Mixed The Great GTG Thread
- Thread starter Steve Freides
- Start date
Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
Have you read @Dan John 's Easy Strength Omnibook? This is not something I would call nebulous. If there is something you don't understand, I would suggest emailing Dan and asking for clarification.
Mattye
Level 4 Valued Member
So PTTP is easy strength I get that, daily dose deadlift, I get that too. However there are easy strength protocols that are far more exact - push, pull, hinge, abs, loaded carry. I understand. What I don't understand is where grease the groove meets easy strength, simple and sinister is easy strength?
bluejeff
Level 7 Valued Member
Grease the groove is practicing the move over the course the day, most days of the week.
I would not say that PTTP is the same thing as easy strength, however. Higher loading and only two exercises vs much lower (average) loading and 4-5 exercises.
In my opinion, a program kind of like Soju and Tuba is somewhere between GtG and PTTP. High load, high frequency, but low rep sets.
Are you trying to find something between ES and GtG? There’s the concept of “micro sessions.” Basically, pick a handful of moves, say A,B,C,D. You would do move A in the morning, move B a while later, etc. It’s tough to do if you don’t have the means to throughout the day though.
dc
Level 7 Valued Member
I’ve used GTG with chins for great results. At the time my max was 5 clean chins. I’d do 1/2 chins throughout the day whenever the opportunity arose. After about a week a was greasing 4/5 chins through the day with ease. As the weeks rolled on I kept the reps in the 4-6 range & increased the number of sets, & worked on making every chin as close to what I considered perfect as possible.
I tested a max set about a month in & shocked myself with 20 clean easy chins.
5 struggling chins to 20 clean ones in a month. I was sold, especially when I never done more than 6 chins in a set the whole month before the 20.
I tested a max set about a month in & shocked myself with 20 clean easy chins.
5 struggling chins to 20 clean ones in a month. I was sold, especially when I never done more than 6 chins in a set the whole month before the 20.
Alan Mackey
Level 7 Valued Member
Conceptually speaking, any low intensity, low fatigue, low volume and high frequency program could be "Easy Strength".
Alan Mackey
Level 7 Valued Member
Agreed. Moderate intensity might be a better fit. I stand corrected.
Mattye
Level 4 Valued Member
Dave Whitley in Taming the Bent Press:
"Inspired by Pavel’s book Simple and Sinister, our starting point is focused on technical practice in an organized, “Grease the Groove” fashion. If you aren’t familiar with that term this is the summary: Lift with the best technique you can, moderately heavy, very often and without making yourself tired. Practice in such a way that you are lifting fresh, frequently and with flawless technique."
For me GTG and easy strength are the same principle, the difference being the time between sets. In one there will be a night's sleep.
"Inspired by Pavel’s book Simple and Sinister, our starting point is focused on technical practice in an organized, “Grease the Groove” fashion. If you aren’t familiar with that term this is the summary: Lift with the best technique you can, moderately heavy, very often and without making yourself tired. Practice in such a way that you are lifting fresh, frequently and with flawless technique."
For me GTG and easy strength are the same principle, the difference being the time between sets. In one there will be a night's sleep.
AJL
Level 2 Valued Member
Wow. You went from pressing the 24 to pressing the 40 in five months? Pressing 5-10 sets every third day?
Remarkable.
Adachi
Level 7 Valued Member
I suppose there is something to be said about this. Some food for thought, I hope.
I, personally, am most thoroughly steeped in Strong Endurance training principles. I have read, and re-read the Strong Endurance manual many times. And I have at least sampled from each of the provided templates provided; and have mostly trained S&S, and Q&D, across my few years of training.
In general, there are a couple of factors that I believe find some kind of similarity to most programming, as far as I can tell.
Challenging and do-able.
To pose an analogy: In musical performance, the greatest experiences I've been a part of are where the performance lives in the overlap of a hypothetical Venn diagram comprised of the following two circles: (Narcissistic OverConfidence, and Crippling Insecurity). For me, the overlap between challenging and doable is where I want my training to be loaded. I have to at least visit a range of difficulty that causes me to have at least a slight doubt about whether I'll complete the sets and reps involved. I have to investigate those limits from time to time. Or, there is a similar effect from completing a workload that seems to be a lot, and never thinking that it'll become easy feeling, and watching, over time, as the workload becomes easier and easier, till it's hard to notice.
Relatively difficult loading, and relatively complete recovery.
This is a theme I've begun to notice in a lot of disparately targeted training goals. everyone seems to be trying to find a sweet spot of loading that gets the stressors sufficiently high enough to matter, and to allow the muscles to recover sufficiently. The big differences in opinion seem to be guided by what is regarded as Sufficient; relative to the goals of training, or the targeted adaptation. Strong Endurance has very different opinions about what sets, reps, and rest are required versus other programs aimed at maximal hypertrophy or maximal cardio; for example. While they have said differences, one can not avoid the basic framework: enough work to get the body to adapt, enough rest and recovery for the body to be able to trigger more of those adaptations.
I think in these broad terms GTG, Strong Endurance, and Easy Strength (and many other programs) have meaningful similarities. But, the devil is in the details. Other (more specific) levels of analysis belie the idea that these programs are sufficiently similar to be regarded as in the same vein of pursuit. Their designs have certain features that distinguish themselves from each other taxonomically. If you zoom out enough: training is just training. when you zoom in some training is completely different from other training.
Insofar as I espouse that the devil is in the details, it is for this reason that I would advocate: when one takes up a program they should do their level best to follow it to a T. I have muddied the water for myself a couple times, and I would argue that it made it harder for me to look back and learn from that training cycle. the more I changed tweaked and adjusted, the less clear it was that a given factor effected a certain outcome.
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Adachi
Level 7 Valued Member
to be clear, at that point, I wasn't quite all the way to pressing the 40kg bell strictly. I was able to push-press the 40kg bell.
But, I chose to take a more focused pressing program in 5x5 style sessions with the 32kg bell, to get up to strict pressing 40kg, 1L, 1R.
And, it was actually after a cycle of Clean and Jerk (a la' KBSF with the 32kg bell) that I subsequently tested my 40kg press at 2L, 3R; which I did not expect.
bluejeff
Level 7 Valued Member
This reminds me of the "definition" of flow state. Challenging enough that you're not bored, but no so difficult that you're overwhelmed. In other words, hard enough that you really have to pay attention. It really is interesting to me how the principles of physical training carry over to mental "training," i.e. learning.
"One learns better when the information is in small-to-moderate chunks, repeated often, and without fatiguing the brain much at all." Almost literally the definition of GtG with some nouns swapped.
"One [becomes stronger] when the [training] is in small-to-moderate chunks, repeated often, and without fatiguing the [body] much at all."
guardian7
Level 6 Valued Member
High frequency or daily training
bluejeff
Level 7 Valued Member
Doing the near failure set first? It seems like it would better to do it last so your GtG sets would be stronger. Or did you have a different experience?
guardian7
Level 6 Valued Member
GTG is calculated from your rep max roughly 50 percent or less, so it should not affect it much. It allows you to monitor progress in volume. If you can't reach the previous day, you back off a bit in volume.
Some minor hypertrophy benefits.
I should clarify that it would be better to do with pushups or less technical movements that are at higher volume. I wouldn't think of using it for one arm pushups or pushup handstands for example.
The original idea of GTG was to not exceed five reps if I recall, so it breaks the spirit but I am working on building a better pushup base, which may make sense with this approach.
I see that we need to clarify what is GTG. E.g., does Easy Strength qualify? Plan Strong?…
I asked Pavel and he answered:
“While 'greasing of the grove’ takes place with every rep you make—including in ES, PS, and many other types of programming—the GTG method does more than that. It maximizes the results of strength practice by enabling a very high volume through a combination of stopping far from failure (which is not unique to GTG) and extreme rest periods (which is unique). This minimizes stress by reducing the cellular membrane damage by free radicals, spiked in part by lactic acid and cortisol. For a 50% RM set a 10min rest is minimal to produce these effects.
“In summary, GTG is sets with < 50% of the max reps possible with a given resistance with >10 minute rests between sets, and high training frequency.
-S-
I asked Pavel and he answered:
“While 'greasing of the grove’ takes place with every rep you make—including in ES, PS, and many other types of programming—the GTG method does more than that. It maximizes the results of strength practice by enabling a very high volume through a combination of stopping far from failure (which is not unique to GTG) and extreme rest periods (which is unique). This minimizes stress by reducing the cellular membrane damage by free radicals, spiked in part by lactic acid and cortisol. For a 50% RM set a 10min rest is minimal to produce these effects.
“In summary, GTG is sets with < 50% of the max reps possible with a given resistance with >10 minute rests between sets, and high training frequency.
-S-