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Other/Mixed What is GPP? Does it really exist?

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Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
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Physical attributes, movement patterns, skills - can you expand this thought a little more?

I wasn't making any attempt at defining which qualities to optimize, but I think a lot of other people here have listed out good ones. I'm more getting at the idea of balancing them against each other.

Forgive me, I'm going to go math nerd for a moment (I'm an engineer by trade):

Let's suppose you have two physical quantities A and B, normalized to have equivalent value (i.e. A=1 is just as "valuable" as B=1). You might think of a training program trying to optimize the total value: A+B. Problem with that is, in that case ending up with A=2,B=0 has the same "value" as A=1,B=1. To put it more concretely, that program would say that having an awesome deadlift and a piss-poor press is just as good as having a pretty good deadlift and press.

So, you need another term in what you're trying to optimize, to penalize the program if it lets your parameters diverge: A+B - |A-B|. Now, A=1,B=1 gets a total score of 2, but A=2,B=0 gets a score of 0. And, of course, A=2,B=2 is even better. I think that's what a GPP should do - look to optimize all parameters without letting them diverge from each other. Then an SPP would assign additional weight to certain parameters.

Question remains, how do you decide what A and B really are (and C and D, etc.). Pavel picked a set of parameters he liked for S&S, but that certainly doesn't mean it's the right set of parameters for everybody.

<end nerd mode>
 
Does this imply there is a third physical preparedness? Do you feel anything is even more general than the GPP related to SPP?

Sort of. This is what I was trying to get at in this part of my previous post:
Most people have general NEEDS, but don't need general TRAINING (what could be more specific than a program with TWO exercises). This is Dan John's quadrant 3. If you are in quadrant 2 (varsity/professional level team/contact/collision sports) or 4 (elite level specialized contests, such as powerlifting, track and field events, distance running, etc.), the concept of GPP is more relevant, since the concept of SPP is more relevant.

GPP exists where there is a need for SPP. In Dan John's quadrant concept, this would be quadrants 2 and 4. Most of us are in quadrant 3. We have general needs so we think of our training as GPP because the term seems to fit. But really we just have relatively low level (compared to elites) needs and should more or less align our training with those needs, and that's not going to look the same for everyone, depending on circumstances and personal preferences.

For instance, I play basketball as a recreational sport. I'm pretty serious about it at my level, but in the big picture that level is pretty low. I do very little SPP. When I have time to play basketball, I'm playing pick up games, only working on my skills while warming up, and almost never doing really specific physical preparation.

So in my training I do consider how that training might impact my ability to play basketball, but not in a very rigorous way. I mostly do what I like, and try to hit a variety of physical characteristics with a limited number of exercises. I DON'T consider my training to be GPP. GPP doesn't apply to people like me. I'm not trying to be prepared for ANYTHING -- not in the sense of anything specific and not in the crossfit sense of a vague infinitude of possibilities. That's my understanding of quadrant 3.

It might be a bit of a semantic game. I say GPP doesn't apply to people like me. A lot of people like me DO think of their training as GPP, and we are probably mostly thinking of similar things. But I do think GPP is often a term people use to fool themselves about what they are really doing and why.
 
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Another view at avoiding risks rather than rewards. From a biology perspective, can you elaborate more on a list of adaptations and possibly categorize them? As @Kettlebelephant stated, I feel this is something that crossfit did with their pyramid of 10 attributes.
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What I was getting at was the idea that we should train all athletes with a broad base of GPP before moving to specific training is overplayed. ALL training is specific. There is no such thing as non-specific muscular endurance, strength, flexibility, power, accuracy etc. GPP that reduces the risk of injury, maintains health, or enhances an athletes performance are all good. Anything else is extra and can be counterproductive. Program design should carefully and systematically evaluate everything done in training in light of the specific adaptations provided, rather than just assuming that all GPP is good for the athlete. In that sense, all GPP should be aimed at producing a specific (and desired) adaptation, so the whole concept of GPP comes into question. Is it still GPP if we are trying to produce a SPECIFIC adaptation? This type of thought process makes us consider our programs more critically, which is good.
 
What I was getting at was the idea that we should train all athletes with a broad base of GPP before moving to specific training is overplayed. ALL training is specific.

If we start from an assumption that we are training an athlete, then even GPP is going to be specific - geared toward preparing the athlete for the specific rigors of their planned competitive training or environment.

But, what of the individual who is not engaged in a specific sport, or the physical demands of their job are extremely varied, or non existent?

I believe I'm a solid example.

I backpack, but only a few times a year and is not competitive rucking, though the loads can be pretty heavy. I canoe, but again only a few times a year and though the bodies of water I'm on can get pretty rough, is nothing you can plan on or for.

I have kids, so I might find myself demonstrating a handstand, carrying two nine year olds under my arms, building a treehouse, roughhousing, ride my bike 10-20 miles, but not at a competitive pace.

I enjoy hitting the heavy bag and doing stick and footwork drills, though I'm not training for a competitive bout or anything. I don't want my speed or coordination to degrade beyond a certain extent.

I had my kids as an older adult, so I want to stave off age-related muscular and joint degeneration as much as possible. I want some hypertrophy/mass maintenance without pounding on my joints with heavier loads. I also want to maintain the strength I have and from time to time make a charge at regaining some of the strength I had as a younger man in some movements.

At work I might have to climb a two-story storage rack and manipulate heavy pieces of equipment under tight location, spin and push a 1600lb roll of paper from one end of the shop to another. Or I might go a week or three without having to do any of those. I might have to do detail work at a bench while standing for hours using small power and hand tools that really test my posture and static grip strength, but again I might go a month without.

To me this calls for GPP, when the demands are so varied there is no good way to design a specific program aside from periodizing or incorporating a fair amount of variety from the get-go.
 
Is it still GPP if we are trying to produce a SPECIFIC adaptation?

IMHO yes. I think the problem we all have is that we do not share the same definition of what "specific" is. From this point forward in this post I will use the sport-science definition which I know from Supertraining and other works by Verkhoshansly.

Specific in the sport-science term SPP is specific to the competition/fundamental exercise (which is a defined term - see end of post ***), not the to the person (or to the biological process of adaptation). All training which fall in line with that definition fall under SPP, all training that is not fall under GPP. That is it.

I do not know/remember how technical-tactical practice is categorized, but I am pretty sure that it also has some sort of internal categorization.

*** Quoted from Supertraining, page 356
The SPP means should correspond as closely as possible to the dynamics and regime of work of the sports activity. This requirement is the principle o f dynamic correspondence (discussed in 4.3) which stipulates the importance of the similarity between the training means and the fundamental sport exercises with respect to the following indicators (see 4.3):
• The amplitude and direction of movement
• The accentuated region of force production
• The dynamics of the effort (including maximum forcc)
•The rate and time of maximum force production
• The regime of muscular work.
One should, however, take into account that in practice the external similarity of the training means to the fundamental sport exercise is often overemphasized, whereas the importance of the similarity of the means to the regime o f muscular work and to the mechanism o f its energy production is underemphasized.
 
This is how I see it:

GPP:
Training of the attributes that are useful for the healthy practice of typical recreational sports and daily life. By typical recreational sports I mean: Soccer, rugby, tennis, basketball, baseball, etc. Sports such as marathons, powerlifting, etc, are too specific and dont fit in this list (would be quadrant 4).

The attributes would be:

- Some strength
- Some conditioning
- good movement patterns
- some mobility

SPP:
Well, we all know what this is. Training for your specific sport.
 
Reading through the thread so far I'd agree with @Antti, @Kettlebelephant, and @North Coast Miller.

For my spin I think you're confusing GPP with fitness. GPP is a concept to describe the ability to do the things that everyone does: get up from supine, squat, push a load off yourself, pick up a load from rest, move a load from point A to B, move yourself from A to B, any basic physical task you can imagine. The only difference between people being the degree to which they need to do them. So you can use it to compare; your grandmother likely has less GPP than an internationally ranked pentathlete. But GPP is not a goal to which one aspires, to be generally physically prepared. You aspire to be fit. Fit for your life, to pursue your goals and tasks. The second you qualify "for me" you've started to look at your fitness.

How you go about defining fitness is a whole different thread. Both Darwin and Crossfit have some pretty good material there.
 
*** Quoted from Supertraining, page 356
The SPP means should correspond as closely as possible to the dynamics and regime of work of the sports activity. This requirement is the principle o f dynamic correspondence (discussed in 4.3) which stipulates the importance of the similarity between the training means and the fundamental sport exercises with respect to the following indicators (see 4.3):
• The amplitude and direction of movement
• The accentuated region of force production
• The dynamics of the effort (including maximum forcc)
•The rate and time of maximum force production
• The regime of muscular work.
One should, however, take into account that in practice the external similarity of the training means to the fundamental sport exercise is often overemphasized, whereas the importance of the similarity of the means to the regime o f muscular work and to the mechanism o f its energy production is underemphasized.

Not saying there's a categorical right and wrong here, but to some degree I think opinions on this thread can be divided between those who have read Supertraining and those who haven't. Same with any discussion of plyometrics.

BTW, Mel Siff used to run an email list with some of the most interesting training discussion around. He was a very active participant so the discussion was either focused around ideas he brought to the group, or his reactions to ideas brought to the group by other members. There was some attempt to keep it going after his death with another moderator (maybe it still exists), but without Mel to call BS on people and explain why, it lost interest for me.
 
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Not saying there's a categorical right and wrong here, but to some degree I think opinions on this thread can be divided between those who have read Supertraining and those who haven't.

I probably masked it with the quote, but that was my intention in my previous post. We lack common definition for what specific is. The one in Supertraining is just one possible. Like any discussion, we need to set a baseline...

Now we can discuss what specific means :)
 
Excellent thread, excellent replies so far!
My own personal ramblings:

There is absolutely something like GPP, but it is all depending on context. If we talk about preparedness, the very first question will be for what?
Just like everybody is different, what GPP is for everybody is different, it all depends on your context.
Context is of course determined by many individual factors, like your entourage, work, family situation, health and fitness status, goals, and also beliefs.
If we want to be prepared for whatever life may throw at us, we need to assess what that actually could be (i.e. there’s a very small chance life throws “being an astronaut/SEAL/olympic level thrower” at you.)

A lot of it will be defined by your family and friends and close entourage and interests.
For example if you have a lot of powerlifter or strongman friends, being prepared for running a marathon or doing a triathlon is very unlikely worth it, being very strong is certainly better preparation in case you get called to stand in for a teammate.
Same if your kid is looking at collison or track and field sports, it is quite unlikely life will throw “lift an Abrams tank” at you.
So we get a bit of outside influence already on likely near future events.
Goals come in too (and of course even those need to be contextualized), as do beliefs in life (I for example firmly believe LSD and a bit of glycolitic endurance is an important piece of the puzzle, but that is my own personal belief)

Finally, contexts change as well. If you are going to be a new parent, your context and likely future events to be prepared for will change drastically, and so will your preparedness requirements. Same goes for interests, and changes in beliefs through life.

So, in my view, GPP means being prepared for what might come up, based on your own very individual context. It means assessing what might come up, what you like, a bit of risk assessment, and a whole lot of “I want to do this so shut up”, and then picking a routine that optimizes preparation for your own domains. And don’t get stuck on it, if you context changes so does your GPP routine.

Short version, GPP is very individual, and rightly so, but still is a real thing. Maybe we should call it GIPP (general individuall physical preparedness) :)
 
Short version, GPP is very individual, and rightly so, but still is a real thing. Maybe we should call it GIPP (general individuall physical preparedness) :)
IMO it's not. GPP is general and not individual. SPP is individual, because it's about your individual (-> specific) needs.
That's what I tried to say in my earlier post about what statistically can happen to you and that you need to be prepared for that.
What are the physical needs for the average human living on earth? That's what GPP is.
GPP doesn't need context, SPP does. That's why one is called general and the other specific.

Let's take my tiger fighting example from earlier and a guy working in the jungles of India. By almost any criteria he's an average guy, so GPP is all he needs. Working in the jungle of India he actually might encounter a tiger, but that doesn't make preparing for a tiger attack GPP. Preparing for it is SPP, because it's a specific need for him and his co-workers, but not for the other 99.999% of earths population.

If we want to be prepared for whatever life may throw at us, we need to assess what that actually could be (i.e. there’s a very small chance life throws “being an astronaut/SEAL/olympic level thrower” at you.)
That's very "specific" and therefore makes it SPP.
How many of the 7 billion people on earth are astronauts, SEALS or olympians? Not many. Hence they don't fit into the "general" category. Everything they need to do to perform well at their profession classifies as SPP.
The SEAL carrying his groceries and playing on the ground and running around with his children? That's GPP.
Him swimming 2Km with 50lbs of equipment and afterwards accurately firing his gun? That's all SPP.
 
If we talk about preparedness, the very first question will be for what?

I might be over simplifying, but I think most physical activities of typical sports and daily life have a few things in common, such as:

- running /walking at many speeds and changing directions, possibly on uneven terrain. Possibly colliding with other players in the way.
- picking up and carrying things.
- making force against an external resistance.
- sustaining those activities for a while.

If you look at 99% of people, most their activities are just that. So shouldn't a GPP be addressed at improving what these activities have in common? For instance:

- PTTP
- some running, mostly LSD and some faster.
- flexible steel 4 week challenge.
 
I think a lot of folks here are in violent agreement! I believe the goals of a GPP program are general, something that everybody (or almost everybody) desires. However, the path to GPP is not unique, there are many paths and this can be individualized. S&S is one well known path, but there are many others.

S&S is a great GPP program. But if one were to read through the Strongfirst articles, they can find a handful of articles by Pavel and others where the author has modified the S&S program in order to chase a specific goal (some of these modified S&S programs are SPP programs, but not all of them).

I think most would agree that S&S is a great GPP program. Can anybody think of a population (baseball players, powerlifters, marathon runners, whatever) where S&S would not meet that populations GPP requirements? I lack the imagination to think of one. I could still use S&S as my GPP program, forever, in between my "power lifting seasons" where I am using a SPP program. I use quotations because I am not a great powerlifter. I am an amateur and it is my hobby, but regardless, I am very serious about it and I train like a pro.

How about the program, Starting Strength (I'm talking specifically about Starting Strength, not the follow-up programs such as the Texas Method and the more advanced follow-up programs found in the Practical Programming book)? Starting Strength is marketed as the most effective program available for an untrained person to increase their absolute strength, as fast as possible. And I would probably agree with this claim. However, Starting Strength is not a great GPP program for me (it is a great program for the first 6 months or year of a novice though). But you would not find me doing Starting Strength on my Power lifting off season in order to build my GPP, it just doesn't make sense. Because Starting Strengths purpose is very specific and targeted for novices, it is SPP.
 
Hi @Kettlebelephant ,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, appreciated!

I meant the example of austronaut/Seal/olympic thrower in the opposite way from how you understood it, I meant to use it to say it’s extremely unlikely so no need to train like one (which would be actual SPP, so I agree with you)

We are agreing about most of what we’re saying, but apply different labels of GPP/SPP to it.
To me, SPP would be preparing for a specific need arising out of your context (for example your friend asks you to stand in for that teammate in a Highland competition). This requires specialized training which now is SPP.
I personally do not know or have been to any Highland games so this is extremely unlikely for me. However there is a higher chance I might get to stand in in an endurance competition some time in my life due to my context, hence beimg ready and able to train for that (SPP) is something I’d need to factor into my general routine (maintain an acceptable aerobic base, GPP)

I quite like your statistical approach (I took somewhat a same method), but we’re running into the usual troubles with statistics... 1, they are not abdolute but need interpretation, but more importantly 2, statistics always also include an element of individualization (you define your populations as a first step after all, which makes it applicable to the kind of populations you want to study -> contextualization).

Again, I think we agree about the principles but not about the labels

In the end, that won’t make a difference, statistics don’t work for individuals and neither do labels, but I still think everything needs to be attached to a context, including GPP and SPP
 
Hi @Oscar,

I do agree with everything you said :)
My point is kind of taking GPP further and applying weightings to the different areas based on likelihood of occurrnce.
As said before, I guess my definition of GPP would be more specialized than other people’s.
For the sake of this thread I think we all agree on principles but struggle with definitions of terms that are not clearly drfined in the first place. Hence I’m probably more in the original poster’s camp, I do not believe in general general preparedness :)
 
How about the program, Starting Strength (I'm talking specifically about Starting Strength, not the follow-up programs such as the Texas Method and the more advanced follow-up programs found in the Practical Programming book)? Starting Strength is marketed as the most effective program available for an untrained person to increase their absolute strength, as fast as possible. And I would probably agree with this claim. However, Starting Strength is not a great GPP program for me (it is a great program for the first 6 months or year of a novice though). But you would not find me doing Starting Strength on my Power lifting off season in order to build my GPP, it just doesn't make sense. Because Starting Strengths purpose is very specific and targeted for novices, it is SPP.

Are you referring to Starting Strength as SPP for a novice powerlifter? Because, outside of that context, I think I'd argue the opposite.
 
HANSENATOR, Starting Strength is not a powerlifting program, but it uses the 3 power lifts (and other exercises). It is a barbell-based program focusing on increasing absolute strength, very quickly, in lifters who are novices with the barbell. So I would say it has a very specific goal for a very specific population (although I would agree it is a very large population). If you had 5 or 10 years of serious barbell training under your belt, would you switch from an intermediate program (like 5 3 1 or whatever is a popular program nowadays) for a beginner program like Starting Strength as GPP? I assume the answer is "no". Starting Strength would be great GPP for a new person just starting into fitness and lifting, but though, not an experienced lifter. Whereas S&S could provide GPP for everyone. That was my point, I hope I am making sense.

I'll ask my question again: Can anybody think of a population (baseball players, powerlifters, marathon runners, the elderly, coach potato, whatever) where S&S would not meet that populations GPP requirements? If you can't come up with an answer, doesn't that mean that the goals of GPP are truly General (not specific). For example, I'm just making this up, could somebody argue that heavy TGU's make elite marathon runners shoulders too bulky which contradicts their sport by slowing them down? Or, does S&S lack some physical attribute (strength, conditioning, flexibility, balance, etc) that all populations need?
 
Can anybody think of a population (baseball players, powerlifters, marathon runners, the elderly, coach potato, whatever) where S&S would not meet that populations GPP requirements? If you can't come up with an answer, doesn't that mean that the goals of GPP are truly General (not specific). For example, I'm just making this up, could somebody argue that heavy TGU's make elite marathon runners shoulders too bulky which contradicts their sport by slowing them down? Or, does S&S lack some physical attribute (strength, conditioning, flexibility, balance, etc) that all populations need?

I get what you are saying, however allow me to ask the opposite question, what would a GPP program (or S&S) bring as an advantage to those specialists (assuming of course that their training makes some sense at least)?
Or in other words, why add something general to the training of a very dedicated specialist? Why would they have general preparedness requirements?

Not trying to be difficult, just trying to understand what we are talking about
 
Claude, Ill try my best.

In no particular order, S&S delivers strength, conditioning (both alactic and aerobic), flexibility, mobility, and it teaches folks proper movement biomechanics (such as hinging). There are probably many other benefits which I lack the imagination to list.

Let's take a very strong powerlifter for example. He would not be doing S&S to build strength (I guess he could, with really heavy bells), he is doing it for all the other benefits. For health, for conditioning to make it through the meet and to improve his quality of life.

Conversely, an awesome endurance runner wouldn't do S&S for the aerobic conditioning, he would do it for the other general benefits. Building his strength so he can be more functional. Developing strength to improve his quality of life. Maybe he wouldn't be as strong as he could be squatting 500 lbs with a barbell, but he would likely be stronger than 90+% of the population and that GPP training would not get in the way of his SPP practice, running, unlike those heavy barbell squats.
 
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