Other/Mixed Why not vary exercises day to day?

[Starlord]

This is probably correct.

I bet if you were to go back in time knowing what you know now, you would produce far superior and elegant programming to acheive your old goals. While maintaining your ability to be operationally fit for your branch of the army concurrently.

 

[silveraw]

Then came the day when I had to move pieces of furniture all day long from a house to another. I was broken by the end of the day. To me, it was a game changer.

Similar experience. I had just hit a 405lb double body weight deadlift doing PTTP and SS. Was helping my dad drag a deer up a hill and everything fell apart. I was gassed, my grip was failing, and the not very large deer was way more difficult to move than it should have been.

 

[Adachi]

I bet if you were to go back in time knowing what you know now, you would produce far superior and elegant programming to acheive your old goals. While maintaining your ability to be operationally fit for your branch of the army concurrently.

Well this was about 6 weeks ago.
And I still meet standard, so far.
I still am highly reliant on programming by others.

I remember reading strength shortcuts by Geoff neuport many moons ago. I was so unfamiliar with the concepts I literally said to myself *this is not helpful*, and let it drift off into the ether of read emails.

The so-called problem of "too much choice" happens to apply to me. There is a painfulness that comes with guided programs with 10-15 exercises, prescribed in the pervasive 12-15 rep range. I remember following a book I got with men's health magazine branding on the top left corner of the book. I went to 24 hr fitness to do it. I remember not being able to tell of I was doing it right, not being able to tell if I was making progress. It reminds me of a talk I had with a professor of mine.

I was taking night classes toward an unrequited engineering degree. I already had a job and was proficient enough to be training my superiors. I showed him my 12 week lesson plan and he almost yelled at me, "it's too much". I told him this was the 7th condensed draft. Its bare bones.

He said to me : that's not how things work for normal people, with a job. You get 12 weeks with them , you pick one thing. You drive that home. Everything else is gravy. You have 5 separate concepts in here it'd take 18 months for me to teach them all this.

I talked and told them about how smart and talented they are and how I expected them to be able to pick up on the ideas.

And then he told me, it doesn't matter how smart they are. It's about practice.
They need to practice this.

I need alot more practice, a few years in. I'm no natural. I need alot more at bats, alot more misses, alot more practice. At exercise execution, program design, and training goals, and what leads up to their achievement.

 

[guardian7]

Depends what your goals are.

Yes you could.

You could in theory.

The law of biological accommodation kicks in after 3 weeks. Hence why both Louie Simmons and Boris Sheiko (2 of the best powerlifting coaches in history) use a maximised approach.

Again...you could.

This is true and where the USSR and Louie Simmons would rotate movements and variables in some way.

You aren't wrong about any of the above but there is something you may not have thought about.

Why bother if you can still linearly progress?

Let's use the forum as our sample. What % of the forum do you think have a 2 times bodyweight squat? It's a strength feat easily achievable with simple linear periodization and commitment.

Variation is a great tool but if you haven't built a quality base and I mean a QUALITY base then why bother wasting mental resources needlessly complicating things?

In addition the end goal is a critical factor. If my goal was to compete in powerlifting then I'm not going to bother swimming or cycling.

If my end goal is to run a marathon then you aren't going to be wasting time trying to get a 2-3 times bodyweight squat.

You're also going to build your base with a lot of easy runs and nothing else. Because you can keep progressing off just s few easy runs and letting mileage organically grow.

This has all the potential of having trainees majoring in the minors when they haven't built a foundation and hit simple KPIs.

I clearly stated for GPP goals.

 

[bluejeff]

Well this was about 6 weeks ago.
And I still meet standard, so far.
I still am highly reliant on programming by others.

I remember reading strength shortcuts by Geoff neuport many moons ago. I was so unfamiliar with the concepts I literally said to myself *this is not helpful*, and let it drift off into the ether of read emails.

The so-called problem of "too much choice" happens to apply to me. There is a painfulness that comes with guided programs with 10-15 exercises, prescribed in the pervasive 12-15 rep range. I remember following a book I got with men's health magazine branding on the top left corner of the book. I went to 24 hr fitness to do it. I remember not being able to tell of I was doing it right, not being able to tell if I was making progress. It reminds me of a talk I had with a professor of mine.

I was taking night classes toward an unrequited engineering degree. I already had a job and was proficient enough to be training my superiors. I showed him my 12 week lesson plan and he almost yelled at me, "it's too much". I told him this was the 7th condensed draft. Its bare bones.

He said to me : that's not how things work for normal people, with a job. You get 12 weeks with them , you pick one thing. You drive that home. Everything else is gravy. You have 5 separate concepts in here it'd take 18 months for me to teach them all this.

I talked and told them about how smart and talented they are and how I expected them to be able to pick up on the ideas.

And then he told me, it doesn't matter how smart they are. It's about practice.
They need to practice this.

I need alot more practice, a few years in. I'm no natural. I need alot more at bats, alot more misses, alot more practice. At exercise execution, program design, and training goals, and what leads up to their achievement.

These thoughts remind me of the 80/20 rule for some reason. Those 10-15 exercises at 12-15 reps plans are like the 80% that do not give you the results, whereas the 20% that you really focus on do. By focusing on no more than like 3 things at a time, with everything else being kept at low volume/frequency/intensity, one makes better gains. Then you cycle through different goals. This is used by some calisthenics athletes, as the skills most want are planches, levers (front, back, and side!), muscle ups, planche pushups, advanced pressing like 90-degree pushups and tiger bends.... There are so many that to try and advance them all concurrently is more often that not a futile endeavor. By, as you noted, practising 2-3 skills, you make gains, and then it is easier to put those skills on maintanence while you focus on less trained skills. When you come back to them, it's like "riding a bike," they are easier to pick back up.

 

[pet']

Hello,

Below is a nice video about how to combine S&S with CC, while following an ABA BAB programme for the calisthenics portion. That way, we rotate through a fixed set of exercises, on a weekly basis.


Sets & reps are included at the end of the video.

Kind regards,

Pet'

 

[Starlord]

I clearly stated for GPP goals.

But what are you bring prepared for? GPP is not a goal in itself. GPP is something you acheive to prepare for specific goals and tasks.

 

[North Coast Miller]

But what are you bring prepared for? GPP is not a goal in itself. GPP is something you acheive to prepare for specific goals and tasks.

In a VERY general sense this is true, but for many there are no further specific goals or tasks aside from rather arbitrary "program" exits. The practice of GPP then is to slowly improve upon or maintain what's there. I do not train specifically for PRs, yet I hit PRs, as will anyone who applies progressive overload to whatever training strategy they use.

To me, the goal of GPP is to not fall short on as many untrained activities as possible, where as preparing for "specific goals and tasks" implies not only a known task or tasks, but most likely within a known timeframe when one will be performing said task(s).

To some this is equal to the pursuit of mediocrity, a characterization I absolutely do not agree with. Based on this POV, getting better at one facet of fitness while slipping in others isn't the equivalent of excellence, its selective mediocrity. Even more so if that performance improvement is short-lived. Anyway, this is a very old and ongoing conversation with no resolution aside from the personal. Build the right machine to do the job.

 

[Nate]

Sounds similar to Dan Johns minding the gaps (finding your weakness). It means choosing a higher floor all around instead of seeking the highest ceiling in one area. When you keep bringing up weaknesses, you'll eventually be pretty good all around, even though you're not the best in any one thing. For life, that's pretty useful.