IOL Strength and Conditioning

Lots of trainers are thinking about GPP as an important factor in their training. There is definitely some confusion on what exactly GPP is. Consider this excerpt from a post on a popular musclehead web site:

I’m curious how GPP workouts differ from regular cardio like running and HIIT? For those who have incorporated GPP like farmers walk, sled dragging and other exercises, how has if benefited you and your physique? What makes it better then sprinting or doing HIIT?

The poster is a little confused, but at least he knows he’s confused.

The term General Physical Preparedness, or GPP for short, comes from translations of Russian texts on physical training. The Russian system of training was extremely scientific, elaborate, and planned, and it produced many great athletes. It has been adapted and updated and used all over the world with great success.

In the Russian system the coaches and trainers found benefit in paying attention to an athlete’s GPP - his or her ability to perform all different types of tasks, to do lots of work and recover from it quickly. At times in their planning, they would focus on GPP to potentiate upcoming training specific to that athlete’s event -training for Specific Physical Preparedness, or SPP.

This is a very good practice for everyone to observe! Whatever your chosen sport or form of exercise, don’t get so wrapped up in it that you don’t occasionally focus on whatever it doesn’t develop. You’ll be healthier and ultimately better in the main event if you work from a broad base of fitness.

So how did the poster mentioned above get confused about this? Enter the prolific and influential powerlifting coach Louie Simmons. Louie has adapted the Russian system used to prepare olympic weightlifters to powerlifting, and with great success. His gym, Westside Barbell, probably has more elite powerlifters per capita than any other. Louie wrote some well received articles that discussed some innovative ways of developing GPP - things like sled dragging, and pushing a wheelbarrow. Others wrote more articles with their own ideas for GPP - sledgehammers, sandbags, stones, barrels, etc.

This is where the confusion crept in. People confused innovation with generalization. Anything that was difficult to work with or looked like manual labor was called “GPP work.”

No exercise or activity is necessarily GPP work. Any productive form of exercise will develop certain aspects of fitness. If you are a powerlifter, lifting heavy stones is not going to help improve your GPP. Stone lifting is basically strength training, and powerlifters have a high degree of strength from their sport (obviously). Now stone lifting may develop certain aspects of strength that the powerlifts do not, but that does not make it GPP work; assistance work maybe, but not GPP.

Working on GPP means working on aspects of fitness that your main training neglects. If you are a powerlifter, cardiovascular training will improve your GPP. Training for the powerlifts does not develop much cardiovascular fitness. Adding in some running, cycling, rowing, or other aerobic activity will improve this neglected component and raise GPP. Now so will endurance or interval workouts with a sled, and a sled may be a more appealing choice for a powerlifter than the usual options; but all of the above improve GPP.

GPP is just all around fitness. Whatever that is.