T0ddday, what do you think of the way i have implemented/tweaked your GPP so far?
Here are the things i would appreciate some feedback about:
-I replaced hip thrusts with (as much glute driven as possible ) RDL and band squats with speed half squats. Are you fine with this? If not, what would you recommend as replacement for each, given ( for whatever reasons ) that hip thrusts and band squats are not an option?
-I am using ~2 minutes breaks between sets and ~3 minutes breaks between exercises. Is that fine?
-How do i progress? Classic progressive overloading? Or should i push it more? I am using weights that i can handle well currently, getting all reps with perfect form. Most difficulty comes from the big heart rate, not the load itself. I could up the load so i can barely get the prescribed reps for first superset of each exercise and most possibly miss some reps on the latter ones, then keep that load until i get all reps, then up. What is better?
Hey, saw your posts and been meaning to get back to you but been super busy. A few comments:
- First I noticed that you were doing power clean AMRAPs. I would have told you to stop this and never do it again but it looks like you figured this out on your own (Sometimes the best coaching is sitting back and letting your athlete figure out a few things on their own
). I don't really like the idea of doing anything AMRAP - but it is especially senseless for a dynamic and dangerous move like the power clean. It's just a way to get really fast at back driven speed reverse curls at best or at worst get injured. You can't avoid everything crossfit does because they do so much but anything that's a crossfit staple is usually not a great idea... As far as the suggestion of band squats for reps - I do want to clarify what I meant better because maybe I wasn't clear. I wasn't suggesting band squats with an AMRAP protocol - although if you were going to do it it would be the least bad because you essentially fly through band squats until you dont - at which point the rep becomes so slow it's pretty clearly stopping time... Rather I was suggesting timed reps. So for example you do 10 reps with 135 + 100lb bands to a box and do it as fast as possible (or stop at 20 seconds). Doing 20 reps in 30-40 seconds with a challenging weight will be a rhythmic 2 second rep (with a prescribed ROM from the box) and simulate the lactate response you get running 200-400m. In the winter time when athletes cant/won't run outdoors this is a great substitute. If you absolutely can't do band squats don't sweat it - it looks like your playing full court basketball which should provide some lactate stimulus.
-I replaced hip thrusts with (as much glute driven as possible ) RDL and band squats with speed half squats. Are you fine with this? If not, what would you recommend as replacement for each, given ( for whatever reasons ) that hip thrusts and band squats are not an option?
- No problem with the speed half squats - although as I stated above I don't have a problem with you just dropping the band/half squats altogether... (Also I don't think I was clear on this but the band squats are usually not used at the end of the workout but after 3 sets of squats. So it would look like 3x6 squat followed by 1x10, 1x20 timed band squats for 5 total sets.
As far as the RDL's it's not ideal simply because of the effect of fatigue on RDLs vs Glute Thrust. As you discovered when doing the workout out of order - order matters. Squatting is done first because squatting with accumulated fatigue is extremely hard and slightly dangerous. I much prefer hip thrusts to RDLs when you are fatigued because the tempo you can use for hip thrusts (you can hold the top for a 1-2 count and fly through the rest of the rep which you can't do for RDLs) BUT movement wise you picked a good substitute. I can suggest a better one but given your setup something that involves more bands or cables will probably be something you can't do... Maybe this is also off limits but if you don't mind me asking why is it that you can't do hip thrusts? Is it that you can't lug a barbell to the floor or can't find a bench? If you can find anything (swiss ball even - ugh) you can substitute heavy hip thrusts with single leg bridges which require a lot less resistance or even ball rollouts - would either be possible? Or you can stick to RDLs - just BE careful.
-I am using ~2 minutes breaks between sets and ~3 minutes breaks between exercises. Is that fine?
- Maybe. Assuming < 2 minutes per superset set and about 4 sets per exercise 14 minutes a set and 9 minutes resting between sets so a total time of 51 minutes - this isn't bad at all. This should be a quick workout - an absolute max time would be 90 minutes while shooting for an hour or less - looks like you are there...
-How do i progress? Classic progressive overloading? Or should i push it more? I am using weights that i can handle well currently, getting all reps with perfect form. Most difficulty comes from the big heart rate, not the load itself. I could up the load so i can barely get the prescribed reps for first superset of each exercise and most possibly miss some reps on the latter ones, then keep that load until i get all reps, then up. What is better?
Well... I believe that you know your body but I would still get some data on whether it's the load or the heart rate. For example - if you dropped all the weight moved by 30% would the workout be much much easier and you would be able to use less rest or not? If the answer is no - then you need to slightly increase your rest intervals - don't increase them between exercises in the superset but move to 3 minutes between sets and 5 minutes with some dynamic stretching between exercises. If the answer is yes then you can keep the rest around where it is. Don't decrease rest.
As far as progression - yes classic progressive overload. It will be easy at first. The idea of this training is it is resistance training with a fitness component - so as you get fitter you will soon be able to handle move far more weight. Ideally we get you back up around your PRs in this scheme and then when you go to lift again with long rest intervals you will find yourself getting ridiculously strong. This is basically one of my main principles - just like vested training - it's always easier doing what we can with a handicap (in this case fatigue) then continually getting better at what we been working on for years - so we introduce a handicap and get back to what we thought our limit was - then remove the handicap and make progress. This is really the reason weight training works in the first place if you think about it... Consider why you even lift when your goal is vertical - your speed in the squat with a 45lb bar is 100x more important than whether you can squat 300, 400 or 500lbs... BUT - the easiest way to build bar speed with an empty bar is not to practice going faster with it but to add extra resistance so the bar feels lighter when you actually go back to it!
- As far as missing reps this is the basic philosophy to it.
1) Squats. You are doing this first and shouldn't miss reps. Work with an absolute minimum of 4 reps and a maximum of 10 reps. So that means if you are nailing 3x6, go up to 3x8 or even 3x10. THEN - add some weight. You can an moderate weight and do sets of 10,8,6 OR as little as 4,4,4 (with the goal that the next workout will include more reps). The reps are up to you - personally I favor 4,7,7 simply because I have seen the best progress on this for the most athletes but I don't think there is magic voodoo to this. I would have athletes doing something like 315lbs x 4, 275x7,7 (or bumping that last set to 9 as a sign that they need more weight next time).
2) Military Press. You should never ever miss a rep here.... Because when you do you can turn it into a push press or push jerk. You can add more weight as long as you get at least 1 rep to be a strict press. No shame in having to do a lot of push press - I prefer it to strict press anyway for athletes. An athlete that can't push press way way more than he can strict press is a poor athlete IMO. Keeping the rule that you have to strict press the first rep of each set means you should never fail...
3) BSS - you can manipulate the reps here but don't go too low. One thing I would like to see is you end the last two sets with a 10-50 second iso hold. This will really help.
4) Hip Thrust - you can always pump out a few more
so don't worry about adding weight...
5) Pullups/Leg raise. Here you can add weight and if you fail just rest. If you supposed to do 8 pullups with 45lbs (by the way don't worry about full ROM - no need for a dead hang - just be consistent) and you fail at 6... Drop off the bar count to 5 and grab it again and do 2 more. Same with leg raises - If you supposed to do them with a 20lb dumbell just rest and finish your set - add weight when this isn't happening.
** For your leg raises I prefer them on a slant bench but for ease of use and to keep the workout confined to a small space you can do them hanging from the bar - if you have a slant bench go that route though...
