Greasing the Groove

[Kishi]

Right. So I never thought that this would happen to me, but it sure does seem that I have run out of time.

Every day of this past week, and next week, and the week following, have all had the spare time drained from them for strength training. Monday is Judo, Tuesday is Discipleship training, Wednesday is Writer's Group, Thursday is Community Group, Friday is Shotokan, and Saturday is Judo again. Sunday is for sprinting, which I'm cool with, but the flexibility I used to have to train hard in strength is... well, if not diminished, gone.

Now, I'm fortunate. I am aware of Pavel Tsatsouline, and I'm familiar with the concept of greasing the groove. It's a protocol that seems like it would work just fine for me. But at the same time, I've only ever heard it applied to pull ups, push ups, and pistol squats. I've never heard of it being applied to other movements, such as those that would be considered part of the Convict Conditioning program.

Paul Wade talks much about the same kind of concept in some of his advanced schedules, but there's a problem there. He advocates doing a lot of sets throughout the day, and I know that's something I'll struggle with. So I'm putting this out there to the community to ask what y'all's thoughts are regarding this. What are some ways to make it more effective? Have you seen good results in your training from taking this on?

[Loren Wade]

Man, I can't list the number of times I've used it. Burpees, pullups, double unders, pushups, situps, planks, etc.

I used it a lot when I did CC.

[Waldo]

Paul Wade talks much about the same kind of concept in some of his advanced schedules, but there's a problem there. He advocates doing a lot of sets throughout the day, and I know that's something I'll struggle with. So I'm putting this out there to the community to ask what y'all's thoughts are regarding this. What are some ways to make it more effective? Have you seen good results in your training from taking this on?

I think GTG works best when applied to movements very close to your 1RM.

It is an exeptionally good technique for growing 1-2 reps to 5+ reps or 5-10 sec max hold to 20+ sec max hold. Since you specifically avoid failure and work below your maximum threshold (working near your 1RM is weird in that doing 1 rep, even if it is your max, really doesn't act like failure training), you are able to build up to large volumes as long as you give long rest times between sets.

Some days/weeks I just pick a movement and do it here and there throughout the day. Last week it was one arm pushups. This week I've been doing floor L-sits that way. The gains I see from it are huge. But I only really use it on movements that I just "got" and thus have a fair amount of technique growth potential and am also working very heavy.

[Loren Wade]

I think GTG works best when applied to movements very close to your 1RM.

This.

[thatgirljj]

I think GTG works best when applied to movements very close to your 1RM.

It is an exeptionally good technique for growing 1-2 reps to 5+ reps or 5-10 sec max hold to 20+ sec max hold. Since you specifically avoid failure and work below your maximum threshold (working near your 1RM is weird in that doing 1 rep, even if it is your max, really doesn't act like failure training), you are able to build up to large volumes as long as you give long rest times between sets.

Some days/weeks I just pick a movement and do it here and there throughout the day. Last week it was one arm pushups. This week I've been doing floor L-sits that way. The gains I see from it are huge. But I only really use it on movements that I just "got" and thus have a fair amount of technique growth potential and am also working very heavy.

Hmmm... interesting. I've been looking at building up my time on bridges, but I'm not sure if my current time is too high to try it. Food for thought, since I'd never tried GTG for holds.

-jj

[Kishi]

I think I see. So, then, here's the next step:

I've got a few movements that could be leveled up in CC. What I'm thinking is I would treat it like a 5x5 kind of plan - do these big hard movements, and focus on doing one of them each day, in five sets of five reps.

Your thoughts?