GPP (not another Crossfit question I swear!)

[Stu Hughes]

Rip,
Paraphrasing heavily, you mention in SS that the people who will make the best gains on the novice program are well-fed young men on sports teams. These athletes will of course have better GPP than a sedentary male at the same weight and training age. In addition, their mobility/flexibility is likely to be far improved versus the previously sedentary trainee.

SO, with all other factors unchanged (GOMAD, lots of rest, three full-body workouts a week, no fucking about with the program) have you found it beneficial in your experience to hold off on the increasing poundages while a sedentary trainee adds some form of metcon and mobility work on the off-days? Or can the novice begin both the three days of lifting AND extra work to raise GPP as their capacity to create fatigue with the barbell exercises is initially very low?

[Mark Rippetoe]

A clever way to ask a CrossFit question. A novice trainee with no background level of GPP will obtain conditioning while doing just the 3 strength workouts per week, because strength training provides some improvement in VO2 as a side-effect of getting tired during the workouts. Will it produce the levels of conditioning that a program based on metcon will? No. Will it produce the levels of conditioning that a 3-day strength program with a 4th day of metcon will? No. Can a novice recover from either of these? Certainly. But a 3-day strength program will produce better strength and muscular bodyweight gains that either of these 2 other options when done through the end of the ability of the 3-day program to generate linear progress. I have not found it useful in terms of time spent trying to bring the level of GPP up to a higher level that presented before getting strong, because getting strong can always progress in a linear fashion irrespective of the starting point, and doing so would waste time that could be spent getting both strong and fit using the strength program. It all depends on the trainee's priorities and goals.

[Peter_k]

Actually, I have a GPP-related question I thought I might add under this thread, as it's somewhat relevant to the topic.

For an "advanced" novice in the position to add some GPP/Metcon: is this generally easier to recover from than doing SS with a caloric deficit?

I'm finding the latter difficult to manage and was toying with the idea of adding a day or two of metcon. Not as quick to drop fat that I suppose, but perhaps I could make better strength gains in the long run.

[Mark Rippetoe]

It is hard to recover from anything in a caloric deficit. It is also hard to recover from a lot of metcon added to SS, especially if it is very long higher-volume metcon. If you want to add metcon, just add one day and train it a few weeks before adding a 2nd. If you are worried about your bodyfat, tighten up your carbs. But best not to worry about your bodyfat now.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Wow, another GPP-Crossfit-SS question.

Actually for any of you guys that are doing a basic BB program and are looking to add a bit of Metcon to your program, here is what I have been doing with a group of high school football players who are fixing to start practice soon.

Since we end every other workout with powercleans we have been doing CF WOD "Grace" at the end of those sessions. So after we hit our powercleans for heavy sets of three, we strip the weight down pretty light take a short rest and bang out 30 reps for time of a "clean and push press" (since they don't know how to jerk yet).

Since they are novice lifters I don't let them go apeshit with the speed, we do thirty good clean reps as fast as possible while maintaining good form. This has helped their conditioning as well as get them some good practice on the powerclean and as of yet, I haven't noticed any drop impact on strength. On saturdays we do 300 yd shuttle runs for time.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Nice little back-off strategy.

[win]

Along the same lines, I've been following a similar practice after each workout. For example, after my last set of heavy squats I'll drop the weight to 95lbs and do alternating sets of squats and pull ups until I reach 50 reps of each, for time.

Or after doing heavy power cleans I'll reduce the weight and do power cleans and dips for sets of 21, 15, and 9 reps. If my heavy work involves a push move, I'll alternate with a pull in the metcon, and vice versa.

But I'm 44 years old and conditioning is almost as important to me as building strength. Your mileage may vary.

[big pull]

I've used a power clean/ squat clean circuit with good results. Start with 10 pc's, rest one minute. Do 9 pc's then 1 sc, rest one minute. Follow with 8/2, 7/3, 6/4, etc. I can currently reach 2/8 with 135# before dropping. What I like about this session is that, in addition to cumulative fatigue, gradually replacing pc's with sc's also makes each future set that much harder. Just my .02.