Missed at lunchtime, when I mighta woulda done some squatting. After work, I felt like a different sort of challenge. Testing the downtown BX to see if it has what it takes to host the Filthy 50 WoD. It kinda doesn't, with all the Monday night douches doing cable crossovers. But they only slowed me down a little lot. At least there's equipment enough to do the wod - if I bring my own wall ball.
Pull ups (non-jumping), Knees to elbows, and burpees were the time-consumers. KB swings with a 40# were pedestrian. Single-unders at the end, since I don't have my DU's yet.
Box jumps: 4.22
Pull ups: 9.24
Kb Swings: 3.36
Lunges: 2.38
KtE: 8.12
Push Press: 4.56
Back extensions: 3.23
Wall ball (12# slam ball): 4.25
Burpees: 8.06
Jump rope: 1.36
50.44.
8 bad hours - 1 hours - 2230/0645. 50 minutes total. PE: 9. 48 hours. 227/11.
P147g/C121/F56 : 37/31/32%, 1892 total cal, 1090 net
Showing posts with label crossfit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crossfit. Show all posts
Monday, July 14, 2014
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
The Chief n' the Zipper - Mar 19
As Rx'ed
4/4/4+Cleans/4+Pushups/4+Cleans
Got off to a slow start, with the goal of doing 4 cycles per round and a determination not to flag near the end. Didn't spend nearly as much time looking down at the bar as usual - but the squats were the hardest today.
Still need a better way to count rounds on this. Maybe just video the whole thing and sort it out afterward when I can see straight.
PM
Such a beautiful evening, had to get out to the zipper and do a little speed hiking. Three reps all at 5 and a halfish mins down, same up; no running, just breathing and striding - and trying not to fall to my death.
34 mins.
8.5 hours - 2130/0600. 54 minutes total, PE: 10. 24 hours. 225/13.
P348g/C61/F146 : 47/8/45%, 3019 total cal, 2324 net - win
4/4/4+Cleans/4+Pushups/4+Cleans
Got off to a slow start, with the goal of doing 4 cycles per round and a determination not to flag near the end. Didn't spend nearly as much time looking down at the bar as usual - but the squats were the hardest today.
Still need a better way to count rounds on this. Maybe just video the whole thing and sort it out afterward when I can see straight.
PM
Such a beautiful evening, had to get out to the zipper and do a little speed hiking. Three reps all at 5 and a halfish mins down, same up; no running, just breathing and striding - and trying not to fall to my death.
34 mins.
8.5 hours - 2130/0600. 54 minutes total, PE: 10. 24 hours. 225/13.
P348g/C61/F146 : 47/8/45%, 3019 total cal, 2324 net - win
Saturday, February 09, 2013
I'm a Crossfitterquitter.
This is the kind of post I would have wanted to make at the turn of the year, but never made time for the introspection. Besides, I needed another month of lesson learning. This all started at the end of December.
After a good year of getting completely back to the basics at an Anytime Fitness with only an open floor and one barbell and a lunch-window timeframe in which to get the job done, to a wide open schedule over the summer doing two-a-days in the box/backyard and on the bike, to a Fall of working through maxes and 531 to build strength in a max-effort mode I've ignored for over two decades, I was always feeling that, while Crossfit was the spark that changed my worldview about training in a revolutionary way, and, after re-thinking nearly all I was doing and implementing nearly all the basic tenets of CF, that I'd not truly experienced what CF has to offer – not having been involved with a box and the community members who call one home.
So imagine my glee when CFBako opened up their new doors literally 200 feet from my workplace. They moved in on a Monday, on Tuesday I hooked them up with a couple housewarming gifts (first aid kit and fire extinguisher) and paid for a few months, to start on the 1st of the new year. A new year with a whole new hope for training renewal.
Coming in, I was feeling that my training was short in a few areas. I'd been wondering if doing synthesized CF solo, or trying to cycle circuit work with the same functional movements at the gyms has been, say, sub-optimal over this last year. I was expecting a boost from:
1. Comaraderie
2. Coaching
3. Challenge
Anyway, I'm going to make a long story short. As I'm trying to lay my mental list down here, I'm amazed at how many ways the CF box didn't work for me. I did not expect this at all. Even after laughing at this, and knowing all this, I would never have predicted that I'd not renew after the first month. But here I am, walking away after the first month, and really, after only attending for 3 weeks.
There was some comaraderie, but not the fellowship I had anticipated. I kinda wished to be in with a group of people who were friendly, humble, in-this-all-together. Friendly in the at least as friendly as me, who might remember my name after I introduced myself to them way. The classes were clogged with mid-20's who wouldn't make eye contact let alone say hi.
Granted, there are a few more mature, friendly people there. But no more than any other gym where the great majority of people are just doing their own thing. It's human nature, I understand. I was hoping for a little less of the same ol' same ol'. I can get that at DoucheXchange for $30 a month.
Now that I'm gone, I'm still wondering if the box ownership will call asking what's up with me and am I going to continue? As of 2 weeks after my membership lapsed, and 2 and a half weeks without doing a WoD, I've not heard anything or gotten a call or text. This isn't a prerequisite for my gym membership, because I've never been to a gym where the people cared if you were there or not (after the box at high school), but wouldn't it be nice?
I had hoped for Steve, the principal and gifted trainer there, to take a good look at my form, take stock of my weaknesses and give me some fresh direction. He wasn't there… no explanations. When I thought of the coaching aspect of joining, he was the personality that comprised the mental image I had been hoping for. Where was the coaching I was looking for going to come from?
I got some pointers on my deadlift form at one late night WoD, but not the overall assessment I desired. I know, my form is good enough that I don't need basic coaching - but hey, I want to be Forging Elite Fitness, yah?
I wanted to work on my skills: muscle up, rope climb, double under, handstanding/handwalking, snatch - but I realized right off that I'd be working on those - if I was working on those – pre-class. On my own. Because, once the WoD started, it was all about just finding a place to get your bar set up, getting out of everyone else's way and getting going. Rope climb, for instance, was spec'ed into a WoD, but I had to scale out of it because I couldn't do it.
This segues over into the challenge category here. Generally, I didn't trust the WoDs. I don't want to do randomized, arbitrary exercises. I was getting my strength work in doing 531 at lunch, which is good, because the CF strength work was usually a 5x5 or 5x1 of a basic movement … to be repeated at an unnamed future date. Can't build a strength base on that.
In the same breath, I don't want to overwork myself and burn out, or worse, get injured, doing whatever. And the WoDs, while work, were a lot of whatever work. This is one of my beefs with CF in general: Who does the scheduling? Is there ever a plan for gains? There's some strength work (not focused) and a lot of metcon work (asking for burnout). My first session, I stepped back and out of the Cash out because I knew that I'd done enough for the day. If I've learned one thing in the last two years, it's that smaller sessions of high intensity that one can recover from are better than large, less frequent doses of prolonged work. Besides, this is how the Froenigs of the CF world train.
And does anyone ever do individual assessments followed by individual goal setting/cycle prescription? Besides those pros, I mean. There's an entire ground-breaking business venture just in that.
Finally, sometimes I just couldn't go. Being a dad, an employee, a homeowner and a friend, there were lots of evenings and Saturday mornings (hmmm, I didn't make a single Saturday morning) when I had other commitments. I don't want to pay extra for a gym I can only attend when there's a group session. The flip side of the coin is that I can't/don't want to bend my schedule to fit the posted WoD schedule at the box. There was some talk about open gym, but it never happened. I can do a WoD in my backyard in the drive time to the box and back on a Saturday – and that's what I found myself doing on those Saturdays.
Maybe the Helen PR I pulled down during a CF wod was the final red flag. I bested my Helen time by two minutes in the first week at the box - without metconning, and really, without doing the CF schedule. The improvement was because I had built a strength base over the fall, following my own prescription, getting stronger and working on a timed cycle. I was doing really no running. Not a direct relationship to the demands of the Helen WoD, but the conditioning carried over with good result.
Lesson learned: I've learned my lessons. The next step is to assemble my own equipment package so I don't need to go anywhere or pay anyone monthly dues to train. I probably should have prioritized Gym Independence years ago – amortized over a lifetime, I'd have been saving money. But this is more of a quality of training issue than a monetary one, and more of a I'll do better with no one in my way than a convenience one.
After a good year of getting completely back to the basics at an Anytime Fitness with only an open floor and one barbell and a lunch-window timeframe in which to get the job done, to a wide open schedule over the summer doing two-a-days in the box/backyard and on the bike, to a Fall of working through maxes and 531 to build strength in a max-effort mode I've ignored for over two decades, I was always feeling that, while Crossfit was the spark that changed my worldview about training in a revolutionary way, and, after re-thinking nearly all I was doing and implementing nearly all the basic tenets of CF, that I'd not truly experienced what CF has to offer – not having been involved with a box and the community members who call one home.
So imagine my glee when CFBako opened up their new doors literally 200 feet from my workplace. They moved in on a Monday, on Tuesday I hooked them up with a couple housewarming gifts (first aid kit and fire extinguisher) and paid for a few months, to start on the 1st of the new year. A new year with a whole new hope for training renewal.
Coming in, I was feeling that my training was short in a few areas. I'd been wondering if doing synthesized CF solo, or trying to cycle circuit work with the same functional movements at the gyms has been, say, sub-optimal over this last year. I was expecting a boost from:
1. Comaraderie
2. Coaching
3. Challenge
Anyway, I'm going to make a long story short. As I'm trying to lay my mental list down here, I'm amazed at how many ways the CF box didn't work for me. I did not expect this at all. Even after laughing at this, and knowing all this, I would never have predicted that I'd not renew after the first month. But here I am, walking away after the first month, and really, after only attending for 3 weeks.
There was some comaraderie, but not the fellowship I had anticipated. I kinda wished to be in with a group of people who were friendly, humble, in-this-all-together. Friendly in the at least as friendly as me, who might remember my name after I introduced myself to them way. The classes were clogged with mid-20's who wouldn't make eye contact let alone say hi.
Granted, there are a few more mature, friendly people there. But no more than any other gym where the great majority of people are just doing their own thing. It's human nature, I understand. I was hoping for a little less of the same ol' same ol'. I can get that at DoucheXchange for $30 a month.
Now that I'm gone, I'm still wondering if the box ownership will call asking what's up with me and am I going to continue? As of 2 weeks after my membership lapsed, and 2 and a half weeks without doing a WoD, I've not heard anything or gotten a call or text. This isn't a prerequisite for my gym membership, because I've never been to a gym where the people cared if you were there or not (after the box at high school), but wouldn't it be nice?
I had hoped for Steve, the principal and gifted trainer there, to take a good look at my form, take stock of my weaknesses and give me some fresh direction. He wasn't there… no explanations. When I thought of the coaching aspect of joining, he was the personality that comprised the mental image I had been hoping for. Where was the coaching I was looking for going to come from?
I got some pointers on my deadlift form at one late night WoD, but not the overall assessment I desired. I know, my form is good enough that I don't need basic coaching - but hey, I want to be Forging Elite Fitness, yah?
I wanted to work on my skills: muscle up, rope climb, double under, handstanding/handwalking, snatch - but I realized right off that I'd be working on those - if I was working on those – pre-class. On my own. Because, once the WoD started, it was all about just finding a place to get your bar set up, getting out of everyone else's way and getting going. Rope climb, for instance, was spec'ed into a WoD, but I had to scale out of it because I couldn't do it.
This segues over into the challenge category here. Generally, I didn't trust the WoDs. I don't want to do randomized, arbitrary exercises. I was getting my strength work in doing 531 at lunch, which is good, because the CF strength work was usually a 5x5 or 5x1 of a basic movement … to be repeated at an unnamed future date. Can't build a strength base on that.
In the same breath, I don't want to overwork myself and burn out, or worse, get injured, doing whatever. And the WoDs, while work, were a lot of whatever work. This is one of my beefs with CF in general: Who does the scheduling? Is there ever a plan for gains? There's some strength work (not focused) and a lot of metcon work (asking for burnout). My first session, I stepped back and out of the Cash out because I knew that I'd done enough for the day. If I've learned one thing in the last two years, it's that smaller sessions of high intensity that one can recover from are better than large, less frequent doses of prolonged work. Besides, this is how the Froenigs of the CF world train.
And does anyone ever do individual assessments followed by individual goal setting/cycle prescription? Besides those pros, I mean. There's an entire ground-breaking business venture just in that.
Finally, sometimes I just couldn't go. Being a dad, an employee, a homeowner and a friend, there were lots of evenings and Saturday mornings (hmmm, I didn't make a single Saturday morning) when I had other commitments. I don't want to pay extra for a gym I can only attend when there's a group session. The flip side of the coin is that I can't/don't want to bend my schedule to fit the posted WoD schedule at the box. There was some talk about open gym, but it never happened. I can do a WoD in my backyard in the drive time to the box and back on a Saturday – and that's what I found myself doing on those Saturdays.
Maybe the Helen PR I pulled down during a CF wod was the final red flag. I bested my Helen time by two minutes in the first week at the box - without metconning, and really, without doing the CF schedule. The improvement was because I had built a strength base over the fall, following my own prescription, getting stronger and working on a timed cycle. I was doing really no running. Not a direct relationship to the demands of the Helen WoD, but the conditioning carried over with good result.
Lesson learned: I've learned my lessons. The next step is to assemble my own equipment package so I don't need to go anywhere or pay anyone monthly dues to train. I probably should have prioritized Gym Independence years ago – amortized over a lifetime, I'd have been saving money. But this is more of a quality of training issue than a monetary one, and more of a I'll do better with no one in my way than a convenience one.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Enjoyable as Fuck.
One: doesn't look like truth in advertising to me.Two: if it's true, then you don't really need the shirt to tell everyone, right? They should just know.
Three: you're mixing your metaphors. Can't you be Hard as Nails? Nails are hard, aren't they? Hard as Rock. Hard as Steel. Hard as a Rogue Beater Bar.
Or did you just want to use the F-word? If so, shouldn't you be Sticky as Fuck? Intimate as Fuck. Fertile as Fuck.
I'd say Wet as Fuck, but you're not even sweating.
Crossfit, I love you. But when you let stuff like this go without challenging it, I hate you. Allowing wimps to posture makes all of Crossfit look dumb as fuck.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
As Rx'ed.
Prescribed weights are guidelines. Guidelines dependent on several factors. Everyone who attends a CrossFit level 1 hears the mantra: Mechanics, Consistency, Intensity. Poor mechanics are a recipe for bad things. People who cannot have good mechanics in a movement needs to devote time to scaling the load and practicing the movements. Consistent training is the pathway to intensity. Training often enough to make good movement a habit and taking time develop the strength base to handle higher levels of intensity is essential to good training. Intensity is where all the good things come in. Working toward high levels of work capacity decreases body fat, increases lean muscle mass and tend to move health measurements in the right direction. Intensity without mechanics and consistency is like giving a 4 year old loaded gun.
The "right" prescription for each individual. First check your ego at the door. Second, take time to learn how before you blast off. Your ego boost should come from doing it right, then doing it fast.
Enjoy the journey: Being better all the time is the quest. A life long journey of good health and quality of life does not happen in 2 months. It happens from a commitment to being better all the time. Consistently better all the time.
- Doug Chapman
The "right" prescription for each individual. First check your ego at the door. Second, take time to learn how before you blast off. Your ego boost should come from doing it right, then doing it fast.
Enjoy the journey: Being better all the time is the quest. A life long journey of good health and quality of life does not happen in 2 months. It happens from a commitment to being better all the time. Consistently better all the time.
- Doug Chapman
Monday, April 26, 2010
You Might Be a Crossfitter if...
- you know Thrusters aren't as fun as they sound.
- you put bumper plates and kettle bells on your wedding registry.
- it takes you longer to recover from the workout than to do it.
- you can yell "Nice Snatch" in a room full of ladies and not get slapped.
- you jerk for time.
- you workout in a box, not a gym.
- when traveling, you wonder if you can kip on the hotel shower curtain bar.
- someone stares at you with a "you're craaaaaazzzzzyyy" look after you describe your WOD.
- a manicurist turns you away.
- you believe in sweat angels.
- your affinity with other Crossfitters is instant and sincere.
- you refresh your browser every 30 seconds after 9pm.
- you've learned not to say "That looks easy".
- you don't understand why tomorrow's WOD can't be posted at 7:30am.... after you just finished today's at 7:15am.
- you can come home, tell your wife "I did Barbara today!" and she congratulates you.
- you find yourself bragging to people how sore you are.
- you will do 3 on, 1 off come hell or high water.
- you would be pissed if the box closed on Easter, Xmas, New Year's or July 4th.
- you've seriously considered installing handicap bars in your OWN toilet.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
And I Thought My Math Skills Were Weak.
Just when I was beginning to wonder if my perception of the CF business model was faulty, Byers posts this:
Monday, October 5, 2009
Point is, we're still a CrossFit affiliate, but we don't actually have a gym, don't offer any classes, and don't do much actual hands-on coaching and training. What we DO offer is a service that the CrossFit community needs (clearly, based on the volume of emails I've been getting) - help finding the right balance of diet, training, active recovery, sleep, stress management and a whole host of other factors that all add up to optimal health and fitness.
Weird, right? An affiliate without a gym? We're sort of going out on a limb redefining ourselves here. However, two things make me confident that we can carve this niche out for ourselves. First, it's been done before. Jon Gilson built Again Faster around his CrossFit affiliation without owning his own gym or running his own programming. He pulls from the CrossFit community, and gives back in the form of equipment sales, motivational and educational articles and training tutorial videos. He's redefined the place an affiliate holds within the CrossFit community, and we think we can do the same.
Two... there is room for us here. There's a NEED for us here. CrossFit is growing and expanding and changing on a daily basis, and we'd like to push those boundaries and expand the definition of an "affiliate". We won't run you through "Linda", but we'll help you nail down your nutrition and recovery so you stomp that bar heavier and harder than you've ever thought possible. We won't teach you to overhead squat, but we'll give you some ways to reduce inflammation and get those overworked shoulders to open better. We won't customize your Starting Strength program, but we'll share with you why we don't love the concept of a gallon of milk a day. So my assertion is this - while we don' t have an actual gym, what we're doing IS CrossFit, and there is a place for us within the community.
At least, I hope there is.
Do you see the value in this shift in paradigm for us, or do you think without actual coaching and physical training, an affiliate isn't really an affiliate at all?
My take is that the CF affiliate system, where people are paying more for less equipment, group training sessions, and random WoDs, is doomed.
I understand the Globo Gym concept; a thousand people at $29 a month with a $100 sign up. You start with 100,000 bucks and have cash flow of 29,000/month. You have one-time on your equipment, and monthly on rental space, utilities, some small overhead, and the pittance you pay your out-of-shape know-nothing "trainers." Of course, you don't want or expect 10% of your thousand clients to show up - ever. When they do (January 2nd, anyone?) your model takes a dump. But March 2nd, you're owning.
I don't understand how the numbers work on the CF affiliate concept. If your box can handle 10 at a time, and you're running (let's be generous here) 5 cycles a day, your 50 clients who show up every day can pay what? $100 a month? You're running a box on 5k/month. You can pay rent and overhead, but you have to keep your day job.
Because Globo down the street is only asking $29, how can you get 100 bodies through the door at $290 a month to get yourself to a cash flow of 29k/month? Expand your box and get 290 peeps at $100? What would those 290 be getting for their 3x payment that they couldn't get at Globo? Gymnastic rings? Because rings only cost 75 bucks, delivered.
I'm not seeing how the business model works outside of the (a.) metrocomplex where dingleberry attorneys will be willing to pay $300+ for training, or (b.) the garage gym, where the equipment cost is your only cost.
I have an idea, and it's not to offer nutritional counseling, no box, and no classes. I'll let you think about it first though.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Redefining the CrossFit Affiliate
First, the 603 hasn't had a physical training space since August. The space we were "borrowing" in Tilton, NH didn't work out, and Dallas and I frankly weren't in a hurry to look for new space. We both have full-time jobs, and coaching nights and weekends wasn't going to provide us with enough income to actually rent or lease the kind of space we would want to set up. So we put the idea of a box on hold for a month or two, but we continued to program for those that followed our WODs on line. However, without any actual clients (and not offering any classes), spending tons of time and energy on programming for a gym that didn't exist wasn't very fulfilling, and didn't make a lot of sense long term.
Point is, we're still a CrossFit affiliate, but we don't actually have a gym, don't offer any classes, and don't do much actual hands-on coaching and training. What we DO offer is a service that the CrossFit community needs (clearly, based on the volume of emails I've been getting) - help finding the right balance of diet, training, active recovery, sleep, stress management and a whole host of other factors that all add up to optimal health and fitness.
Weird, right? An affiliate without a gym? We're sort of going out on a limb redefining ourselves here. However, two things make me confident that we can carve this niche out for ourselves. First, it's been done before. Jon Gilson built Again Faster around his CrossFit affiliation without owning his own gym or running his own programming. He pulls from the CrossFit community, and gives back in the form of equipment sales, motivational and educational articles and training tutorial videos. He's redefined the place an affiliate holds within the CrossFit community, and we think we can do the same.
Two... there is room for us here. There's a NEED for us here. CrossFit is growing and expanding and changing on a daily basis, and we'd like to push those boundaries and expand the definition of an "affiliate". We won't run you through "Linda", but we'll help you nail down your nutrition and recovery so you stomp that bar heavier and harder than you've ever thought possible. We won't teach you to overhead squat, but we'll give you some ways to reduce inflammation and get those overworked shoulders to open better. We won't customize your Starting Strength program, but we'll share with you why we don't love the concept of a gallon of milk a day. So my assertion is this - while we don' t have an actual gym, what we're doing IS CrossFit, and there is a place for us within the community.
At least, I hope there is.
Do you see the value in this shift in paradigm for us, or do you think without actual coaching and physical training, an affiliate isn't really an affiliate at all?
My take is that the CF affiliate system, where people are paying more for less equipment, group training sessions, and random WoDs, is doomed.
I understand the Globo Gym concept; a thousand people at $29 a month with a $100 sign up. You start with 100,000 bucks and have cash flow of 29,000/month. You have one-time on your equipment, and monthly on rental space, utilities, some small overhead, and the pittance you pay your out-of-shape know-nothing "trainers." Of course, you don't want or expect 10% of your thousand clients to show up - ever. When they do (January 2nd, anyone?) your model takes a dump. But March 2nd, you're owning.
I don't understand how the numbers work on the CF affiliate concept. If your box can handle 10 at a time, and you're running (let's be generous here) 5 cycles a day, your 50 clients who show up every day can pay what? $100 a month? You're running a box on 5k/month. You can pay rent and overhead, but you have to keep your day job.
Because Globo down the street is only asking $29, how can you get 100 bodies through the door at $290 a month to get yourself to a cash flow of 29k/month? Expand your box and get 290 peeps at $100? What would those 290 be getting for their 3x payment that they couldn't get at Globo? Gymnastic rings? Because rings only cost 75 bucks, delivered.
I'm not seeing how the business model works outside of the (a.) metrocomplex where dingleberry attorneys will be willing to pay $300+ for training, or (b.) the garage gym, where the equipment cost is your only cost.
I have an idea, and it's not to offer nutritional counseling, no box, and no classes. I'll let you think about it first though.
Friday, June 12, 2009
GPP & Sport.
"Optimal physical competency is a compromise, a balancing act; a compromise between not only conflicting but perfectly antagonistic skills. The manner in which you resolve this conflict defines the quality of your fitness and is the art of exercise prescription." - Greg Glassman
"Develop the capacity of a novice 800-meter track athlete, gymnast, and weightlifter and you’ll be fitter than any world-class runner, gymnast, or weightlifter." - From CrossFit Journal
The Bottom Line on GPP
There's often a great deal of confusion surrounding general physical preparedness (GPP) in general, and CrossFit's brand of GPP in particular. This post is an attempt to stimulate conversation over what GPP is, and hopefully in the process, clear up any misunderstandings over what we do and how we train our athletes.
When defining a word or concept, it's often useful and highly instructive to discuss what something is not before jumping into what it is.
GPP is not training for a set of skills germane only to a particular sport or physical activity. We'd no sooner adopt the training program of a marathon runner than we would a sumo wrestler (both have relatively narrow, highly specific needs for their sport of choice), assuming GPP is the goal of the training program. GPP is not about putting your eggs in one basket and focusing on a single aspect of training, or a single general physical skill such as endurance, stamina, or strength.
GPP, and specifically CrossFit's brand of GPP, is about, quite simply, increasing an athlete's work capacity across broad time and modal domains (thanks to Coach Glassman for coining this phrase). This means that one can do well in any endeavor, whether it's of long duration, short duration, high power, or low power (although what's the point of being good at low-powered activities - they're so boring!), and whether it involves one's own body, external objects (e.g., barbells, dumbbells, and throwing implements), or any combination of these two modalities.
Problems occur, though, when athletes and coaches try and fuse GPP with sport practice. What happens is that both aspects of training suffer. This type of fusion usually results in ill-conceived concepts such as practicing the swing of a (tennis) forehand while using the cable pulley machine. Not only is the use of the cable pulley a colossal waste of the athlete's time, adding little if anything to his off-court strength-and-conditioning base, the carryover to actually hitting a forehand on the tennis court is nonexistent, and can even cause the tennis player's forehand skill to erode.
(As an aside, the reason the scenario above doesn't work for the tennis player is because swinging a tennis racket weighing between 12- and 14-ounces and swinging a cable pulley, which offers significantly more resistance than a tennis racket, cause different neuro-muscular firing patterns; thus there's no carryover and it can actually be detrimental to the development of a forehand.)
It's far better to keep GPP and sport practice separate. Use the GPP program to allow the athlete to become supremely conditioned and, at the same time, free the athlete up to devote more time to practicing his or her sport.
That is, if you're so horny for one sport that you are willing to allow your GPP for all other walks of life to suffer. I'm not. Not anymore.
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