GPP: Universally Imperative

Ok, it’s call and response time, people. What determines the height of a pyramid? Everyone together, now:

“The width of its base!”

For imagery’s sake, human performance is often represented as a pyramid with general concepts like flexibility, strength, and agility at the bottom and increasingly more specific capacities towards the top. A pitcher’s ability to throw a curve ball, for example, would sit near the very top since things like flexibility, strength, and agility support it, but not the other way around. It’s with this metaphor that we can see the importance of foundational capacity or, in this case, a broad base. Here lies the case for general physical preparedness (GPP) training.

What we know about performance is that specific training goals don’t negate the relevance of broad, general capacities. Said differently, general physical preparedness isn’t just for general people with general goals. Even an Olympic discus thrower whose sport demands mastery of only one energy system and prioritizes strength, speed, and power above other skills can only achieve peak specific performance for her sport if there is a broad enough base to support it. For example, while discus competition itself doesn’t measure endurance capacity or even stamina, an athlete who has greater endurance and stamina can train harder, recover faster, and accumulate more training work. Similar implications can be made for flexibility and competency in other movement patterns than the rotational demands of throwing.

There’s not a man, woman, or child on Earth that doesn’t have to answer to his/her level of general physical preparedness. While this ought not divert your training goals, it should empower your view of GPP training and GPP capacity.

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach