GPP During High Volume Program?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

I started the Russian Bear program today. It is rather high volume.

My goal as some may remember is primarily strength, with a secondary goal of gradual fat loss.

I know that doing some work on my off days would help with recovery and might assist in dropping a few pounds. I don’t want to push myself into overtraining, especially since I am just bouncing back from some adrenal problems and am eating low carbs. I am not a big cardio fan and am concerned it might do more harm than good right now. I do plan to do cardio in the future when I focus more on fat loss.

For now I was thinking of doing some GPP on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and maybe Saturdays). I could do some kind of strongman movements, walk around carrying a barbell (on my back, overhead, in front of my chest), or maybe even drag a sled.

Does this sound like a good idea? Is it going to aid my progress, or is it going to be too much training?

2

[quote]Moon Knight wrote:
I started the Russian Bear program today. It is rather high volume.

My goal as some may remember is primarily strength, with a secondary goal of gradual fat loss.

I know that doing some work on my off days would help with recovery and might assist in dropping a few pounds. I don’t want to push myself into overtraining, especially since I am just bouncing back from some adrenal problems and am eating low carbs. I am not a big cardio fan and am concerned it might do more harm than good right now. I do plan to do cardio in the future when I focus more on fat loss.

For now I was thinking of doing some GPP on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and maybe Saturdays). I could do some kind of strongman movements, walk around carrying a barbell (on my back, overhead, in front of my chest), or maybe even drag a sled.

Does this sound like a good idea? Is it going to aid my progress, or is it going to be too much training?[/quote]

As long as you don’t work out twice on a single day and keep the weights low enough on your GPP days you should be fine.

But as soon as you stop progressing with your lifting program and/or feel exhausted/unmotivated, you might want to allow for a complete recovery on off days.

3

[quote]Moon Knight wrote:
Does this sound like a good idea? Is it going to aid my progress, or is it going to be too much training?[/quote]

How many days each week are you weight training?

I’d definitely start of on the low end, knowing you’re already doing a high volume of strength training. 20 minutes, two days a week, and try to do different activities each day. One day with all sorts of barbell carries, another day of various sled dragging, would be a great start.

The key with GPP is to not let it fatigue you, and keep it diverse. It should be “just some light, ‘fun’ exercise”, not a gut-buster.

4

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
Moon Knight wrote:
Does this sound like a good idea? Is it going to aid my progress, or is it going to be too much training?

How many days each week are you weight training?

I’d definitely start of on the low end, knowing you’re already doing a high volume of strength training. 20 minutes, two days a week, and try to do different activities each day. One day with all sorts of barbell carries, another day of various sled dragging, would be a great start.

The key with GPP is to not let it fatigue you, and keep it diverse. It should be “just some light, ‘fun’ exercise”, not a gut-buster.[/quote]

I am lifting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Each day has three compound lifts. Each compound lift has one set of something slightly below your 5 rep max, one set at 90% of that weight, and as many sets as can be done with good form at 80% of the initial number. Depending on the exercise I have gotten anywhere from 3-8 sets at 80% of the initial weight. It takes me a little over an hour to complete the workouts.

Yesterday I went outside and just kind of did what felt fun and what I thought would hit the muscles I had used the day before in a way that was not too offensive to them. I have a large yard (more like a field) in the back so I made a lap carrying a barbell overhead, then made a lap doing dumbbell farmers walks, and then started a lap doing bodyweight walking lunges (only got halfway).

I walked around a little while normally and then repeated the circuit. Afterwords I did some explosive dumbbell pulls (sorry don’t know what to call them, something I saw in a John Davies article, bend down, pull the dumbbell up, let go, catch with the other hand and repeat), did a few sets of with my Captain of Crush gripper, a few sets with the Iron Mind finger expansion bands, and then did some vacuum holds.

I can’t really tell yet if that affected me today or not since I had a really bad night sleeping last night and then had to be up unusually early this morning for work. Those things obviously contributed to today’s workout being kind of flat.

5

can u post the russian bear program ?

6

[quote]dyskee wrote:
can u post the russian bear program ?[/quote]

http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=543803

That is Mike Mahler’s article on “Customized Volume Training”. He discusses how to customize two high volume programs (German Volume Training, and the Russian Bear) to specific training goals and muscle fiber types.

That is what I am working from since I do not have Pavel’s book which outlines the standard program. My understanding though is that Mike Mahler just made changes to the rep schemes.

Since I believe myself to be fast-twitch dominant (or at least an even mix of the two types) and because I am mainly focusing on strength I chose to stick with the 5 rep per set plan which I believe is the original rep scheme.

7

[quote]Moon Knight wrote:
Yesterday I went outside and just kind of did what felt fun and what I thought would hit the muscles I had used the day before in a way that was not too offensive to them. I have a large yard (more like a field) in the back so I made a lap carrying a barbell overhead, then made a lap doing dumbbell farmers walks, and then started a lap doing bodyweight walking lunges (only got halfway).
[/quote]

Sounds like a plan. If you do start to feel run down (not counting funky sleeping patterns), you could try separating the workouts a little more, on Tuesdays and Saturdays instead of Tuesday/Thursday.

And since the primary concern (right now) is improving recovery, once you’ve settled into a routine with it, I’d progress by adding a third day while keeping the workouts shorter, rather than doing more each workout.

8

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:
Moon Knight wrote:
Yesterday I went outside and just kind of did what felt fun and what I thought would hit the muscles I had used the day before in a way that was not too offensive to them.

I have a large yard (more like a field) in the back so I made a lap carrying a barbell overhead, then made a lap doing dumbbell farmers walks, and then started a lap doing bodyweight walking lunges (only got halfway).

Sounds like a plan. If you do start to feel run down (not counting funky sleeping patterns), you could try separating the workouts a little more, on Tuesdays and Saturdays instead of Tuesday/Thursday.

And since the primary concern (right now) is improving recovery, once you’ve settled into a routine with it, I’d progress by adding a third day while keeping the workouts shorter, rather than doing more each workout.[/quote]

Thank you for the advice, I am sure it will help my progress nicely.

9

Mahler gives a good interpretation of the plan but omits Pavel’s recommendation that you continue the 80% sets until you cannot peform 1-2 reps without going to failure. ie your sets might look like this 5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,4,4,3,3,2,2,2,2,2,1. Pavel says it’s fine to take 20 sets to get to down to one rep.

If you do this you will burn some fat, and up your work capacity a lot so no need for gpp.