Want results that stand the test of time? You need to think of your training phases as building a pyramid, not hastily stacking together a tower. General Physical Preparedness (GPP) allows you to build a strong, sturdy base before moving on to sport-specific training (or special physical preparedness, SPP) to peak out your physical capabilities. Let’s take a trip around the world and learn why a pyramid of physical prowess trumps a tower every time.
Image Description: images of the Great Pyramid at Giza, comparing what it would look like back then compared to now.
Egypt, around 2560 B.C.E. The Great Pyramid of Giza has just been completed. Taking years and years of dedicated labor from tens of thousands, this monument and tomb of the pharaoh Khufu still stands, albeit with some wear and tear. Though it used to have a gold cap and more elegant, glimmering outer blocks which have carted off through the millenia, the general structure remains, dwarfing its fellow pyramids. It is irrefutable that this wonder of the ancient world has stood the test of time and left people from Cleopatra to Napoleon in awe.
By the way, did you know that recent finding show that the work crews who built the pyramid likely weren’t slaves but employed workers who ate a higher than average protein-rich diet to recover from their intensive jobs? Maybe you should add an extra chicken breast into your day…
Now let’s travel forward in time…
Italy, 1372. The Tower of Pisa was completed. I know you’re thinking, “Hey, you missed a word!”, and it’s because you know how this story goes. The tower’s faulty base led to it slowly tilting further and further until it required quite the name change. The Leaning Tower of Pisa has required near constant maintenance and repair for centuries to keep it from leaning even worse and eventually collapsing entirely. And maybe you’re thinking that it isn’t such a big deal that it leans a little bit, at least it didn’t take as much material or time! You’d be wrong. I’ve walked up and stood on the balcony and it is beyond easy to comprehend just how precarious the structure is…
So here’s this tower, world-famous for being flawed and in need of repair, while the pyramid is thousands of years older and known for its enduring greatness…
Image description: the Leaning Tower of Pisa exhibiting its dramatic tilt.
Towers tumble, just ask the one of Babel or any one you made over three blocks high growing up. Pyramids will only crumble. Want tedious, unsteady results? Skip the basics, get specific straight away and build straight up. Want resilient, great results? Build a base before building up.
Now, let’s think about how building your best pyramid can transform your gym progress and take your game to new heights.
Here’s your recipe to build the greatest pyramid / physical being possible. You’ll need:
A wide base
A lot of building blocks
A plan that always aims toward your goals
An expert architect to help you with that plan
THE BASE
You need to build a general base of movement competency. Push and pull horizontally and vertically, hip hinge, squat, jump, throw, twist, bound, hang, move in every plane there is. Work in many energy systems as well by sprinting for short durations, doing cardio for long durations and mixing in every time or mode in between. Get GOOD at doing many things so you can then use the combined benefits of all of them to then get GREAT at fewer things.
This applies easily to learning to squat, bench and deadlift before adding lots of weight. It also applies more complexly to sports, let’s take basketball for example. Basketball requires being fast and explosive play after play but also miles of running. If you don’t have a good aerobic base, you won’t be able to do the running back and forth between plays and burn out within just a few plays. If you are beyond exhausted and have slowed down, you are stagnant on offense and getting blown by on defense. A general aerobic base mixed with repeated sprints is the base you need to then maximize the rest of your skills like shooting and fancy ball-handling.
THE BUILDING BLOCKS
The giant blocks adding up to your ultimate pyramid are each workout you do. The higher-quality the workout, not under or overdoing it, the more solid the block. And of course, nutrition contributes heavily to the quality of your body’s building materials but that’s a whole other article…
Stack those quality workouts day after day to broaden your base then build toward your next big goal.
THE BLUEPRINT
It also takes a detailed plan to build your pyramid. “Fail to plan, plan to fail” as legendary strength coach Louie Simmons said. A good base-building phase with a slow taper upwards toward your peak lets you build the highest quality plan possible. When thinking about your taper towards your ultimate peak, it is important to think about how well things transfer to your ultimate goal. An example is getting ready for a powerlifting meet by doing a phase of 5 rep sets followed by another of 3 rep sets then ramping up to your maximal singles on the platform.
THE ARCHITECT
You can do a lot of reading and research learning how to build your training program but it can be beyond helpful to hire a highly-qualifed strength and conditioning coach. This coach will act as the architect of your program, telling you when and how to set a foundation then build upwards at the right time to maximize your potential. A good coach will be able to alter the program appropriately as you go or be the voice of reason keeping you on track.
Now some may point out success stories of people who specialized in one sport early on and had great success, your Tiger Woods’s, your Michael Phelps’s, etc. However, those outliers are few and far between and few point out how all those elite athletes had intensive strength and conditioning programs. Here are just a few examples of athletes building a broader base that paid off in greater success:
Michael Jordan (heard of him?) hiring Tim Grover to start lifting to increase his durability, leading to him finally defeating the Detroit Pistons and winning six NBA championships.
Patrick Mahomes pitching at through high school, adding to his arm talent and versatile ways of throwing a football. He is about to aim for the first three-peat in NFL history.
Ilya Ilyin, one of the greatest weightlifters of all-time, often talks of doing any and every exercise possible at the gym his first years before slowly whittling down his exercise arsenal to peak for greatness in weightlifting. He also loved to row in the off-season!
So again, want to reliably reach higher and higher heights? Use your off-seasons to build a better base and repeatedly find higher and higher peaks. I’m excited to hear just how much you accomplish!
Resources:
Comments