Test it in Real Life

Some people strength train for aesthetic purposes only, if that’s you, that’s cool.

I usually tell my students that, although they will see such results when taking on kettlebells, unconventional tools and progressive calisthenics, the best thing they will get is general physical preparation or “GPP”.

GPP is a direct improvement in life and sports. It will allow you to try things and get good fast, prevent injuries in the general events of life and in your sports activities. 

Once my students have developed good performance in our practice and start seeing the carryover effects, I highly encourage them to engage in leisure sports activities. There are many benefits to doing this:

• Get more metrics on performance: “can I run faster?” “Do I have more power?” “How is my cardio holding up?” 

• Find goals to pursue in the weight room

• Have fun and give yourself a real life test to your strength training

Sports are a reality check to what you are doing. You can test-proof how functional what you are doing is by doing sports. For example: I can directly see an improvement in my kickboxing performance when I do lots of swings and snatches. At the same time, bodyweight work improves my capacity to absorb body shots, but requires that I supplement it with swings, skip rope, or hit the heavy bag more for conditioning.

Aside from that it’s highly motivating to see results in movement, resilience to injury and the fact that the work you do in the field, the ring or the court feeds back into your performance in the weight room if you program it the right way.

Movement is joy, find the right balance, have fun and do it for long.

If you like that approach, drop me a line and join our groups or get coaching tailored to you.