Sport Specific Training or GPP?
What is General Physical Preparation (GPP)?
GPP is the foundation of athletic performance. It builds broad, well-rounded fitness through activities that develop strength, endurance, mobility, coordination, and resilience.
GPP is essentially giving you a better foundation to work off of in your respective sport. If you have maximized your ability to work through larger ranges motion, you’re strong, you’re fast, your endurance is built up, you’ve created the best possible attributes to compete in your sport.
What is Sport-Specific Training?
Sport-specific training is the concept of breaking down movements in your sport into component parts in order to be able to train them in the gym. One example might be a golf or tennis athlete getting stronger by doing lots of cable rotation work in the gym. These athletes require a lot of rotation for their sport, so we should train that to maximize how effective the athlete is at rotating.
Although good in theory, and actually a staple in my own programming for the better part of the last decade, the science has proven that GPP is probably a better training methodology for athletes.
Why is GPP Better than Sport-Specific Training for Athletes?
We’ve found that generally, athletes should be developing the tools and capacity to move better and produce more force in their off seasons. By no means should we eliminate sport-specific training all together. But the idea is that too much specificity leads to a diluted product on both ends. Rather than maximizing your physical potential and skill potential, you are getting a watered down version of both.
Instead, work on developing and maximizing as many qualities as possible and necessary for your sport. Work on enhancing speed, strength, power, endurance, mobility etc. The best way to build strength is through heavy lifting, speed through plyometrics and fast movements, endurance through aerobic conditioning, mobility through deep range motion training. A heavier cable column rotation is far less effective at producing force in a tennis stroke or a golf swing than heavy deadlifts or squats despite it being a little more sport-specific. We just don’t see it translate as well to performance.
The Bottom Line
Both GPP and sport-specific training can produce positive outcomes. But ultimately, modern approaches and science tell us to favor GPP for athletes. Train the basics very well in the off-season and then use the qualities to ultimately enhance the skill in season. A sport coach will have much better results with their athletes who come to them faster, stronger, more mobile, with a better gas tank etc. They can utilize these qualities to then coach the skills and ultimately make them better for their sport. Let the coaches help them to perfect the skill, it is our job as trainers to build their base as strong as possible.
