Training Style Overview - Blend Movement, Powerlifting, Strength, Muscle
Game Time Strength (GTS) | Barbell Training & Coaching | El Segundo | Los Angeles |
Video Transcript...
Been having a lot of discussions with people interested in our program lately. So for those of you interested in our program or currently in our program and want to understand more of the background, I figured I’d make a few videos discussing a bit more about our Training System…
First, our program is rooted in the big powerlifting movements like squat, bench, deadlift...
We also layer in some bodybuilding style movements and programming because while its awesome to be strong, we’d also like to look strong.
So while powerlifting only addresses 3 big lifts (squat, bench, deadlift)… Our program aims add a little more balance to your training. So we teach a few more exercises and program in multiple squatting, lunging, deadlifting, pressing and rowing patterns.
To get strong, you need to create a situation where you can progressively overload… so for example add more weight, more reps, more sets, reduced rest, etc…
To make sure we are always progressing, we track everything meticulously, and teach you to track everything!
We use tools like barbells, dumbbells and kettlebells mainly because it’s easy to objectively measure improvement… and it’s stuff you can access pretty much anywhere. We don’t want you to be dependent on a particular machine, environment, classes, or a trainer...
If we do our jobs right you should be able to do your training program from anywhere you can access barbells and dumbbells.
While our program is rooted in powerlifting movements, our goal is NOT necessarily to make you into a powerlifter. We want to get you strong but don’t want to add weight on the bar for the sake of adding weight on the bar.
Our goal is to build quality movement patterns and set some form standards first. Then strengthen those movement patterns over time.
This is for 2 reasons...
1. To minimize the risk of injury and prevent any gaps of time in your training
2. Its way easier to get stronger when you aren’t wasting energy in ugly, inefficient patterns.
I loved this analogy from Gray Cook… “Adding load to a movement pattern is like clicking the save button on a document.” It’s entirely possible to get really strong in poor movement patterns. We’ve all seen the guy whose spine looks like its going to snap in half but “Hey, he’s strong right?!?!”.
So form first, then add load. If the load creates a situation where the form gets compromised, your coaching staff is here to keep you in check and adjust the program or the technique accordingly.
From an efficiency standpoint, it’s really easy to get strong if you’re throwing down a ton of calories… Mass moves mass. Adding body weight to your frame or getting fatter can improve strength. But our goal is to be strong relative to our body weight, so we encourage you to stay relatively lean. There might be periods of time where you’re slowly putting on muscle and we can set a tolerance level on fat gain... and other times where you’re slowly trimming off the fat while maintaining your strength.
So long story short, when you’re consistently training, working in efficient movement patterns and you progressively overload those patterns… magically you’ll get strong! At which point you’ll have the option of competing or testing your strength in a powerlifting competition.
If you made it this far, thanks for watching/reading. In future videos I plan to talk some more about some of the nuances of our programming strategies, nutrition, exercise selection, etc.
If this was helpful, let me know in the comments. This year I’m hoping to create more useful material for you!
See you in the gym!
- Coach J
