The Program
BGI’s strength and conditioning program was developed over the course of several years. We are evolving with the best interest of the client in mind. We do not believe in “one size fits all” fitness. We currently offer dual programs known in our gym as “GPP” and “Specialized”, and within each program, we strive to provide specificity for each client’s needs and abilities. This is part of our constant effort to provide each client with a program that offers the greatest opportunity for success.
The “GPP” Program
Our “GPP” program has been heavily influenced by the Russian Conjugate Sequence System (CSS) model. The CSS is not a new concept. In fact, it was originally developed in the former Soviet Union over thirty years ago. More recently, CrossFit has put it’s own spin on this model and taken it mainstream. The revival of "GPP" by CrossFit has gotten thousands of people, worldwide, excited about exercise.
The Russian CSS was a potent physical education program that was designed to create a superior state of general physical preparation, or “GPP”. The program was administered to pre-adolescent athletes. As the young athletes developed, and began to display desire and sport specific skill development, those athletes were placed into sport specific, or specialized, training programs. The end result was the Russian Olympic dominance of the 80’s.
Although this program was originally designed for implementation during pre-adolescence, it is a great fit with adults at a beginner to intermediate level of fitness. When administered responsibly, the “GPP” program can provide a balanced general fitness, helping you to greatly improve cardio-respiratory endurance, make modest strength improvements, and dramatically decrease body fat. BGI’s program has been honed through years of trial and error. We’ve worked with thousands of people from all walks of life. This system has allowed us to offer a cost effective way to help everyone reach individual fitness goals.
A CSS “is simply the parallel training of several means or motor abilities, such as
strength, speed, and endurance, over the same period, with the intention of
producing multi-faceted development of physical fitness.”
What if I’m a runner or sport specific athlete?
Great…you’re actually who we originally developed our system for!! Ages and ability levels vary, and the program adjusts accordingly, but from the ages of 13-67 (current BGI age range), all of our clients are athletes, and we train them as such.
Teaching and exposing clients to new methods of safe and functional athletic movement is the essence of our program. The key to any athlete’s success is their ability to reach a competent level of general fitness before moving to the next level or training for competition. That’s where our “GPP” program comes in. Athletic development is built on a solid general fitness foundation. This base should address flexibility, strength, endurance, power, etc. Once you’ve established the solid physical and neurological foundations needed to excel at your sport, we introduce a specialized program. It’s important for the specialist to understand “fitness” in broad terms outside their chosen sport. Highly specialized training will often lead to performance regressions, muscle imbalance, and injury. A balanced approach to training should be embraced. Most of the sport specific athletes we work with in our gym have hit an impasse in their training or have become injured training on their own. In these instances, implementation of a well-programmed (NOT randomly selected) GPP program can significantly help the specialist.
“A well-rounded training curriculum will negate the effect of early specialization
and elevates an athletes overall adaptation level.” T.Myslinski
If CSS/GPP training was developed for children, why would adults train this way?
The exclusive goal of Soviet CSS was to expose young athletes to a wide variety of physical fitness skills, thus stimulating a healthy development and increasing their functional capacities, motor abilities, and knowledge base. (2) This approach is not only applicable, but it is desperately needed in this country’s adult population. In fact, most inactive adults are similar to children in their neurophysiology due to a severe lack of training and activity. Children often play multiple sports, frolic, run, jump, throw and climb on a regular basis. These movements keep them fit. Our program gives preference to these elementary movements that provide low neurological resistance, but serve a foundational role. Now, ask yourself, ”When was the last time I’ve done an extensive range of calisthenics, exercises from different sports, and played children’s games?” It’s probably been quite some time. It may sound simple, but these strategies work on many levels. It’s important for adults to keep in mind that the readiness to learn is unique to each individual and individuals are always in a state of readiness to learn something at any point during their lifespan. (3)
A “Specialized” Program
Again, we do not believe in a “one size fits all” fitness protocol. And although our “GPP” program will provide great benefits for men and women of all ages, experience, and abilities, and provide a general fitness result that will satisfy the majority of clients, it does have it’s limitations for those looking to take it to another level. Whether you are a competitive athlete on the high school or college level, or a weekend warrior looking for an edge, the time will come for a more specialized program.
Over the past several years, we have made these key observations. First, after the first year of participation in the “GPP” program, many start to plateau. Second, men tend to hit these peaks before women. And third, the more frequent the training schedule, the quicker you will level off.
What is the main reason for this inability to make gains after a given amount of exposure? Greg Everett of Catalyst Athletics puts it best:
“If an individual is untrained enough, I can improve his deadlift (strength) with nothing more than vigorous nose-picking. The point is, what works for beginners (which is anything at all) doesn’t work for more advanced athletes. The more advanced an athlete is, the closer he or she is to his ultimate capacity, and the more necessary legitimate planning becomes. Again, for demonstration of this, look to athletic specialists.”
Our “Specialized” program utilizes periodization (follow this link for a PG-13 explanation by Everett) to assist intermediate to advanced clients in the continued pursuit of greater athletic capacity.
Our training program is split into periods, each typically running 4-8 weeks. A primary goal is set for each period. For example, we focus on strength for 4 weeks. During the 4 weeks, the primary goal will be to increase strength, however, we will also set secondary goals to allow us to maintain gains previously made in other areas. If we do not maintain previous gains in areas such as endurance, power, flexibility, etc., our periodization efforts will be fruitless. We utilize a version of our “GPP” program to pursue secondary goals, however, it is very important to program carefully in an effort to never allow the secondary goals to interfere with the primary goal. When our 4 weeks of strength is completed, we redirect our focus to another area of competency while we strive to maintain newly found strength gains…and the cycle continues.
I’m not an athlete and I’m just trying to lose weight…will this system work for me?
First, you are an athlete. Second, this program will absolutely help you lose weight! In fact you will most likely experience the most profound change of any of our clients. Our system works because of its simplicity, not it’s complexity. In contemporary society most adults have lost their passion for sport, fun and activity. Working out has become synonymous with slogging away on a treadmill or using machines at the local globo-gym. In our gym you’ll see none of that! We embrace variety in our movements and programming in order to create a fun and challenging workout. We have hundreds of clients who have lost an incredible amount of weight while participating in our program. Need proof…just check out the testimonials.
Siff, M.C. and Verkhoshansky, Y.V. (1999). Supertraining. (4th ed.).
Denver, CO. (pp. 289-290).
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