Summer GPP Training and General Workout Ideas

Summertime for many track and field athletes means sitting by the beach, getting a summer job, and playing Xbox in their parent’s basement.  All this relative laziness is a nice chance to reset physically and psychologically from the past season… at least for a while.  After a month or so of what is known as the “active recovery” period (which shouldn’t just be sitting around, but be characterized by things like hiking, golfing, team sports, and other relaxing activities), it is time to start punching the training clock again and getting into GPP training.

Summer: The ultimate season for recovery and regeneration

What we do for summer training really depends on what we consider our periodization worldview to be. Some think that this means going back to aerobic training for a while, and for others, this means cross-training and playing other sports.  Some athletes tend to enjoy getting back into the weight room and going hard right off the bat.  Some of these training schemes will work in a way but may inhibit the long-term development of the athlete in the upcoming season.

It is important to realize what the best approach to summer training is.

General Physical Preparation

When athletes get back into the swing of training after ending their competitive season, they will typically start up again with what is known as “general” training methods.  This training is often low-intensity, not very specific, and is often “harder” in terms of heavy breathing and burning legs. It is called “General Physical Preparation” or “GPP”.  It serves three purposes:

1. Prepare the athlete for more difficult and specific training means
2. Allows the athlete to recover on multiple levels from the prior season
3. Builds up work capacity to allow the athlete to handle greater amounts of specific training

First of all, most advanced athletes do not need the amount of GPP training that they are normally subjected to.  Beginners will need a bit longer general phase, perhaps up to 8 weeks or longer, but elite athletes may require only 3 weeks of this type of training each year.  Often times many traces of the GPP training end up being lost by the time an athlete hits the competitive period, and since its primary use is recovery and preparation for the next level of training, it doesn’t make sense to use it for too long.  Despite this fact, for most college athletes, the summer is the GPP training….  despite its length,  so it is nice to figure out the best means of using this time period.

Making the Most of GPP Training

College/professional track and field is a long season, and the question of what to do in the summer months is not quite as important as what to do in the fall but is still important to consider when putting together a training program.  Rather than writing a thesis on exactly how to train athletes in the summer, I’ll summarize my thoughts on how to make the most of the summer training months with a series of bullet points.

(These points can also work for the immediate off-season of any other sport, such as basketball, which is then the spring, rather than summer)

• Think of your summer training as a “base” for your fall training, but remember that the “aerobic” base for speed-power athletes is fairly worthless (zero carryover to speed/power).
• Fall training for sprinters and jumpers will typically involve a preparation period of a couple of months, and then specific strength training, speed training, and plyometric work. Summer training should follow a “same, but different” principle.
• Look to build strength via “alternative methods” in the summer, as this will make your fall strength training will be more effective. Alternative methods would include gymnastic work, kettlebells, and bodyweight strength training. When you hit the fall strength phase, your body will be much more ready to adapt than if you had been doing traditional strength work previously.
• Creatively designed circuits will help keep your workouts fresh. Pick 10-12 exercises covering the upper and lower body, and core, and perform 8-12 reps of each with no rest between sets. You can also add running between each exercise for an added challenge, just make sure you haven’t eaten recently.
• “Scramble Circuits” are strength/aerobic combination circuits that involve light jogging mixed with calisthenics. These don’t have to be done in a set area either and have a multitude of options. The gist of this type of work is jogging for 10-30 seconds, and then performing a bodyweight exercise, such as pushups. After you complete your set of pushups, get up, start running again, and do a set of pullups on a tree branch. Run for 20 seconds to the base of a hill and do lunges up the hill. This is as aerobic as I get in my GPP work 1: I don’t like doing straight-distance running and 2: I have workout ADD (and probably real-life ADD as well) and enjoy mixing things up and changing pace.
• You can perform traditional lifts as well in your off-season, but you will be served best by keeping the weights lower to let your nervous system recharge and get ready for the fall.
• “Litinov” circuits are an awesome GPP challenge. They involve performing any of these exercises (squat, clean, snatch, deadlift) followed by a long sprint of 200-400+ meters. For example, perform 10 front squats with 70% 1RM, put the bar down, and immediately sprint 300 meters. Rest for 3 minutes and perform again. Rest for 3 more minutes and do a last set. Yes, this is hard, no it won’t sap away your explosiveness.
• Perform combinations of popular big lifts such as “The Bear”, or “British Circuits”. The bear involves a clean, a front squat, a split jerk, a back squat, and a back jerk all performed in sequence with no rest. “The Bear” is usually performed for 2-4 reps (really 10-20 reps). The British Circuit includes the following: 10 cleans, rest 10 seconds, 10 back squats, rest 10 seconds, 10 snatches, rest 10 seconds, and finally 10 front squats. You can also tack on pull-ups or a core exercise to the end if you wish to get your upper body in on the pain
• Hill training, hill training, and more hill training. Preferably on the grass. Hills are a good blend of speed and power emphasizing the posterior chain, and teach the basic mechanics of acceleration. They also have little eccentric stress (unless you are sprinting down the hill). –  The summer is a time to focus hard on correctives. If you have anterior pelvic tilt, weak glutes, overpronation, immobile hips, or a host of other movement issues, you can and should be working hard to assess and correct these so that your fall training is more mechanically sound. It is nearly impossible to tell a runner or jumper to change their movement technique without plenty of strength and corrective work leading up to it. Take advantage of correcting your weaknesses in your summer GPP workouts.
• Have fun! The summer is a time to de-stress and recharge your batteries for the next season. The summer is no time to fret or worry that you aren’t squatting enough weight or that your standing long jump is weak. Put the volume in and let that do the work for you.

I’ll finish this article with a summary of the best summer of GPP training that I ever had.  It was so good, my fall training piggybacked wonderfully off of it, and I was soon hitting both weight room and jumping PRs that I didn’t think I was capable of in previous years.  It was the summer of 2009, and I was 25 years old.  I had the summer off of work, so I put in time as a mover.  This job alone was 8-10 hours a day of fairly constant work, which included running boxes upstairs and moving heavy dressers.  When work was one, I would come home and eat, and rest for a few hours.  Around 9 pm I would alternate upper and lower body strength training.  For the upper body days, I worked out on a set of parallel bars at the local park for about 20-30 minutes.  For the lower body days, I would do either: “the bear”, “British circuit”, or a Litinov with front squats and a 300m run.  I also did some occasional runs up a local hill that was 100m long, typically on the weekends or my non-work days.

Training periodization simplified is a series of buildups to intense work and then “strategic retreats” from that peak through lower intensity training/general means of training the body.  Athletes who constantly keep pushing without ever backing off are going to be asking for an injury sooner or later, not to mention a breakdown in technique.  Summer training is largely a big back-off and buildup for many athletes to prepare for the more intense upcoming training. Training GPP methods can and should also be used around the competitive season, such as the transition from indoor to outdoor to allow recovery.  I have seen many athletes outdoor seasons sidelined because they never backed down after the indoor haul.

This article should give you a few ideas on how to arrange your GPP training.

Good luck and happy training!

Joel