Circuit Training with GB

[Jay Guindon]

So I have a question regarding doing a circuit style training with GB. Right now I am doing a 12-10-8-6 pyramid style as outlined in BtGB for athletes that have a hard time with hypertrophy. Coach Sommer also mentions in BtGB to pair legs with core and push wih pull and rather than wait between sets, to alternate exercises and keep going. I.e 12 straddle vups, 12 squat, 10 vups, 10 jumps squat and on down the line without rest. This seems to me like circuit style training and I have noticed when I keep moving like this I not only finish way faster which is a good thing, but my heart rate also goes up a bit giving me a decent cardio workout at the same time. The other day I tried this but added a short sprint at the start then did upper body push and pull without rest, did another sprint, then went right into legs and core without rest and then did a final sprint at the end. It was a heck of a workout and reminded me of my CrossFit days, but was more fun because the run wasn't long and awful and bodyweight stuff is more fun too. The only question I had is to whether or not this is a wise approach or if it may hinder my strength development adding too high of a heart rate in what is supposed to be strength?

[Joshua Naterman]

Heart rate has almost nothing to do with whether you will gain strength, that's all about how intense your sets are! Not tiring, but intense! Now, with TRUE maximal efforts there is a massive spike in heart rates and there's nothing wrong with that, so getting the heart used to beating faster would just be conditioning it for the strain of true maximal efforts!

If you are looking for strength, you'll need a few minutes of rest in-between rounds. Otherwise you won't regenerate the ATP and CP you'll need for your high threshold fibers to do their best!

Are you getting the results you are looking for?

[Jay Guindon]

i dunno yet. i just started it in an effort to compress my workout time and get some "cardio" at the same time.

[Brendan Coad]

i dunno yet. i just started it in an effort to compress my workout time and get some "cardio" at the same time.

I did the same thing. I did it with the idea to help me build work capacity. I took a workout that I would do in 1.55 hours in 3 giant circuits and worked it till I was able to do the workout in less than an hour. I've only done that once so far but I feel like it produced some good results.

[Joshua Naterman]

Many times it helps to cycle between focusing on work capacity and focusing on strength. Ido's talked about this a lot.

I was just pointing out that if your primary goal is maximal strength development you'll need rests in between the giant sets. If you're more concerned about cardiac output or work capacity then you're better off slowly cutting down the rest times until you simply don't need as much. That usually helps people get through sticking points! The body doesn't grow stronger very quickly when you keep doing the same thing over and over to it! Switching it up while still maintaining a focus on the athletic qualities you are looking for is the key to long-term success. That's what makes the WODS so incredibly efficient.

[Brendan Coad]

Many times it helps to cycle between focusing on work capacity and focusing on strength. Ido's talked about this a lot.

I was just pointing out that if your primary goal is maximal strength development you'll need rests in between the giant sets. If you're more concerned about cardiac output or work capacity then you're better off slowly cutting down the rest times until you simply don't need as much. That usually helps people get through sticking points! The body doesn't grow stronger very quickly when you keep doing the same thing over and over to it! Switching it up while still maintaining a focus on the athletic qualities you are looking for is the key to long-term success. That's what makes the WODS so incredibly efficient.

I've finally decided to give in and leave my programming to scaled WOD's. I was fighting it for a while and I don't know why. I can see how it is a combination of all the things I have been trying to incorporate.

[Jay Guindon]

Another question that occurred to me after reading Slizzardmans post...In BtGB Coach says to pair exercises and then rotate through them rather than resting between sets. He suggests pairing an upper body press with a pull and core with legs. Does this mean doing 3 press, and immediately going into 3 pull, then 3 press, then 3 pull, etc. leaves too little rest for the arms since your basically doing back to back arms for 6 total sets?

[Joshua Naterman]

You'd be doing back to back, yes. Obviously, you may need 20-30s between the pairs, or 5 minutes broken up between the three pairs. It depends on your conditioning and what you are going for! If you're doing the exercises right, then it won't be too bad. Don't get me wrong, it will be extremely challenging, but your arms won't fall off from 4 reps of PPP, 4 reps bulgarian row, 20s(optional), 4 reps HeSPU, 4 reps L-pull up, 20-30s(optional), 4 reps XR dips, 4 reps inverted curl, 2-3 min rest, repeat 2-3 more times.

That's the kind of programming he's talking about. You do that and you've had a good push/pull maximal strength day. The next push/pull workout should be dynamic in nature, and then go back to strength. You may want to put a HS-specific workout in there as well, and cycle between the three. You will find that you make gains every time you go through them if you've spaced them out properly. Your best bet is to follow the same format as the WODs. I could say more, perhaps, but I think I've put enough out there for a while. There's a good reason why the WODs are how they are. Go read through a month's worth, one after the other, and write them out on a calendar. You will see an interesting pattern. Coach has put it out there, it's up to you to learn what he is doing and if you feel like it adapting it to your personal needs.