What Does a Good Training Program Actually Need?

The Big Idea

If you’re not training for a marathon, a powerlifting meet, or a specific sport, what the hell should your training program actually include?

For GPP (General Physical Preparation), or just general fitness, start with the physical qualities and movement patterns you need to train, not a list of exercises.

A good general fitness addresses 2 things: Strength + Conditioning

Strength

Exercises are just a means to an end, as such we like to think about movements vs. exercises.

Primary Movements

These should form the foundation of any strength training:

• Vertical Press
• Vertical Pull
• Horizontal Press
• Horizontal Pull
• Squat
• Hinge

Yes, you need to squat, but you don’t necessarily need to barbell back squat.

Secondary Movements

If time is limited, these are usually skipped as they’re all being trained with your primary movements, if time allows you can add them in as supplmental work on the backside:

• Lunges
• Biceps / Triceps
• Forearms / Grip
• Calves
• Shoulder Isolation
• Abs

These can add muscle, improve durability, address weak points, or simply include things you enjoy training.

Conditioning

We like to break up our conditioning into 2 primary types: Low and High (oxidative or aerobic, and glycolytic or anaerobic)

Low Intensity

• Ideally 30+ minutes
• Conversational pace
• Sustainable for extended durations
• For some athletes, it may almost feel too easy

High Intensity

• Roughly 5 to 30 minutes
• This is a hard pace where you can not hold a conversation.
• Sustainable for the prescribed duration, but only barely so.

Ideally, we’re training both. And ideally, the majority of our total conditioning time is spent on the low-intensity side.

Training Time Matters

If you’ve got five or six hours a week to train, you have room for more aerobic work.

If you’ve got three 45-minute sessions, we’re going to have to make some compromises.

But the basic requirements don’t really change.

Keep It Simple

A good general fitness program doesn’t need 50 exercises or some incredibly complicated methodology.

Push. Pull. Squat. Hinge. Move easy. Move hard.

Everything else is refinement.

Next Up

Once we know what we need to train, we need to figure out how much, how hard, how often, and how we’re going to improve it. That’s Part 2.