i read about the grease the groove (GTG)way of doing any exercise. read this back in the 60’s and still read it today…
do 70-80% of max reps 5-6-7-8times a day. train like this 4-5 days a week, and in 4 weeks your supose to hit a new pr.
i train/trained like this but never a new pr. how i get a pr, or close to a new pr is 2 days a week, do a max set in the am, afternoon and a third max set in the pm. 3 sets on tuesday, then do the same on friday. for me, this way works better.
seems like the GTG way, my body is getting a more endurance workout. when i try for a PR, my body is use to the 70-80% way of training and i dont do much better.
when i try for a PR on the 3 max sets on tuesday and friday, i get a better result.
friends say dont max out in training, you’ll burn out!!! but, how you going to burn out doing 6 sets a week?
if your PR is 20 pullups, why do sets of 15 6 times a day 5 days a week. when tested, your so use to 15 you may get 15-16-17. doing max sets of 17-18-19, when tested, you’re use to the higher reps, so hitting 19-20 maybe 21 would seem like the way to go…
opinions…
thanks alot
Don’t know about this exact way of doing it, but the armstrong pullup program (google it) followed by some fat grip pullups helped me get to 21 reps (at a modest 190 pounds). It let’s you train the movement a lot and still go for max reps at least once a week. If you just want to get more reps on pullups, I highly recommend it.
GTG works and is simple. Before I knew anything about training I would do jumping pullups on the door frame in my Uni’s halls and soon went from 0 proper pullups, to 5 unassisted but probably ugly ones, so when I first read about greasing the groove it made a lot of sense (suppose could be chalked up to beginner gains?). Having neglected pullups for a while and gained a bunch of weight, I am now making progress treating it as a standard bodybuilding exercise. Really I think it depends on the individual and how much effort you put into each method.
WRT getting used to doing less reps… wtf? Are you saying that submaximal efforts make you weaker? “Getting used to 15-16 reps” is the idea, you should be able to do your 15-16 at any time with minimal effort. When it comes time to test your max, you do it fresh and put in some real intensity and voila, you should get a nice PR for your work. I’m not here claiming GTG is better, or even as good, but I know it works for me.
Monday - do 3 max sets.
Wednesday - do 3 easy sets, doing half the reps you did on Monday
Friday - 3 medium sets, 2-3 reps below what you did on Monday.
Then you max out again on Monday. The above would probably be about right if you can do approximately 10 reps. If you can do more like 20 then I’d do sets of 12 on Wednesday and sets of 16 on Friday.
If you want to use high frequency you don’t want to max out every time, but you need to ‘go heavy’ some of the time. Lots and lots of great strength programs are set out this way, eg Bill Starr’s 5x5, Joe Kenn’s 3 Tier program, lots of different bench/squat programs you see.
Even I,BODYBUILDER has a bit of heavy/light/medium about it. The Monday workout is very heavy, Wednesday is with slightly less load (but it is still tough) and Friday is with a medium-ish load. I don’t know if Thibs did it like that on purpose or not but there are some similarities.