Every once in a while it’s fun to think about how much the exercises we train on a daily and weekly basis actually translate, or carry over, to the activities for which we’re training.
Depending on your training program this can either be a great way to confirm that you are moving in the right direction, continuing to make progress and see results, or it can be a bit disheartening to realize just how little what you are doing actually carries over to your chosen field of endeavor.
In the case of budo (martial arts) practice, like any other sport or physical activity, there must be exercises specifically crafted to enhance performance. A solid base of General Physical Preparation (GPP) is necessary, but not sufficient.
What is GPP?
The first step in ensuring you are building martial skills on top of a solid foundation is General Physical Preparedness (GPP). The goal of GPP is enhanced work capacity. This is the ability to run faster, jump higher, and hit harder.
When work capacity increases, it allows the budding warrior to adapt more easily to increases in both mental and physical demands. In other words, it increases your capacity and level of readiness to absorb higher levels of specificity in training. In order to be more, we must become more.
When talking about the martial arts, which tend to be seemingly limitless, one must possess the physical, mental, and spiritual endurance to “keep going!”
Moving From GPP to SPP
While the goal of GPP is muscular adaptation and general readiness for training, the main focus of SPP is neurological adaptation — to train movements, not muscles.
Specific Physical Preparedness builds on GPP by increasing the development of characteristics necessary for a particular sport or activity — or, in our case, martial arts.
It is a uniquely designed and targeted system for enhancing strength, flexibility, endurance, and conditioning which builds on the GPP base by furthering development in the exact physiological profile of the martial art.
Therefore, GPP helps to make you effective while SPP makes you efficient. The end stage goal is of course to be both effective and efficient in each and every movement.
The Training Process Cycle
If your strength and conditioning program is stuck in the GPP phase of development then you may not be realizing the type of performance gains that are possible with a specifically crafted SPP level.
Strength and conditioning training must eventually approach as close as possible to the demands of the activity to maximize the training effect.
Since your body adapts specifically to the stresses placed on it, you improve according to the type of training you do. This is exactly why your training program must cycle through from the general to the specific.
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