Grease the groove: 13 powerful GTG programs for fast, efficient strength gains

Lucky number 13

Twenty-two years ago, Pavel Tsatsouline unveiled a groundbreaking article in Milo. It was titled “Chain yourself to the squat rack and call me in a year” and described the technique of ‘greasing the groove’—the ultimate expression of ‘perfect practice makes perfect’ for a strength trainee.

How does practice really work? As we repeat a movement pattern, our body adapts by becoming more efficient at it. Literally, neurons grow myelin and start processing and transmitting messages more quickly. This ‘myelination’ is absolutely vital to our functioning, it’s the source of being able to do anything by habit or from memory, and can be taken advantage of to a great degree when it comes to physical learning. As Daniel Coyle sums up in his book The Talent Code, ‘we are myelin beings.’

The name for grease the groove, or GTG, comes from the process. You are, in effect, ‘greasing’ the neurological groove of the movement. Making it much more efficient to perform. Any movement your body performs is a skill whether it’s a complex gymnastics tumbling sequence, dance movement, or… your bench press. Make it more neurologically efficient and it will improve.

What does this potentially have to do with your pullup count? Everything. If you hyperfocus on one or two movements and practice them—quality practice!—all the time, you will get better, fast. Remember. Perfect practice makes perfect or at least, ‘mindful practice with the effort to improve makes slightly better over time’. This means no sloppy reps, no mindless grinding away out of position.

Here are the basic rules for gtg:

1.       The highest quality possible. Clean, focused, reps, staying away from fatigue in each set.

2.       The highest frequency possible. Do it as often as you possibly can without screwing up #1.

That’s it! Essentially, you will be practicing your chosen movement throughout the day, in short sets that are not challenging. This doesn’t mean that you will necessarily be using baby resistances, just that the rate of perceived exertion or RPE will be low. Say you can overhead press for 185 for 5, but a 6th rep would have killed you. That’s an RPE of 10, an all out effort. 185 for 3 would be an RPE of around 8, probably, you know you could have gotten two more. But 185 for just 1 is nothing but a heavy warmup, probably an RPE of 6.5 or even lower. It is entirely possible to do many, many sets of 1 in a workout… or even throughout the day. Here’s another example. You can do 10 pushups. If you tried to do sets of 8-10 all throughout the day you’d cripple yourself in no time. But sets of 4 or 5, effortless, focused sets—how many of those do you think you could do daily before even breaking a sweat?

Mindset is important. If you can practice focusing to the utmost every single set, GTG will help you achieve this headspace more quickly and easily—because you’re having to do it all the time. Dropping your current distractions, daydreams, and worries and immediately jumping into 100% focus mode for training is a useful skill to have. Plus, it’s probably mentally healthy to break up your day with some moving meditation of this variety. This can be difficult at first, and you might take an extra minute to get your head in the right place and push any current distractions aside. With repetition though, as your skills of strength increase so to will your mental abilities.

Now for the fun part. There are an awful lot of ways that you can potentially cook this, especially if you are doing little else other than your GTG training.

1. Beginner GTG—

If you’ve never tried GTG before, do this first. Take a movement at a resistance level you can do for 5-10 reps. Do 1/3 to 1/2 of your best rep max, 3 to 5 times throughout the day and see how it feels. To use that pushup example, 3-5 reps if you can do 10.

2. Classic GTG—

This plays by the same rules, but with a volume increase. If you can handle it, do those sets of 1/3 to ½ of your RM (rep max) for 3-5 times your RM spread throughout the day. That’s 30-50 total reps with a 10RM, done in sets of 3 to 5. Doing these sets on the hour, every time you go to the bathroom, or every time you walk past a high traffic area (a pullup bar in the doorway to your kitchen, for example) all work great.

3. Rep ladders throughout the day—

Sets with progressive reps are a ‘ladder’. For example, you could do a set of 1, a set of 2, and a set of 3 with your 5-rep max, then repeat for two more rounds with ample rest. You’d notate that as (1,2,3)x3. Ladders are a great way to incorporate some variety rather than doing straight sets. Rep ladders for GTG in a single day is playing with fire, but if you’re following a minimalist routine and really focusing on your GTG movement it can work.

Here’s how this might look if you can do 10 pullups. Start with just one rep. The next time you hit your GTG, do a set of 2. Then, the time after that a set of 3, and so on. Eventually you’ll get pretty close to your RM—say, 7 reps. The moment one of your reps starts to slow down or get noticeably harder at all, stop and drop back to your starting point. Remember, we have to keep it relatively easy. But this method involves pushing right to that boundary between ‘easy’ and ‘hey this is work, now’. Throughout the day, you might do 1,2,3,4,5,6 (last rep slowed down a tiny bit), 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 (would’ve had to hang and rest before doing another rep), 1,2,3… and bedtime.

4. Weight ladders throughout the day—

You can do something similar with weight. Say you’re doing sets of 2 on your bench press. Start light, with something like 60% of your 1RM. Add a bit of weight each set you do throughout the day. Again, stop before it gets difficult! If a rep slows down even a tiny bit or your form changes, drop back to your starting point. If you can bench 200x1, starting with 135x2 then 140, 145, etc. all the way up to 175x2 (second rep didn’t feel the same as the first) then starting over again with 135x2 on the next set is how this could work.

5. Rep ladders throughout the week—

This is similar to the original rep ladders example, but you’ll add your reps on progressive days. Back to your 10 pushups example. Monday you do sets of 3, Tuesday you do sets of 4, Wednesday you do sets of 5, Thursday 6… this starts to beat you up and doing your 50 total reps is hard. Take a day off and start over again with sets of 3 throughout the day on Saturday. This will in essence give you a linear wave cycle.

6. Weight ladders throughout the week—

Again, similar to the first weight ladders example but done on progressive days. For this example, imagine you’re trying to improve your one arm kettlebell press and you have a full set of bells in 4kg jumps. Right now, you can press 36kg for 2 but it’s a do or die effort, so you don’t go over 32kgx1 for your gtg.  Monday you press the 24kg for singles. Tuesday the 28. Wednesday the 32. Thursday back to the 24. Very simple and a great choice if you find yourself getting crushed under heavier weights if you only go lighter with classic gtg.

7. Weight/rep pyramids throughout the week—

Now we can play with two variables. Sticking with the last example, obviously if you can press 36kg for a tough double 24kg x1 is almost laughably easy. A pyramid involves progressing to lower reps and higher weight, from higher reps and lighter weights to start. Here’s how this might look: Monday you press the 24kg for 5s throughout the day. Tuesday, sets of 3 with the 28. Wednesday, sets of 1 with the 32kg. Then start over again with the 24.

8. Mechanical progressive ladders—

This can be done throughout the day or throughout the week. It’s very useful if you’re trying to do GTG with bodyweight strength training. Start with an easy variant and progress to a harder one then drop back. If you’re working on your pistol squats, you’d start out with reps going down until your butt touches a chair, then a low stair step, then a full pistol. You could use varying levels of free arm assistance on a one arm pushup. Or, with a kettlebell press, start with a regular military press and then do a waiter’s press the next day and a bottoms up press the day after that, then repeat.

9. Weight/rep wave loading—

This method seems ‘too simple to work’ but it’s an ingenious way to slowly work up in weight almost without your body noticing. Credit for the original idea goes to Paul Mcilroy, and here’s how I would do it. Start with a 10RM for sets of 3 throughout the day. The next day, sets of 4, and the next, sets of 5. Then add a tiny, tiny bit of weight and start over. 3s, 4s, and 5s throughout the day on your next 3 days with the heavier weight, then repeat. When you start to feel a bit roughed up from the weight as it gets heavier and heavier, take a day off and find your new 10RM to repeat the whole process.

10. Progressive set/rep GTG—

Here’s an option if you have a stable schedule and can do the same number of sets every single day. Say you can do 20 pullups if you really go all out. Start out with 10 sets of 7 throughout the day, or roughly 1/3 of your rep max. Each day after that, replace one set with a set of 14 (about 2/3 of your RM). In 10 days you’ll be doing all 10 sets with 14 reps instead of 7. Take a day off and retest your max to see where you’re at.

11. Progressive set/weight GTG—

Same idea as the last one but with progressive weight. If you are trying to press a 24kg kettlebell, start out with 10 sets of 2 using a 16kg bell. Every day, replace one of those sets with a double using the 18kg bell instead. Once you hit 10 sets of 2 throughout the day with the 18, repeat with the 20, then see if that 24 is still anchored to your shoulder or not….

12. Progressive set volume waves—

Here’s an idea if you’re limited as to your options. Say you’re doing pistol squats, and you can do full ones but don’t have many different sized weights to add resistance. Start with a good solid work set that isn’t all out—if you can do 5 pistols, just do a set of 3. The next day, 2 sets of 3. The day after that, 3 sets of 3. These are, like all these other programs, done throughout the day with complete rest. At some point though, even sets of 3 will start to wear on you. Back off, maybe halfway to your starting point, and work back up again. By the time that 12-15 sets of 3 with your old 5RM is downright easy, you will have a new 5RM to work with.

13. Relaxed clusters—

Last one. My friend Harald Motz is the inspiration for this one, as he absolutely loves heavy cluster training. A cluster is a short series of reps, usually singles for strength work, with very short rests in between. A set of 4 with 90% of your 1RM would be hard! But take 30 seconds between each of 4 singles and it is much more doable. That’s the idea here. 3-4 times a day do a quick cluster and add a little weight over time. This could be 4-5 singles with a tough 5 RM and 30 seconds of rest in between. Throughout the day, you might be doing up to 20 total reps with your heavy 5RM but all of them picture perfect—and you still get some practice lifting with slight fatigue.

There you have it—thirteen different training ideas to make your GTG practice enjoyable while giving you options to progress your training with something of a pattern as well. Try them all! Spend at least a couple weeks on each method, though, and be sure to rest a bit when you’ve finished the cycle and re-tested. Also remember that while focusing on your chosen exercise, everything else is in maintenance mode.

You might find that some of them work much, much better for you than others, but they all play by the same ideas, frequent practice with low fatigue to raise your strength base—think of these as different recipes to bake the same cake. Have fun, shoot me an email (arisdemarco@gmail.com) with your progress.