GPP testing

[Mike Prevost]

Originally Posted by Brandon Oto

For some time, I've been interested in establishing a way of testing and quantifying this ephemeral, know-it-when-you-see-it notion of GPP. One of the things CrossFit did that was cool is to actually define it -- I don't like their work capacity definition, but there's not much else available. Specific fitness? No problem. General fitness? What is it?

In any case, I did some work with Joe Cavazos on developing and scoring an actual series of tests to assess GPP. It's all explained so I won't belabor it too much here, but I'm very interested in any feedback or suggestions, as this is mostly original stuff that hasn't been well-tested yet. Just some regurgitation from our melons.

Have at it: http://gpp.degreesofclarity.com/

I don't see aerobic power and endurance. An 800m run would get you close for aerobic power but it is not ideal. Ideally you would use a ramp protocol on something like a treadmill run. I like 2 minute stages because you can sometimes gut it out for a minute. I like to hit exhaustion at the 4th to 6th two minute stage.

Lots of ways to test endurance but the truest tests involve holding a specific work rate to exhaustion. Time trials are OK if pacing is relatively constant. A 10K run, in this case, would be good.

[Brandon Oto]

You don't like the 5k?

And -- why do you feel that holding a specific pace is an important thing to test? The resultant data might be interestingly exact, but for real-world results I'm not seeing how it's more relevant than saying, "I don't care if you start fast, finish fast, or run in a sine wave... just finish as quickly as possible."