Still playing with Gym Movement

A few weeks ago I discovered a training framework known as Gym Movement. It is the brainchild of Frankie Faires, a martial artist and one of the people involved during the early days of Z-Health. In a nutshell Faires’s system is based on the concept of perpetual progress via intuitive exercise selection. A key principle of GM is that it is possible to achieve a PR in every training session; be it in the form of more volume, more intensity, more density or simply better quality reps. The GM system does not provide a specific program such as a 5x5 pressing protocol, protocol for GS, or whatever. It is in a sense a meta-framework that can be applied to any goal. Looking at some of the material make it seem a bit like Voodoo but there are some serious voices in the fitness industry, like Adam Glass, Josh Hanagarne,and Mike T. Nelson, who swear by this system. 

Given the fact that my goals are currently focused on general conditioning via the GS method of Valery Fedorenko (and in the longer term Kettlebell Strong-Sport and possibly Kettlebell Sport) I will obviously use GM towards selecting lifts in harmony with this goal. Tonight I tested OAJ’s, Cleans and Snatches. The Snatches came out the clear winner. I then tested for set length and three minute sets tested the best. As a result of the tests this is what I did:

Intu Flow warm up

16kg Snatch: 3 minutes

16kg Snatch: 3 minutes

16kg Snatch: 3 minutes

24kg Goblet Squat: 2 x 5

Stretching (emphasis on twisting motion)

The first two snatch sets were REALLY easy. The last one irritated my old lower back / glute injury a bit. Looking back now I realize that I didn’t test for how many sets to do so I just forged ahead after having decided that I’ll do three sets. I will probably need to refine my testing procedure if I really want to get the best out of GM. In all honesty I cannot say that I’m sold at the moment. Given the stir this framework has created in the fitness industry I am also not ready to give up on it just yet. I’m planning to commit myself to the whole testing thing for at least the next 4 weeks within the broad framework of using GS for general fitness and conditioning. I guess we’ll see what happens.