Here's where I'm getting lost (I'd love any answers anyone has) - I work a three day template, Mondays are Squat/Bench, Wednesdays are Bench/DL, and Friday is Squat/Bench. So far, this has worked pretty good, I'm able to put on little PR's almost every other day or so (really fast gains I guess), and Tuesday and Thursday I'm just doing extra work generally in the 6-8 rep range. I'm focusing on back exercises, and a little for the forearms to keep up grip power.
So here's the big question: what are extra days really needed for? Do you work back and opposing muscle groups to keep them from shortening because you work the others on your big lift days? Or, is it just for general fitness? Next, how can you quantify those workouts, i.e. how do you know if they are working properly and if you're making any gains (its difficult to tell at 6-8 reps). Last, should you switch how you train those extra muscles, i.e. hypertrophy work for a while, and then focus on lower rep work for CNS training?
I prefer to call these GPP Workouts because Extra Workout gives the impression that they are optional. They are least important in the short term, but they are very important to long term progress.
I break this down in lots of depth in my DVD (coming soon). But in the meantime, here's the cliff's notes:
GPP work is just that -- general preparedness. I like to construct these workouts to address some aspects of fitness that aren't addressed in your everyday powerlifting training. Some things I like to address: Prehab/Rehab, Neglected Muscle groups or movement patterns, Cardiovascular conditioning, flexibility, mobility, and passive recovery. There are other things, but this covers about 90% of what I try to put in my GPP workouts. You just figure out how you want to address each of these topics, but do so in a manner that won't negatively affect your main workload. For example, Rows could be Prehab, Neglected muscle, and as part of a circuit, cardiovascular conditioning.
Some answers to your other questions... You want to do this work for a bunch of reasons. Most of it has to do with keeping your body in balance. If your body is out of balance (muscularly, cardiovascularly, hormonally, etc, etc), then your progress will be sub optimal and may cease completely. Whats more, a person in good balance will be able to do more work, recover from more work, and have a better overall quality of life. This is the "30 seconds or less" version and it can get a lot more detailed than that, but this is all I've got time for at the moment! :)
Hope that helps, let me know if you have any follow up questions.
Great, thanks Mike. Just as a question to add to that - do you need to really watch those extra workouts that specifically? I mean, do you need to watch if they are progressing, or just feel your way throug them?
I wouldn't get hung up on "progress" in the traditional sense of increasing load, volume, or whatever. If you have a means of tracking your functional state (TRAC), this will provide you with good feedback. If you don't, just monitor whether or not the work gets easier over time (long term).
Again, I'll plug the upcoming DVD's... My DVD and Eric's DVD (which I'll also have) covers GPP in very good detail. We focus on it because it's important, especially to novice and rated lifters (or people who haven't done much GPP in the past).
