Greasing the Groove

[davisj3537]

I've been reading from a lot of sources about this greasing the groove program. I fully understand it, but it seems to be more geared towards being able to perform body weight exercises with a ton of reps. It also seems like it could be more geared towards beginners that are having trouble with chin ups or push ups. I've been working out for quite a while and don't have issues with these. I say it seems more geared to beginners as typically beginners don't workout as intensely and wont tear as much muscle. They don't need much recovery time. This method seems to concentrate on that. I read countless stories of people increasing their chin ups at what I feel to be normal rates using this method. It seems if they had utilized an effective three time per week training schedule they could have achieved the same results.

I can do over 25 chin ups, as I mentioned I don't need help with reps...I'm wanting to do one arm chin ups. I can do a one armed chin up with only 30lbs of assistance on an assisted chin up machine. I'm getting rather close and didn't know if greasing the groove would be right for me. I'm not on a plateau, just looking for a possible faster way to achieve my goal. I know it is typically used for body weight exercises but I could just strap 70lbs or so around my waist on a belt to achieve the desired low reps.

For years I've been taught to gear my workouts to tear just enough that I recover from soreness before my second workout of the week. Greasing the groove seems to go completely against everything I have been taught. I heavily researched it and wasn't able to find any negative information about it.

I did search for quite a while on this forum as well as the internet. I'm new to this forum...not fitness or forums in general.

[SuffolkPunch]

Greasing the groove simply means that you repeat an exercise many times, even if with light resistance. The goal is to improve neural recruitment patterns - i.e. make better use of the muscle you already have. Be careful as this can lead to peaks followed by dropoffs in performance - you might start thinking that you are doing something wrong or losing muscle but that may not be case, you just lose your 'edge' sometimes.

If you want to get very good at chins, you may have to sacrifice some lower body goals as muscle mass in the legs is not going to help you. You also need to get as lean as fook.

[davisj3537]

Sounds like I need to put some time into researching neural recruitment patterns and how it affects muscles.

^ That shiz is very confusing. lol

[SuffolkPunch]

There isn't a lot to it. You need to do chin ups heavy - using a variety of weights and rep ranges. I suggest looking up the smolov junior set/rep/intensity schemes. Do that 3 times a week...

On every other do a few light bodyweight pullups whenever you can - just a few and never to failure

[davisj3537]

After researching Smolov Junior I can say it is very similar to what I'm already doing. That is promising. I'm not doing the pull ups every day though. I'm still considering this. Since I can do chin ups in the mid 20s in a row doing a GTG workout would consist of like 14 or 15 reps per set. It seems like doing this many reps several times per day will hurt my overall maximum one rep (one arm) chin up potential.

[SuffolkPunch]

On offdays, I would keep it down to about half normal capacity - so around 10 reps - but do it often.

I am not aiming for one armed pullup because my elbow would get killed by that but a good way to begin (I'm told) is to wrap a towel around the bar and pull this with one of your hands - so still two handed but one hand is hampered.

[davisj3537]

Yeah I have seen that method as well. The farther down you grab the towel the harder it is. Thanks for the insight.

[Jasonk282]

We do this A LOT in the Military and Marines in general. push ups for punishment, pull ups for punishment etc...all so we getting better with what we have...having a combat Marine at 5'9" 215lbs is a bigger target than a 5'9" 155lbs Marine.