As a coach and athlete, I have been in the weight room for the last 19 years. Of all the coaches, games, and so on I can always say I was my strongest when I could do the most work. In high school, I could run an 8 minute mile and had good numbers for a hs athlete. During my college football years, I would get cut off doing a 500 back squat triple and could go as long as I needed to for games. Since then though, my work capacity has declined and I wasn't seeing progress over the long term. I could work for 12 weeks for a weightlifting meet, maybe PR and then be gassed for 2 weeks after. Over the last year and a half, I've refocused my efforts to sustain progress. It's led me to understanding GPP and making it the most important aspect of my training.
GPP stands for general physical preparedness. Jargon aside, it's a measure of how much you can handle and how much you can recover from. I don't see it as a means of progression but a means of expansion. I say expansion due to the fact that there's a number of different ways to increase your level of GPP. The means of which are general in nature and not necessarily specific to your sport, in fact the farther away most times the better. But we'll look at that next week. If you want to train for a long time with minimal soreness, optimal recovery, and enjoy training, your gpp must be in order. Your program doesn't matter if you can't recover from it.
-Matt Thompson, Brewhouse Barbell Coach
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Olympic Weightlifting Coaching & Consulting