General Physical Preparedness or GPP as it is often referred to in the fitness world, is basically a fancy name for your fitness level. Fitness is often defined as your cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, flexibility and power. An effective general physical preparedness training program is designed to efficiently improve all of these aforementioned aspects, and to hence raise your overall 'fitness' level.

Performance is the key to everything if you are yourself an athlete. Years are spent in the gym, or on the field, to refine your skill set in the hope that it leads to an improvement in your own performance during game time. However, there may be blind spots, or weaknesses, in your own fitness level, which is having a drastic effect on your performance. Maybe you have flexibility issues, or you are unable to effectively create enough force with your muscles. The truth is, though, most athletes do not even know what their weaknesses are. This is where GPP comes in.

A GPP workout program will train all areas of your fitness simultaneously, and will have drastic results on the way you are able to perform.

Some of the most popular forms of GPP include:

1. Sled Dragging: Incredibly popular among strength athletes such as Olympic lifters and power lifters. It consists of dragging a weighted sled behind you for a few hundred yards.

2. Sledge Hammer Swings: A heavy, long shafted sledge hammer makes a great GPP tool when used to swing and hit soft ground, and is an amazing way to condition your core muscles for endurance.

3. Tire Flipping: Another exercise popular amongst strength athletes, tire flipping emulates the dead lift motion, and is a very beneficial in working those muscles without burning yourself or your nervous system out and taking you backwards in your recovery.

4. Body weight exercises: Body weight dips, lunges, squats, pull-ups and push ups are a good, easy way to increase your general physical preparedness.

General physical preparedness training is also an amazing way to burn body fat, as it is at times quite a taxing on the cardiovascular system, and burns an immense amount of calories in a short period of time.

Here is a following template for strength athlete who is looking to incorporate GPP exercises into their overall training regime. If done correctly it will increase the athlete's strength and conditioning, which will carry over into their competitive lifts.

Monday: Max Effort Squat / Dead Lift Day
Tuesday: Light Sled Dragging for Fifteen Minutes
Wednesday: Day of Rest
Thursday: Max Effort Bench Press Day
Friday: Light Sled Dragging for Fifteen Minutes
Saturday: Accessory Workout Day / Tire Flipping Workout
Sunday: Day of Rest

At the end of the day, if you are an athlete who is serious about your sport, you need to have all bases covered if you are to perform at the best of your ability. Increasing your own personal GPP is one way to improve your weaknesses, and make you a better, faster, fitter and more able athlete.