3 Types of Workouts That Help Powerlifters to Improve Work Capacity

Boost recovery, endurance, GPP, and health with these options.

As a powerlifter, my main concern is getting stronger. And as a human who’d like to live a real long time, my main concern is developing cardio capacity that’ll keep my heart doing its thing long enough for me to write approximately a billion more novels.

But conventional gym wisdom says that — after we achieve a certain level of fitness — we need to specialize. Cool it on the cardio when you’re powerlifting, and vice versa. Strength versus size. Power versus agility. Flexibility versus… you get the idea. But as athletes, can we have it all?

Increasing work capacity — the amount of work your body can handle in a concentrated period of time — is an important component of “having it all.” In the gym, having it all means being well-rounded athlete proficient in General Physical Preparedness (GPP). Giving yourself a baseline in GPP means refusing to be the athlete that sacrifices strength for speed or power for flexibility: GPP means you’re ready for anything. And if you do it right, building a base GPP and using that to expand your work capacity won’t make you a weaker powerlifter — it will make you a stronger athlete. Because increasing GPP and work capacity means that you can train at a higher intensity for longer; you can train more frequently; and you can recover more quickly.