I’ve been a fan of Cody Lefever’s programming for a long time.
I first heard about him through a guy named Loren at a rec center in Wheat Ridge. We had both been working out there for probably six months and had seen each other all the time, but never really talked. Eventually we did, and he mentioned that he followed some of Cody’s programming. I think they had gone to high school together, so I looked Cody up.
That was about 10 years ago, when I had first started lifting.
Since then, I’ve gone back to GZCLP on and off pretty consistently. It’s just good programming. It isn’t overly complicated, it focuses on the core compound lifts, and every time I go back to it I seem to get strong pretty quickly.
I especially like running it during a bulk. The T1, T2, and T3 structure gives me the heavier work I want while still getting enough volume and accessory work for hypertrophy.
So I was pretty excited to read General Gainz.
I had actually finished another GZCLP block within the last few months while I was reading the book, and before I even finished it I started messing around with some of the General Gainz ideas in my own programming.
The biggest thing I took from the book is that eventually just adding weight every week stops making much sense.
When you’re newer, that works great. Add five pounds, come back next week, and do it again.
Eventually you stall. Then trying to force another five pounds onto the bar every week starts becoming a grind.
General Gainz gives you more things to look at than just the number on the bar. RPE, bar speed, technique, how the reps actually moved that day. Cody also uses Find, Hold, Extend, and Push as a framework for deciding what to do next.
That took me a little while to wrap my head around.
There are a lot of abbreviations and naming conventions in the book, and early on I had to keep reminding myself what everything meant. Once I got further into it, though, it started to click.
I’ve been using some of the Volume Drop Set ideas in my training, and that’s probably been the biggest thing I’ve actually taken from the book so far.
For about the last month, I’ve been benching 245 pounds. I’ll hit my heavier work in roughly the three-rep range and then come back down to singles for more volume.
Normally I probably would have been thinking about when I could move to 250 or 255.
Instead, I’ve just stayed at 245 for a while.
I’m getting a lot of time under a heavier weight, getting more comfortable with it, and getting more good reps without having to prove every week that I can lift something heavier. I’ve been doing similar things with my squat and deadlift.
I’m still lifting pretty fucking heavy, but I’m not taxing myself as hard.
Then when I do move up, I can make a smaller jump, spend some time there, and do it again.
That approach makes more sense to me now than constantly trying to force progress week over week, especially after you’ve been lifting for a while.
I think that’s also why I’d recommend this book more to intermediate or advanced lifters.
If you’re brand new, I still think something like GZCLP makes more sense. You probably don’t need to be analyzing every variable in your training yet. You need to lift, get better at the movements, and get stronger.
General Gainz asks more from you.
If you’re going to make decisions based on RPE, bar speed, technique, rep quality, and how you’ve been performing over time, you need to actually know what has been happening in your training.
You have to track your shit.
That was something the book made me think about more than I expected. There’s a lot of work that goes into programming when you’re in charge of it yourself.
You need to know what RPE a set was, what you did last time, how long you’ve been at a certain weight, whether the reps are improving, and whether you’re actually progressing or just bouncing between workouts without much of a plan.
Switching from Strong to Hevy has helped me with that because I can track RPE along with the rest of my workouts.
I’ve also started using AI to help me look through historical training data.
I’m not using it to tell me what I should do. I don’t want it programming for me, and I don’t really want it interpreting the results for me either.
What it is useful for is surfacing the data.
Instead of manually digging through months of workouts, I can use it to pull together what I’ve done on a lift, how my RPE has changed, what weights I’ve been using, and other patterns in the data. Then I can look at it and come to my own conclusion.
That fits pretty well with what I took away from General Gainz.
Pay attention to what your training is telling you, then make a decision from there.
My biggest criticism of the book is probably also one of the things that makes it useful.
It teaches you how to fish instead of catching the fish for you.
The whole time I was reading it, part of me kept looking for a little more guidance on exactly what I should do.
Give me the program. Give me the sets and reps. Tell me when to add weight.
That’s not really what the book is trying to do.
Cody gives programming examples and shows what different setups can look like, but eventually it comes back to your own goals and how you’re performing.
You have to interpret it.
That was probably the hardest part for me because sometimes I just wanted an answer. At the same time, I understand why the answer isn’t really there.
If the whole point is to adjust your training based on your performance, goals, and training history, then there probably shouldn’t be one program at the end that everyone follows.
That’s where I landed with General Gainz.
It’s less of a program and more of a way to think about programming once you’re past the point where adding weight every week is enough.
I’ve already started using parts of it in my own training, and I’m sure I’ll keep experimenting with more of it as I get better at tracking and understanding my own performance.
4/5