tl;dr of GtG below:
- "Greasing the Groove" (GtG) is a strength training technique popularized by Pavel Tsatsouline that involves performing high-frequency, submaximal sets of a specific exercise throughout the day to improve neural efficiency. By doing many easy sets (50–70% of max) with long rest periods, you build strength without fatigue.
I am mostly a beginner (male, 40, 250lbs, 6'4") and still have unfinished "newbie gains" that I've yet to achieve in most of my muscle groups. My side delts are very weak. I use the raised handle setup advocated by Jeff Nippard and many other youtubers but I struggle and consider it one of my weakest exercises. Here was my fully rested gym session a few hours ago where I mostly am attempting a GtG style because my goal is primarily weight loss and minimizing fatigue. I want to continue losing 30 pounds before I abandon a GtG style of splits.
- 8 reps x 15lbs (cable lateral raise, today)
- 3 reps x 20lbs (cable lateral raise, today)
In keeping good form, I estimate I can do 20lbs for a maximum of 6-7 reps (in good form) at cable-height "8" at my gym, so my question today is whether I'll gain strength if I do 3 reps of 20lbs daily for the next 3 months? To be more specific, am I likely to be able to achieve 6-7 reps (in good form) with 25 pounds, representing a 25% strength increase in my side delts? Or is 1 set of 3 reps daily a waste of time for side delts and I won't get 25% stronger side delts in the next 90 days using this protocol?
As an aside, my front delts responded extremely well to GtG training these past 3 months.
I feel like there is a lot going on here, and we need to back up. But to start, I will say, for your goal of losing weight, minimizing fatigue, and generally being healthy, it literally doesn't matter. If you like what you are doing, just keep showing up.
Anyway, I feel like you are mixing up strength training and bodybuilding in a very weird way. My biggest question is simply why you would want to train pure isolated side delt strength. Pavel advocated GtG on big compound lifts, like deads and pull ups, because deadlift and pull up strength translates to real improvements in strength in real life - which is what Pavel primarily cared about. Helping linebackers knock down other linebackers, helping special forces soldiers sprint carring 100lb backpacks, and helping your dad not throw out his back moving a couch. None of this requires isolated side delt work - the side delts help with things like OHP, but they arent the main movers, and there are few movements in real life that mimic a lateral raise.
Meanwhile, Nippard is a bodybuilder, and his priority is making his muscles big so he can win bodybuilding contests. This doesnt mean he isn't strong - but the reason he trains isolated side delt movements isnt to max his deadlift. It is to make his side delts bigger.
Honestly, my biggest thought is that if your goal is general health, fitness, and weight loss, you should just save yourself the time and effort and drop side delt exercises entirely. But then, we could even go a step further and say you could stop going to the gym entirely. For the goal of general health and fitness, you can just play pickup soccer - make friends, have fun, get some fresh air! And stop giving a shit about set and rep schemes for side delts!
But if going to the gym is fun for you and you just like training side delts, then I'd say that you can give it a shot, but I wouldn't expect a sure result. We gain strength in two ways - neuromuscular recruitment, and growth of muscle tissue. Muscle tissue grows when it is pushed close-ish to its physical limit, which is why we usually see more reps used for smaller muscles - with a small muscle like the side delts, 5lbs is a big jump, and doing 2 reps with, say 30lbs might be easy while doing 3 is impossible. But doing reps with 15lbs, we can do 10 or 20 or 30 reps until we find muscular failure. Meanwhile, if you are chasing pure strength, a lot of the gains come from learning alignment of the body, which comes into play less for isolation moves. So hopefully you are also practicing Pavels feed-forward techniques, or else I expect your gains to level off pretty quick.
Not to say you won't see strength or hypertrophy gains with this protocol - just saying that you are n=1 here.
My biggest motivation is to be able to lift this heavy blue cooler from my passenger seat, over my body, and then to lower it to the ground without it bumping into the armrest. It was the reason why I (incorrectly) focused so heavily on dumbbell shoulder presses and increased my 1-rep max so much this year (a little over 20% in 3-4 months). If you've ever seen the "fly episode" of breaking bad, I'm similarly motivated on this 1 singular endeavor only to come to the slow realization that my cooler-lifting goal is probably more side-delt focused than front delt. 🤦♂️
If I had no other life responsibilities, I would honestly spend 4-5 hours daily in the gym. I genuinely enjoy lifting heavy stuff and I never tire of it! However, I have about 2 hours daily I can devote to the gym but my bottleneck is mental fatigue. I obsessively try to optimize my daily habits but have regrettably noticed that gym fatigue negatively impacts all other parts of my life by seemingly depleting my will-power. I'm still experimenting but it seems lat exercises and arm exercises are my best options for minimizing gym fatigue so I wish to embrace those. My glute bridge stuff is about to be dropped. I'm only doing it because I had chronic back pain for 3 years, before getting a 90% improvement last year. I'm trying to get strong glutes to get that last 10% of improvement but I plan to quit doing glute bridges and find better glute exercise.
Fully agreed and I will look more into Pavel's feed-forward techniques as I'm still new to his stuff. I'm reading his "Simple & Sinister" book for kettlebells because I can do them at night before bed or when winding down late in the evening. I must admit I was extremely skeptical of Pavel's claims because I previously believed 100% in the "reps in reserve" theory and that you should minimize junk volume or leaving too many reps in reserve. But now I'm fully convinced that Pavel's claims are valid after all my lifts went up significantly in just 2-3 months with his GtG style with high rest times. 💪
lol, with that goal, i guess it makes sense! Best of luck to you!