Richard Gibney's 365 Days of Fitness: Day 126

Day 126 Up to this point with my strength workouts, I've kept things pretty loose in terms of planning. I've done this on purpose so as to stave off boredom and to avoid the pressure of following a set plan. My workouts in general have related to the previous one to some degree. If I've been feeling like lifting heavy my workouts have tended to follow that theme for at least a couple weeks. This format has worked really well so far, but lately I've found the mental exercise of coming up with what to be quite taxing. Therefore, to give my brain a bit of a rest, I've decided to follow a set format for a few weeks.

My plan of attack for the next 3 weeks, in terms of my strength workouts at least, will be German Volume Training. German Volume Training or GVT as I'll refer to it for brevity sake, was popularized by Charles Poliquin back in the early 90's and is definitely one of the most consistently successful programs I've used with my clients. The focus of GVT is hypertrophy or muscle mass development. This is done through a large volume of work while using a relatively lighter load.

The specific format is 10 sets of 10 reps with 60% of your 1 rep max for your chosen exercise. I find for most people 60% of their 1 rep max usually correlates to what they can do for a maximum of 20 reps. The first 5 or 6 sets will feel quite easy, but by the time someone gets to set 7 things start to get harder due to the accumulated volume of reps. The goal of each workout is to finish your 10th set with 10 reps. If you do get 10 reps, the next week you have to increase the load. The fantastic thing about this program is that most people, if they didn't start too heavy, will increase their weights each and every week. After about 4 - 6 weeks people will typically be able to do for 10 sets of 10 with a weight much higher than they could for one set of 10 reps to failure. I also find if people fuel properly they will also put on a good 5 - 7lbs.

Today's Workout:

German Volume Training Session 1: Upper Pull / Lower Push

Superset:

Exercise 1: Back Squat: 10 sets / 10 reps / 60 sec rest Set 1 - 10 (10 reps x 205lbs)

Exercise 2: Underhand Grip Chin-up: 10 sets / 10 reps / 60 sec rest Set 1 - 10 {10 reps x Body Weight (177lbs)}

I personally haven't used GVT for a very long time. I'm quite a bit stronger than I've been over the past few years, so I'm looking forward to see what I can do with this protocol. I've found I've been struggling to keep my muscle mass up lately as the intensity and duration of some of my more cardio based workouts has increased. I'm interested to see how the next few weeks pan out.