What do you guys think of German Volume Training

J

Joe.Muscle

Active Member
I love HST and will use it the rest of my life...simply b/c it works and fits my lifestyle great. That being said I would love to see what you guys think about German Volume training (GVT)

I know there is a thread in the FAQ and again I would never go to training that way I love HST too much but is this a good program to use say for 3 weeks to jump start some growth??
 
It's a good way to promote sarcoplasmic growth but not more than that.
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It'll increase your size significatively as long as you do it.
 
Actarus is saying that because it has you doing so much volume, it will promote sarcoplasmic growth, which basically means that it will increase muscle size by filling the muscle with mainly water and glycogen. (This is accomplished by the 15s and 10s with HST.) This is nice and all, but if you want "real" growth, meaning growth in the actual muscle fibers, you'll need to be lifting heavier weights. (This is accomplished by the 5s with HST.) This is known as myofibrillar hypertrophy.

Also, if you stop doing high rep/high volume work, you will lose the size gains that you achieved from it. That's one reason, but certainly not the only reason, why people will use dropsets during the 5s: to keep their muscles pumped up with fluid and glycogen, since 5 reps is not enough to accomplish this on its own.

While high rep/high volume programs similar to GVT are effective for the pros, they don't work as well for natural trainees.

Based on the SAID principle, GVT should lead to increases in your 10 RM, unless you can't handle the volume and get into overtraining.

For more critiques of GVT, see Bryan's article Is German Volume Training "Hypertrophy-Specific"?

If you're looking for a good way to "jump start some growth", my opinion is that you should do a strength cycle to bring up your poundages. This fits in perfectly if you're towards the end of your HST cycle. You'd probably see better strength gains using lower reps than GVT has you using, though. You might consider something like 5x5 or 3x3, or even just doing a few extra weeks with your 5 RMs. Just be sure to stay away from failure.
 
SAVAGE BEAST thanks that was very helpful.

So let me make sure I understand correctly GVT will only give you the pumped look then..so no major growth (ie the kind that last ) will occur unless of coarse you got heavy with the 5's correct??? :)
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Joe.Muscle @ Mar. 30 2005,4:29)]So let me make sure I understand correctly GVT will only give you the pumped look then..so no major growth (ie the kind that last ) will occur unless of coarse you got heavy with the 5's correct???
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That's what science and Actarus tell us, yes. Of course, IMO, every non-horrible training system will work to some extent, it's just that the gains might come VERY slowly.
 
GVT, and Gironda programs in general, works great initially because you're assaulting your bodyparts with 10 sets or so. But, like everybody says, it's just too hard to do load progression on it.

That being said, if you're a Big Four kind of guy, then you may want to look at the cluster HST variation. Very high volume (~ 50 reps or so) like GVT, but it enables load progression.

cheers,
Jules
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (vicious @ April 01 2005,4:37)]GVT, and Gironda programs in general, works great initially because you're assaulting your bodyparts with 10 sets or so.  But, like everybody says, it's just too hard to do load progression on it.
That being said, if you're a Big Four kind of guy, then you may want to look at the cluster HST variation.  Very high volume (~ 50 reps or so) like GVT, but it enables load progression.
cheers,
Jules
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Vicious I would love to try that HST style. Would you mind showing a sample program like that???

Thanks :)
 
Question: Brian said in a thread a few months ago, that he now does not believe sarcoplasmic growth is possible. That cells must maintain balance between the cytoplasm and other components. (ie, sarcoplasm and myofibrils grow in proper proportions together). If this is so, then size is size.. is size. Comments?

Ron
 
Maybe because the increase of the sarcoplasm that we are seeing is a temporary influx of fluid, not actual growth.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (NWlifter @ April 04 2005,10:55)]Question: Brian said in a thread a few months ago, that he now does not believe sarcoplasmic growth is possible. That cells must maintain balance between the cytoplasm and other components. (ie, sarcoplasm and myofibrils grow in proper proportions together). If this is so, then size is size.. is size. Comments?

Ron
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What if you go on a low-carb diet and deplete all your glycogen, which would make your muscles smaller, then eat a bunch of carbs and replete your glycogen, making your muscles bigger. Isn't that sarcoplasmic growth? Sure, you might end up exactly where you started, but the point is that glycogen repletion made your muscles grow in size.
 
When we were talking about this before, plus reading a lot on 'what sarcoplasmic' growth is, I don't believe the temporary 'glycogen and water' deal is actually that.
Sarcoplasm is more of a protein type fluid where the glycogen and other goodies are stored. Mel Siff makes a distinction between 'glycogen supercompensation' and actual 'sarcoplasmic hypertrophy'.

Ron
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]What if you go on a low-carb diet and deplete all your glycogen, which would make your muscles smaller, then eat a bunch of carbs and replete your glycogen, making your muscles bigger. Isn't that sarcoplasmic growth? Sure, you might end up exactly where you started, but the point is that glycogen repletion made your muscles grow in size.
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No, your muscles haven't grown, they've swelled. Has a balloon 'grown' when you blow air into it? I suppose it's a matter for interpretation, but I'd say no. Likewise, you can pump up muscles with more fluid and glycogen, but that's a temporary facilitation to deal with increased energy demands.

Sarcoplasmic storage has increased, but is that the same as myofibril growth?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (savagebeast @ Mar. 30 2005,2:41)]If you're looking for a good way to "jump start some growth", my opinion is that you should do a strength cycle to bring up your poundages.  This fits in perfectly if you're towards the end of your HST cycle.  You'd probably see better strength gains using lower reps than GVT has you using, though.  You might consider something like 5x5 or 3x3, or even just doing a few extra weeks with your 5 RMs.  Just be sure to stay away from failure.
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I'm kind of dazed right now, I'm sure I've read the answer before, but why stay away from failure, risk of overtraining? Or is there a physiological reason that limits growth that dictates one should not to lift to failure?

For me, I've done a few HST cycles now, and I always follow them up with strength training. Right now I'm doing DC training, and it's nice and I'm thinking I might do an HST cycle followed by DC. Thing is, that's a hell of a lot of planning, plus I don't know if I should SD after HST and then go into the DC, or go straight into it. An SD would require a week or so of low weight lifting once I got back into things before moving into DC.
 
Going to failure or not is really an individual thing, many people burn out really quickly when pushing that hard.

A few people can push that far all the time and feel no ill effects, most can't though.
 
Training to failure means that you're exhausting your CNS. This takes longer to recover than the muscles themselves. So if you train to failure, what you're doing is pushing back the next session you'll be able to train @ given load for give rep#, which means your hypertrophy inductions are going to be further spaced apart.........takes longer to make muscle.

Lets say you do your 5x5 lots of bench. You might have trained to failure, but if were able to break down the % benefits for hypertrophy for each of these sets, it would be something like 95% for sets 1&2, and 1-5% for sets 3-5.

On top of this there are psychological factors....training becomes a burden/chore for some, the concept of training until you fail isn't the most positive.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Jester @ April 05 2005,11:03)]On top of this there are psychological factors....training becomes a burden/chore for some, the concept of training until you fail isn't the most positive.
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Now, supposing you don't have a problem going that far that often, or in other words your CNS seems to be able to handle it and you're not overtraining, then there's no problem I'm guessing, right?

It's just something I've been messing around with. I want to do an HST cycle shortly, and I was looking at the so called "cluster" version of it. While doing 50 reps all the time would kill me, keeping it consistent at 20 reps each exercise is easily doable. Which would break down to an HST cycle that went 20x1 for two weeks, 10x2 for two weeks, 5x4 for two weeks.

I don't necessarily like going to failure, but I've been doing DC training for a few weeks now and the rest pause/failure method way of doing those sets just feels real good.
 
xahrx, how have your strength/size gains been?

I did a little bit of DC and I think the combination of rest pause and infrequent use of a specific movement was great for strength. The 3 different exercises I think is the key for it, and the reason some people have trouble gaining strength with HST. Even if you are growing, you are doing the same exercises so often that you become chronically specifically fatigued to those exercises, whereas in DC, even though you still train fairly frequently (and very hard), switching up the exercises utilizes varying activation patterns for the muscle.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (BoSox @ April 06 2005,12:38)]xahrx, how have your strength/size gains been?
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Not bad at all. Not HST good, and I've been eating poorly here and there. Keep forgetting to bring my tuna to work. But still a workout I'd reccomend to anyone who wants a good hybrid routine. I like it a lot better than Max OT. Plus, the extreme stretching feels real good. Not so good while you're doing it, but stretching in general really agrees with me, and I just feel really relaxed after extreme stretching.
 
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