GVT - German Volume Training

German Volume Training has its roots in Germany. The method is to perform the same exercise from 10 sets of 10 reps. You should pick a weight that you could lift for 20 reps at the start of the exercises, around 50-60% of your 1RM* load. At first with this type of training you will not feel like you are lifting a heavy enough weight but this is normal at the start of the exercise. After several sets you will start to fatigue, as you are just resting for 60 seconds. As you start to fatigue you will feel the need to increase the rest time but you have to stay very strict with this break between sets, so use a stopwatch. Also it is important not to perform forced reps, negatives. If you can’t do the reps in that set with strict form, stop and make a note at which rep you stop on, you should keep details about the exact reps you have completed and are doing. Again just count the repetitions you complete in a strict form’.


Now how many exercises do you perform?

GVT is designed to do just one exercise for each muscle group, so it’s best to choose an exercise that recruits as much of the muscle as possible, e.g. Squats, Deadlifts, Bench Press etc. As this type of training is so intense, you need to give the body a longer period to recover, it’s best to give each muscle group five days rest. If you want to do more exercise for individual body parts, Biceps etc, just perform 3 sets of 10-15 reps. I have heard you can perform up to 20 reps but I feel it’s going a little over board.

How to write out a program for GVT?

As GVT works best when large muscle groups are recruited at once. You can split the program up over 3 days but I not heard anything saying you can’t do it over 4 or 5 days.

4 day split program

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
Chest and Back	Off	Leg	Shoulders	Arms

Chest and Back program

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Rest Interval
Bench Press	10	10	60 sec
Chin Up	10	10	60 sec
Cable fly’s	3	10-15	60 sec
Bent Over Row	3	12-15	60 sec

 

When you can complete 10 sets of 10 reps it’s time to increase the weight by about 5%. Again you should keep details about exactly what reps you complete. Just count the repetitions you complete with in a strict form. I recommend that after 6 weeks of this training method (style), you should change it, up to a different training style for around 2 weeks, to allow your body time to recovery before returning back to this style. You should find that this will help you get bigger gains and at the end of the day that what it’s all about.

*1 rep max