German Volume Training as a foundation?

MidWestJack

MidWestJack

Member
Hi everyone,

Wanted to get some input on something I've been thinking about. About 10 years ago, I found out about German Volume training. I gave it a go in my mid 20s and abandoned it shortly. I have 2 young boys reaching their teenage years shortly, and I was wondering if anyone knows of (or can argue and reasoning) any studies done on first amateur young lifters when first starting wight training to see if German Volume training was more beneficial than traditional lifting.

My understanding has always been that GVT is more beneficial for fine tuning muscle and wouldnt necessarily benefit young lifters first getting to the gym, but rather a tool of training developed for experienced older bodies with years of foundational muscle under their belt.
My question more specific is:
Would GVT be a good starter training method for first time lifters? Or sticking to the basics of developing strength first through Bench, squat, and deadlift?
 
There are going to be far more experienced minds chiming in, but I’ll toss in my .02 cents. I’ve seen natural lifters try German volume training and have it backfire, it takes a huge toll on CNS fatigue. I could see that being more harmful than beneficial for teens still developing their HPTA. There’s evidence of over training and chronic CNS fatigue negatively effecting the HPTA and hormonal balance.

I would assume that more standard methods of training would work better to start. I began lifting conjugate in my late teens (17 I believe) and it was hugely beneficial after building a base from training for 5 years or so.

When I was a teenager I got stronger and bigger just from eating enough and looking at some dumbbells. There’s a ton of training methods and I’m willing to bet any number of them would work great! I would just personally avoid more extreme training like German volume, Smolov, etc. until a basis is built.
 
I can tend to over-explain at times so I'll put the TLDR at the start and you can read further if you care more. Short answer no, it probably isn't the best place to start (or even use in general).

We even have a study comparing GVT to 5 sets showing the 5 sets being superior (not going to go to far into specifics for the study unless there are specific questions): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27941492/

You can take that and leave here understanding a less extreme approach and following more "basics" is likely a better approach and not feel you have to read further, but I'll expand on some concerns below.

First, just to make sure we are all on the same page I will be considering GVT as 10 sets of 10 repetitions at roughly 60% of 1rm with 60-90s of rest between sets. Over the years I've seen plenty of "variations" on GVT, usually trying to adjust for certain drawbacks of the approach, so concerns below won't be able to fully cover all of those, but may still be relevant to "variations" in the program.

As noted with the above study too much volume can end up being detrimental, this is an even more appropriate concern for novices (or those newer to training, so important to keep in mind for new trainees). I'd even venture to say there likely would be too much form breakdown (or difficulty maintaining it) under an approach like this with a novice in most cases.

The 10x10 approach probably isn't ideal even for individuals who do have the tolerance to that volume though either. Considering the approach of straight weights across the workout the earlier sets are only really there to build fatigue to make the later sets effective (early sets are too easy to generate much benefit).

The later sets also may end up being too difficult due to the usual shorter rest periods prescribed (metabolic fatigue accumulation becoming a key limiter). 90s is likely better in this scenario, but most prescribed 60s rest as GVT was touted during the times of trying to maximize hormonal responses to training. We now know that isn't generally advisable, both due to the hormone hypothesis never really panning out and generally that longer rest periods tend to produce better results for hypertrophy (broadly).

I could keep nitpicking, but for now I'd say one of the other issues is the emphasis on a single movement for all those sets. Some studies show that exercise variety can improve regional hypertrophy overall and splitting the volume over other movements may allow greater intensity to be maintained through sets. So splitting into 4,3,3 or 3,3,2,2, etc over varying movements likely would have a better effect.

I'll end by saying that doesn't mean anyone should never do GVT, but especially for new trainees I'd advise not to. As a change of pace, to push boundaries (especially mentally), or ironically (since it was touted for hypertrophy) as a capacity increasing approach I could see value (again down the road and not for your younger trainees).

Sorry for the lengthy response! If you need more appropriate recommendations I am sure some more could be provided.
 
For what it's worth, I'm around a lot of athletes powerlifters, bodybuilders and tons of trainers on an almost daily basis and I don't know a single person who talks about German volume training. It's been around forever and it doesn't seem like there's anybody successful who uses it. I do know some people like to throw in 10 sets of 10 as an intensity technique or a way to kill a body part when they're short on time. But doing German volume training as your primary training program I don't think will be very productive for most people. At least not for building muscle, especially if you're someone who has a hard time putting on size in the first place. A German volume training workout is very high intensity and has a significant amount of calories burned which means you're going to need to eat even more food than you usually would
 
jfigliuolo said:
Closest I ever came to puking in the gym
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Yeah that's super high intensity, it's basically cardio with weights lol. I actually think it would be a very good conditioning workout for any athlete looking to boost their muscular endurance and vo2 max. But I still don't think I would follow the program as a whole.
 
Smont said:
For what it's worth, I'm around a lot of athletes powerlifters, bodybuilders and tons of trainers on an almost daily basis and I don't know a single person who talks about German volume training. It's been around forever and it doesn't seem like there's anybody successful who uses it. I do know some people like to throw in 10 sets of 10 as an intensity technique or a way to kill a body part when they're short on time. But doing German volume training as your primary training program I don't think will be very productive for most people. At least not for building muscle, especially if you're someone who has a hard time putting on size in the first place. A German volume training workout is very high intensity and has a significant amount of calories burned which means you're going to need to eat even more food than you usually would
Click to expand...

It got big decades ago because Charles Poliquin was obsessed with it. It got less popular as training methods evolved with more nuance (more and science/studies) and people moved past just trying to copy Eastern Bloc (using that widely as it wasn't only training from there) training programs.
 
Resolve10 said:
It got big decades ago because Charles Poliquin was obsessed with it. It got less popular as training methods evolved with more nuance (more and science/studies) and people moved past just trying to copy Eastern Bloc (using that widely as it wasn't only training from there) training programs.
Click to expand...
I remember in the 90s into the early 2000s even it had a push for popularity but I never realized it was because of Charles poliquin
 
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