German Volume Training - Learn how to create a workout program in the gym to gain muscle mass and increase strength.

In order to train according to the principles of German volume training, you do not need to know German perfectly. You just need to be able to endure the pain.

This is a very painful, effective and completely crazy way to shock your muscles.

German volume training is perfect for athletes who have had a stop in progress for a long time. After these strength training sessions, the stagnation will come to an end.

Basic principles of German volume training

There is nothing complicated in this training program. There are no special developments and unique techniques. German volume training is built on three basic principles:

1. Only one exercise . You only do one exercise per muscle group. And that's it. The choice should be stopped on heavy, basic, multi-component movements. The number of exercises per week is strictly limited, so you can’t make a mistake in choosing an exercise. Only then will you be able to get the most out of your workouts in the gym.
2. 100 repetitions . You will do 10 sets of 10 reps for each exercise. Start working with a weight of 50– 60% of your one-time maximum. You don't have to work to failure. We work almost to failure, this load will be enough. When you can do 10 sets of 10 reps with one weight, slowly increase the weight of the weights - a couple of kilograms each time.
3. Time relax . The break between sets should be approximately 60– 90 seconds. There are also options for completely sadistic schemes like 8 sets of 8 reps with less rest time. But you should not do this: in order to at least slightly restore strength, you need at least 60 seconds. Otherwise, you simply will not be able to work with normal weight. For most exercises, 60 seconds of rest will be sufficient. For heavy energy-intensive exercises like barbell squats, you need a rest of 90 seconds, and sometimes more.

Useful article: The right set of muscle mass - 10 common mistakes

When training in this style, you will almost immediately notice that there is not enough strength for all 10 approaches. Most often this happens with the military bench press and the bench press from behind the head. It is not always possible to complete 10 sets of 10 repetitions with a weight even 20% of the one-time maximum.

Nothing wrong with that. Over time, strength indicators will increase. Work with full dedication in each set. Progress will not be long in coming.

In the first few sets of the exercise, the weight may seem too small for you. Don't be surprised and just keep going. The seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth approaches will be accompanied by unbearable pain. This is the essence of German volume training. At first glance, this seems simple. Even after a couple of working approaches, it seems simple. But after a week of training in this style, you will want to give it all up and forget it forever. It's hard, but it works.

German volume training program

In one week, only three strength training sessions are performed in the gym. It's not small, don't try to train 4– 5 days a week. After training German-style squats, you will hardly be able to squat normally after a week. Therefore, it is not recommended to make any changes to the program below.

In the first workout, we do pushing movements, in the second workout, we do pulling, in the third workout, we swing our legs. The above program is slightly modified compared to the original. The original program was supposed to train the arms and shoulders together, and after three days to load the back and chest. However, with this approach, the hands hurt a lot even three days after the workout. This makes it difficult to qualitatively train the pectoral muscles and back.

The training program looks like this:

• Day 1: pectoral muscles, shoulders, triceps (pressing movements)
• Day 2: relaxation
• Day 3:back, biceps, abs(traction movements)
• Day 4: relaxation
• Day 5:quadriceps, biceps femoris and calf muscles
• Day 6: relaxation
• Day 7: relaxation

The press and calves need to be loaded within 3 sets of 10– 25 repetitions. It makes no sense to torture yourself with working on these muscles according to the 10x10 scheme.

After training the chest and deltoid muscles, the triceps will already be tired. It is also optional to kill him according to the 10x10 scheme. Three sets of 6– 12 repetitions will be enough. But if you are determined to work in the style of German volume training, squeeze out all your strength, but do 10 sets of triceps.

The original German volume training scheme involved only 3 sets of biceps and triceps and no isolated work on the hamstrings. Of course, you can limit yourself to three approaches. But it is better to increase the volume and train your hands according to the 10x10 scheme.

Do what works best for your body.

The biceps of the thigh is also perfect for the 10x10 scheme. If you're still capable of doing some work after 10 sets of squats, hamstring training will finally finish you off.

What exercises are suitable for this training program?

As part of the German volume training, we perform only basic exercises, forget about isolation for this time. The whole program is designed for 4– 6 weeks. Choose the exercises that are right for you from this list:

• pectoral muscles : bench press, push-ups on the uneven bars with additional weights, dumbbell bench press on an incline bench.
• Shoulders: any pressing exercise like bench press from behind the head or dumbbell bench press while sitting.
• Triceps: French bench press and sitting, bench press with a narrow grip.
• Back: bent-over rows, T-bar rows, pull-ups, horizontal block rows.
• Biceps: barbell curl for biceps, concentrated dumbbell curl for biceps.
• Press: sitaps, hanging leg raises.
• Quadriceps: squats, front squats, leg press.
• Biceps femoris: barbell row in an inclination with a reverse grip to the belt, bending the legs while lying and sitting, sumo deadlift.
• Calf muscles: lifting on socks standing or sitting.

Putting theory into practice in the gym

Be prepared for the fact that muscle pain will not leave you. It is not recommended to engage in the style of German volume training more than 4– 6 weeks. After that, take a short break.

The body will need rest. Switch to classic workouts to gain muscle mass.

Give it your all in every set. Repetition after repetition. German volume training is remarkable in that it will help you gain up to 5 kilograms of lean muscle mass in a period of 4– 6 weeks. Just do not forget about proper nutrition and recovery.

Volume training - this is a classic training technique, which was called the "German school", by the way, it was according to this technique that the notorious Austrian oak Arnold Schwarzenegger trained. Volumetric training, in general, has raised generations of bodybuilders, in fact, it is likely that you yourself use or used the once warped methodology of the German school. All this is not surprising, since her father of bodybuilding, Joe Weider, promoted it. Yes, Uncle Joe was selling methods long before the specially trained gurus of modern YouTube. Does the Joe Weider Method Work? Of course, it works, but not for everyone and not always!

Volumetric training is great for beginners, however, not in order to build muscle, but in order to tone them. After you go through the preparatory stage, spend about a year of your life to no avail and begin to realize that you either need to tie up with bodybuilding or change something in your training, high-intensity schemes, such as, for example, will suit you better. « Ukrainian school » . When will you realize the potential of strength training, say, by going through the “Ukrainian School” and « Plintovich » , then you can start volume training. In general, the alternation of high-intensity and high-volume cycles will take a long time, and, most likely, if you are not a professional, then this is exactly what your training plan for a year will look like:

High intensity training - 3 months
Bulk cycle - 1 month
Volume-intensive cycle - 2 months
Subcutaneous fat reduction - 2 months
Volume-intensive cycle - 1 month
Strength training - 2 months
Bulk cycle - 1 month

It is clear that within each macrocycle there will be microcycles, but still, each period will be fundamentally different, both in terms of goals and training methodology. Firstly, you will use different relative intensities, if during power cycles the intensity can reach up to 90-95% of the 1RM (personal maximum), then during the volume cycle the intensity will be approximately 60-70%. The RFR (number of lifts) per workout will be significantly higher during volume cycles, resulting in a much higher tonnage. But the key factor is still not even the training methodology itself, but the method of progression of loads.

Volume training = volumetric progress

The point is that we have always grows what we train , and volume training allows, like no other, to develop strength performance. Strength performance is determined by the development of muscle energy supply due to glycogen. In general, to simplify for understanding, there are 3 ways to supply muscles with energy: due to creatine, due to glycogen and due to lactic acid. The first two refer to anaerobic methods of energy supply, and the third to aerobic, during which oxygen is involved in the process of energy supply. Why is it beneficial for us to develop glycolysis? The fact is that the muscle cells that make up the muscles, adapting to volumetric loads, will accumulate glycogen, and this is what will give them the appropriate volume.

What conditions must be met for glycolysis to occur? It is necessary to keep the muscles under load for 30-45 seconds! That is why the optimal number of repetitions in the approach during volume training is the number 10. But it is important to note that you should not achieve “failure” for these 10 repetitions, because you have to rest 30-90 seconds and proceed to the next approach. Accordingly, the question arises, how many approaches should there be per workout? This is an individual moment, which depends on fitness, because Jay Cutler can do 20-25 working sets per workout and this will be normal for him, and you will drive yourself into overtraining!

We recommend that you start with 10 sets for large muscle groups and 6 for small ones. That is why the best split for volumetric training is: chest-back, legs, shoulders-arms. Thus, for the first workout you will complete 20 sets, for the second 25, and for the third 18. All this will take you no more than 40 minutes along with the warm-up, and this is important, because if you stretch the workout for an hour or two, then it will lose all meaning! Good , let's say you have chosen exercises for yourself and started to engage in volumetric training, how can you now increase the load? And for this you can use the following methods:

1. Increase the working weight on the bar.
2. Increase the number of approaches per workout.
3. Reduce rest time between sets.

Each of these methods deserves attention, each can be used, not to mention such ways to increase the volume and intensity of training as supersets, dropsets, forced repetitions and other super moves. In practice, you are advised to reduce the rest time between sets by 5 seconds each week until you reach a rest of 60 seconds between sets with a weight of 60% of the max, after which you should move on to increasing the weight on the bar, while not increasing the time. rest between sets. Sets should be added every week so that by the end of the cycle you have reached 14 sets for large muscle groups and up to 10 for small ones.

Beginners who come to the gym are sure that the more work they do in a workout, the faster the muscles will grow. They do a lot of exercises, a lot of sets and a lot of reps, but the results just slow down. More is not always better. But volume training with a lot of sets and repetitions can be very effective, the main thing is to use it correctly.

Volume training is a bodybuilding classic

In the early days of bodybuilding, volume training was the main concept for everyone, because it simply had no alternatives. The principle "The more the better" was taken for granted. Athletes spent two to three hours in the gym every day, doing a lot of exercises, doing a lot of sets and a lot of reps. Moreover, at that time there were no splits, the whole body was pumped in one workout, and only a few divided classes into two parts, pumping the top and their bodies on different days.

Despite the fact that with this approach the body did not have time to fully recover, for some athletes high-volume training gave impressive results. One of these athletes was the idol of millions Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is believed that it is thanks to him that this method of training has become so popular.

Advantages and disadvantages of volume training

Periodic use of volume training can be beneficial, because it will build not only muscles, but also energy reserves. Our body is known to adapt to loads, and if it increases muscle tissue in response to heavy weights, then in response to a high amount of load, it will begin to store more glycogen.

However, the performance of large amounts of work exhausts the body and requires a long recovery - you can not train in volume and often at the same time. Full recovery in a short time is impossible without the use of prohibited pharmacology. So do not think that the methods of great athletes will work for you, because many of them used doping to achieve results.

Method 10 sets

Realizing that volume training is a direct path to overtraining, most athletes have stopped using it. But in 1996, coach Charles Poliquin, who trained a whole galaxy of Olympic medalists and world record holders in 17 different sports, revived the concept of high volume, calling it German volume training, since the idea was borrowed from the German weightlifting team coach Rolf Feser.

He suggested training one muscle with just one exercise, but doing 10 sets of 10 reps with the same weight, resting between sets for just a minute. In one workout, Poliquin suggests working out two muscle groups, and these should be antagonist muscles, for example, chest-back. You can train them with a superset, that is, performing alternate approaches of one and the second exercise, in this case, the rest time can be increased to 1.5-2 minutes. It is very important that the intervals between sets are the same.

The weight of the burden with such a program will be much less than the working one. According to Poliquin's calculations, it should be about 60% of your 1-rep max. The bottom line is that the last tenth approach should be done already in failure. If you have not reached failure in the tenth approach, then the next time you need to increase the weight by 2-5 kg.

The 10-set method shocks the muscles and forces the body to adapt to extremely high stress by hypertrophying targeted muscle fibers. According to Poliquin, in six weeks, weight gain can reach 4.5 kg, even for experienced athletes. It should be borne in mind that it will take longer to rest between workouts with such a scheme and it should last no more than 6 weeks, after which it is necessary to switch to a more intensive program.

German volume training is only suitable for athletes with at least a year of serious training experience - at least 150 hours of work and a set of at least 10 kilograms of pure muscle mass.

The athlete must have experience in performing at least five sets in one exercise and experience in performing sets of 10-20 repetitions.

If you are used to doing 3 sets per exercise or have always preferred to work for strength up to 5 reps per set, then German volume training will be a real shock for your body and especially for your heart.

I never tire of reminding my clients of the word “working out”. It is better to first slowly accustom the body to do 10 sets per exercise without regard to time, and only then test your body in German volume training.

Have you ever tried doing 5 sets of 10 reps with a minute of rest? Do you know how to do exercises for 20 times? For example, can you do 20 pull-ups?

If you can pull yourself up 20 times, then you can taste the German volume training.

Can you pull up more than 20 times? How long have you been training? Write a comment.

The birth of German volume training

German volume training has its roots in Germany. It began to be promoted by the weightlifters of the German national team Rolf Feder in the mid-70s of the twentieth century.

Legs are very important in weightlifting. And among his students began to appear champions with big legs. Everyone began to ask why the legs are so big and Rolf began to tell how he trains weightlifters in the offseason to gain mass.

Which muscles do you prioritize in training, and which ones lag behind in your body? Write a comment.

In the bar, coordination and neuromuscular conduction are important. But it is better to develop coordination and conductivity on good muscle volumes. And Rolf found that increasing training volume promotes muscle growth.

Volume training in weightlifting

Usually weightlifters do 5-8 sets of 3-4 repetitions in one exercise.

We always did 4 exercises of 8 sets of 3-4 reps. In total, we gained about 100 lifts during the workout.

NOT and cycles

Experts recommend doing volumetric training in micro or mesocycles. Rumor has it that someone at volume training gained 4-5 kilograms of the purest muscles in just 2-3 weeks. (It is normal to gain 4-5 kilograms of muscle in one year in the second year of training)

Experts recommend alternating German volumetric training with rejected training.

I do not recommend training too little. You can play with volume and within thirty percent, but not three hundred. For example, volume training involves training a muscle group once every five days, and denied every twenty. To train a muscle every 3 weeks is too little, even if it is very high.

How often do you train a muscle group and why? Write a comment.

Split in german volume training

Experts believe that German volumetric training, unlike a failure tripod, is not highly intense, although the load is selected so that failure occurs within 100 repetitions, unlike failure training, one muscle group can not rest for 3 weeks after one workout, but only 5 days.

In general, refusal in bodybuilding is a subjective term. Sometimes I use a heart rate monitor in strength training and it shows how much my muscles burn. This adds objectivity to conversations about rejection.

What do you understand by denial? Write a comment.

A typical split in German volume training looks like this:

Day 1 chest, back
Day 2 legs, press
Day 3 Rest
Day 4 arms, deltas, forearms, trapezium
Day 5 Rest
Day 6 Beginning of a new cycle.

Please note that the training cycle is five-day and is not tied to the days of the week, so supporters of German volume training, if possible, should not have weekdays and weekends, work and family. You remember that our weightlifting training had days of rest on the days of the week, because everyone studied, worked and lived with families.

Are your training plans tied to the days of the week? Write a comment.

Variant of the German volume training by Charles Poliquin

You see only two four exercises per workout and a total of 26 sets.

Rest 90 seconds between supersets. 60 seconds between sets.

The pace of movements in super series is 4-0-2-0. For four seconds, the weight is lowered and the rest (0 sec) is lifted for 2 seconds. Then without delay (0 sec) it goes down again.

In the auxiliary movements, the weight is lowered for 3 seconds instead of two.

The second option according to Poliquin looks like this:

Also 4 exercises and 26 approaches. Rest is the same 60 and 90 seconds.

The pace of the exercises is very slow: 5-0-10-0 for basic exercises and 3-0-10-0 for auxiliary exercises.

The weight of the weight is selected so that the athlete can perform 12 repetitions in one approach.

Now you understand why sometimes big muscles are dumb muscles - slower muscles. To increase volume, you need to slow down the pace. Muscle volume can compete with muscle speed. This is important to know for those who want to be Bruce Lee and Schwarzenegger at the same time.

Important Findings

10 sets per exercise is a good load on the muscles, which gives a tangible effect.
6-10 reps per set is a good amount of reps. More repetitions - boring, less - the risk of overloading the ligaments and joints.

The pace of 0-4-0-2 allows you to create a sufficiently long tension in the muscles, which allows you to load even experienced athletes in exercises with your body. Even masters of strength training will get tired of 10 sets of regular pull-ups of 10 repetitions, when each lift lasts more than 6 seconds with no rest between lifts.

An example of my program, taking into account new knowledge about German volume training

It's simple: three exercises, 120 sets, 1200 lifts.

To regulate the load in different exercises in 10 repetitions, you can play at a pace. Easy to do - slow down. If you try to go down on one leg for 10 reps for 10 sets of 10 seconds, as Poliquin recommended, then I don't envy your quads.

I did 120 sets and 1200 lifts a week. Try it too.

Attention: before starting the application of the technique is required.

Everything that will be written below relates to high-volume training. A classic volume training is a large number of sets with the number of repetitions of 8-15 in each of them. If you read an article by your humble servant on German volume training, then you probably remember that in this variation, which is just considered a classic, the selection of sets ...

Everything that will be written below relates to high-volume training. A classic volume training is a large number of sets with the number of repetitions of 8-15 in each of them. If you have read an article by your humble servant on German volumetric training, then you probably remember that in this variant, which is just considered classic, the selection of sets and repetitions in the exercise is based on the formula “10x10”, that is, 10 sets of 10 repetitions in each set. At the same time, it has been proven that as the athlete adapts to the training loads, that is, as the athlete’s training experience grows, increasing the working weights and reducing the number of repetitions in each of the sets will bring more benefits. What, at this stage, is it worth abandoning volumetric training? Not at all - and for trained athletes, volume training is one of the most effective tools for gaining muscle mass. You just need to make adjustments to it. These adjustments will concern exactly the number of repetitions in the set.

What makes muscles grow

I have already written about the mechanisms of muscle growth, but, following a well-known Russian proverb, I will repeat them again. So, the muscle can grow due to:

• hypertrophy, which is the response of the muscle to an ultra-high load;
• increase in the number of capillaries in the muscle;
• increasing its ability to store energy components (and not only), both inside and outside the cell. These components include: glycogen, creatine, fat, water;
• finally, muscle growth is also observed due to hyperplasia of muscle fibers, that is, an increase in their number.

This is, of course, a short, simplified summary of the mechanisms of muscle growth, in fact, everything looks much more complicated. In this case, something else is important - whatever this mechanism is, to a large extent its effectiveness depends on how many muscle fibers can be involved in the work. It is clear that the more fibers will be involved in the course of training, the more significant muscle growth will be.

Volumetric and "failure" training

Mike Mentzer, and before him Arthur Jones and Ellington Darden, put muscle "failure" at the forefront of the training process. It was the achievement of muscle failure that was considered by them as a measure of the intensity of training and a necessary condition for muscle growth. I will not now touch on the criticism of the Jones-Mentzer theory - this is the topic of a separate and very voluminous article, let me just note that "failure" is a very subjective concept and it can occur in one single exercise long before the muscles get enough for them growth load (mental "failure" occurs much earlier than the physical). Moreover, studies show that during "failure" training, a very small number of muscle fibers are involved in the work.

Volume training is an attempt to "recruit" the maximum number of muscle fibers by increasing the total amount of work. In addition, such an increase allows you to almost completely deplete glycogen in the target muscle group, which ultimately leads to an increase in the ability of this muscle group to store glycogen and other energy components (as you remember, one of the conditions for muscle growth). The intensity of volume training is low - increasing it by introducing “failure” techniques into volume training will very quickly lead to catastrophic overtraining.

What is the optimal number of repetitions

As your training age grows, so does the number of repetitions that you can master when working with a weight that is, for example, 75% of your one-time maximum (RM). If a novice athlete can do 20 repetitions with a weight equal to 75% of his RM, then for an “advanced” athlete this figure drops to 8-10 repetitions, and for an experienced one - to 4-5 repetitions. This is due to the increase in the one-time maximum, and forces experienced athletes to either go down the path of working weights, or try to build mass using a small number of repetitions.

The latter path, if applied head-on, can lead to stagnation in the growth of muscle mass - the total number of repetitions may not be enough to achieve the “pump”, which, according to Christian Thibodeau, is an indicator of the effectiveness of involving muscle fibers in work, which means - a necessary condition for muscle growth. Representatives of powerlifting can serve as an indirect confirmation of this thesis - the training programs of most of them, built on the use of a small number of sets and repetitions per set, give good increases in strength indicators, but very rarely in muscle volume. Do not forget about such an indicator as rest between sets - what kind of “pump” can we talk about if you rest for 3-5 minutes, or even more.

Rules for constructing volumetric training with a lot of weight

1. Volume training with heavy weights should not be addressed frequently. Although experts recommend taking a break between two workouts of the same muscle group for about 5 days, in my opinion, a muscle group should not rest for at least 7-8 days. During this period, this group can be subjected to light - maintenance - training.

2. In one workout, you should not load more than two muscle groups using this method. Sometimes one is more than enough.

3. You should not do more than one exercise per muscle group (usually a basic one), using the volume training method with a lot of weight. You can then “finish off” the muscle group with two or three sets of isolation exercises.

4. In no case should you include “high-intensity” (more precisely, “failure”) techniques (forced and negative repetitions, drop sets, etc.) in your workout.

5. When training using the volume training method with heavy weights, special attention should be paid to nutrition and rest (however, this never hurts to do).

Methods for building the training process

Below will be given only three methods for building a training process based on the principle of volumetric training. All of them relate specifically to training with a lot of weight and a small number of repetitions in a set. In fact, there are many more such techniques, with some effort, you yourself can create something similar.

Method "10x3"

The authorship of the method belongs to the physiologist Chad Waterbury. According to the author, when using the method, the maximum number of fast-twitch fibers (type IIA and IIB) is involved in the work. As for slow-twitch fibers (type I), Waterbury neglects them, considering their growth potential to be very insignificant. Well, for people with a predominance of fast-twitch fibers, this is true.

The essence of the method is clear from its name: ten sets of exercises (preferably basic) are performed with three repetitions in each set. The weight of the weight is chosen so that you can do 5-6 repetitions. Rest between sets - 1-2 minutes (it is advisable to focus on the first digit). The pace of the exercise is 20X (lower in two counts, do not hold the weight in the lower position, raise it as quickly as possible).

The method will work well if your 1-rep max is high enough (at least 150-160kg in the bench press, about 200kg in the squat). Otherwise, the applied efforts may not be enough for good muscle stimulation. The method is not intended for training small muscle groups.

Method "Russian Bear" Pavel Tsatsoulina

But the essence of this method from its name is not possible to understand. And she is.

Choose a weight with which you can do 6-7 reps with extreme tension. Perform a set of five reps with this weight. Rest for 5 minutes (I usually can’t rest for five minutes, you can also safely reduce the rest time to three minutes). Reduce the weight by 10% and do another set of five reps. Rest two minutes. Reduce the weight of the weight by another 10%. From this moment the torture begins.

Do sets of five repetitions, resting no more than one minute between them, until you can master only 4 repetitions in the next set. This will be the signal to end the exercise.

This method is a truly unique development of a world famous specialist in strength training. Although it just does not give an increase in strength, it is possible to achieve quick and very significant increases in the volume of large muscle groups. The method has been tried for forced development of the muscles of the legs and chest, but it is also very well suited for pumping the back. As for small muscle groups, it is still difficult to say something concrete here.

The 5x5 Rest-Pause Method

The essence of the method. Choose a weight that is approximately 90% of your one-time maximum (that is, one that you can only handle 2-3 reps with). Do one rep, return the weight to the racks and rest for 10-12 seconds. Do the next repetition. Bring the number of repetitions to five. Rest three minutes and move on to the next set of five reps. In total, you should do five such sets in a workout.

This method, of course, is most suitable for increasing strength indicators, but it is also possible to achieve significant muscle hypertrophy when using it. True, in terms of performance in this regard, it is somewhat inferior to the first two methods.