Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1632: The Truth About German Volume Training

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover the pros & cons of German Volume Training.  Why are the MAPS programs so effective? (1:45) Mind Pump Programming Breakdowns, Volume 1: German Volume Training (GVT). (5:23) The principles of GVT. (6:55) GVT’s focus on practicing the skill. (13:31) Why rest periods determine a pure strength focus. (18:21) An effective versus non-effective workout. (22:13) Can you add accessory exercises/lifts? (27:10) How many times should you train each body part? (31:46) The value of switching up the tempo. (37:35) The cons of GVT. (40:41) Related Links/Products Mentioned September Promotion: MAPS Performance and MAPS Suspension 50% off!   **Promo code “SEPTEMBER50” at checkout** Visit Drink LMNT for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! The Truth About German Volume Training – Mind Pump Podcast Stop Working Out And Start Practicing – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1612: Everything You Need To Know About Sets, Reps & Rest Periods How Do I Choose The Right Weight? (LIFT RESPONSIBLY) - Mind Pump TV How Many Times Per Week Should You Train Each Muscle Group? - Mind Pump Blog Build Your Triceps with Angles – Mind Pump TV Build Your Biceps with Angles – Mind Pump TV Why Won’t My Arms Grow? - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we actually did a review of another workout program, so German volume training, very popular workout program. It's been around forever.

And we actually borrowed lots of the principles of this program. And many other effective programs to design are maps workouts. So we actually break it down. We break down GVT training. Do some critiques, give you the pros and the cons. We know you're going to love this episode.

Now, this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, LMNT. Now, they are an electrolyte powder done right. It's got the right amount of sodium, the right amount of magnesium, the right amount of potassium, and it tastes amazing, and it's not artificially flavored, and I get better pumps and better performance when I use this product. Compare the electrolytes to LMT to other electrolyte powders and you'll see there's a huge difference. Also because you listen to Mind Pump, you could try it out for free. So head over to drinklmnt.com

forward slash Mind Pump, just pay for shipping and get a free sample pack of their product. Also, all month long, all month long for the month of September, maps, performance, and maps, suspension are 50% off. Go sign up or go just go check them out at mapsfitinusproducts.com. Just use the code September 50, that September 50 with no space for that discount. You know, one of the most, I'd say, with no space for that discount. You know, one of the most, I'd say, common messages that we get, emails.

There'll be a lot of emails, right, from people who follow our programs. They have questions or they make comments. And a common one, of course, and not to tutor on horn, but I'm going to do it right now anyway, is about just how effective the workouts are. And oh my gosh, I'm getting great results. And this works as well. Yeah, no Not that specifically, but really just how effective the workouts are and it's because we're geniuses No, that's not why the reason why they're so effective and this is what I tell these people

Is that we it's not like we invented You know workouts or what's effective, but rather we stand on the shoulders of giants. There are lots of effective programs that have been out there. Some of them came from the weightlifting world or the powerlifting world, sometimes even bodybuilding principles. They've been around for a long time and they've shown incredible effectiveness. Of course, we've trained people for so long that we see what works and what doesn't work,

and that's how we're able to put our programs together and make them so effective. Well, I think it's just that. It's between the three of us, there's not too many, especially good programs out there that exist that one of us, if not all of us, has either one trained ourselves right about and or applied to lots of clients, you know, a good pull of people so that we could then test

and see like, oh, this works very well. Oh, this doesn't work well or, oh, I felt this different. So I didn't notice that or, oh, this makes a lot of sense. And so I think that's, I mean, that's really where, that's where maps is, maps maps is maps has been is been born From all of that experience all that knowledge of others well before us because nothing that we Created any of those programs is revolutionary or new in fact That's actually one of the biggest critiques that we always have to deal with when we when we get people the first thing They do if they open it and they're used to fancy programs that have weird exercises and are unique,

that are like, wait a second, these are like the most fundamental movements. I already know all these. These are the things that we've experimented with all those new concepts and a lot of the, flash of the pan type of things and come through and realize like the efficacy of those things. You go, always go back to those fundamental principles that you get from specific types of programming

from the strength world, from the body building world, that actually work with your clients, so like, just stick to the basics. Yeah, and they stand the test of time, right? And one of the cool things about, you know, because we're all old enough to remember the fitness world before the internet and after the internet. And there's been some changes.

One of the changes with the internet is you get lots of people can come together and communicate, well, this works and this doesn't work. And so old training methods or programs, which in the fitness space that was dominated by magazines, oftentimes we'd get hit in because the magazines, there was no, they didn't make any money promoting some of these basic things.

Like why would they, why would they even promote them? They're not gonna be able to sell supplements with them or whatever, but when the internet came along and you got fitness forums and stuff, people were like, you know, this old training method, I tried it and it works. Someone else was like, oh my God, this is really effective. And you see some of these stand the test of time. And so what I'd like to do,

and I don't know if this will become a series, but I'd like to kind of cover some of these programs that are actually really good, and that some of the concepts in program that we applied in maps came from some of these old programs that we kind of learn from. I love this idea. So the first one, and this is a popular training program,

it's been around for a long time, I can remember certain body builders talking about borrowing concepts from this particular type of training in the 80s, in particular, this program is called German volume training, or GVT is how you'll see people refer to it. And we've actually gotten over the years quite a few questions about gvt's top five i'd say it's top five that we get asked about like what we what we think about this program yeah and i i remember the first time that i

i i went through it and i never like i never bought a program or a book that would and i followed gvt like i remember reading all about the principles behind it and like going like, oh, at this point in my career, a lot of the stuff made a lot of sense. I'm like, oh, this is cool. So I've always applied the principles of GVT, and I've had great results from it. So it's definitely up there with one of my favorite programs outside of maps that's out there on the internet.

Yeah, and I'd like to break it down. Now obviously I think it originated in Germany. I first did GVT years ago. I think I was like 19 years old and I read about it. And I can't remember what bodybuilder talked about applying some of the principles. And I thought, this is so simple and basic. And then I thought, well, I wonder if something simple

and basic like this can have some good effects I have a lot of experience with GVT actually applied a lot of the principles Throughout the years in my training and some of my clients training. So let's kind of run down the the principles of of GVT German volume training and you know the pros and cons I guess of each of them and why you know why we borrowed some of these volume training and the pros and cons, I guess, of each of them and why we borrowed some of these concepts. So the first part of GVT, if you ever follow German volume training, one of the things you'll notice is that there's a heavy emphasis on fundamental primary movement. Yeah, handful of exercises.

Yeah, it's like many other ones. There's a lot of focus on squats and dead lifts and overhead presses and bench presses and rows. Just some of these basic exercises that we've talked about so many times on the show as being the most bang for your buck exercise. There's just so effective at building strength and muscle in comparison to other exercises. Which by the way, this is the critique that we get about maps. This is one of the first thing, I remember when we released Maps and a Bog,

that we did. Especially Maps and a Bog. Because Maps and a Bog has mostly this. This is what it is built around. The whole thing is really built around these core compound lifts that give you the biggest bang for your buck. And the idea for us,

and that's why it's the first program is listen, if we're getting somebody who is either one, never lifted or has been out of the gym for a long time and they're starting their routine, these are the core movements that they should build their entire routine on and it should stay that way. Like this should be the core. Now there's lots of value of going outside of that down the road, but they definitely don't ever want

to stray too far from these movements because they'll forever reap benefits from it. I, the first time I figured this out, I was a kid working out, wanted to build muscle, and I was one of the few people my age who actually thought that I should train my legs. I know a lot of guys when you start working out, you don't even think about working out your legs,

it's not beach muscles, but I want to work out my legs because I was just, I was skinny all over, and I knew I'd gain more weight if I did that. So I did leg press and hack squat and leg extension and leg curls and every leg machine in the gym. And I did, I got some gains and I gained some strength and it was okay.

And then, and I talk about the story because this was just so impactful. I was in there working out and I'm doing leg press and I am intense man, I am a kid and I'm going after it. And there was this group of older power lifters and they were squatting. And the whole leg workout, right? So my whole leg workout took an hour,

and I did, I don't know, seven different exercises. All they did was squat. And these guys were jacked. There were some of the biggest dudes I'd ever seen in person in my entire life. And they noticed me because the intensity that I was applying, just like I do now is an adult. You see a kid working out really hard, you know what I'm gonna go over it?

That's the way the kid I go over and say something to you. Yeah, I'm like, oh, that's great, you know, they're putting so much effort. So one of the guys comes over and he's like, man, what you're really going hard, what's your goal? I'm trying to get big and he goes, why aren't you in the cage?

Like, why should I be in the cage? He goes, just squat, just do squats. So he goes, here, come over here. Let me have you do some squats and see how you feel. And I did, it was the first time I ever did them. Why should I be in the cage? He goes, just squat, just do squats. He goes, here, come over here. Let me have you do some squats and see how you feel. And I did, it was the first time I ever did them. And he said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to focus only on squats for a long time

and watch what happens. That summer, there's no joke. And that was, I also did deadlifts. That was the first time I did deadlifts as well. That summer I gained 12 pounds, which is a lot of weight for squatting deadlifts. Oh yeah, it was like a 16 year old kid. I remember I think, or is a lot of weight for like squatting deadlift. Oh yeah, I was like a 16 year old kid.

I remember I think, or 15, I went from sophomore to junior year and I showed up and everybody's like, what happened to you? And that's the first time that I learned that some extra, not all exercises are created equal. And I could do four exercises and they would not equal the effectiveness of this one super effective exercise. Speaking to from like an athletic perspective, and in the athletic world,

I feel like it really shifted away from these fundamental type of chord lifts that really generate the most amount of force, which I think athletes have, you know, unfortunately straight away from because of the coaching and the programming, because of this myth around like being muscle bound and being too big and not being as functional. And really where this applies, these basic type of exercises do the best job of building

overall strength in comparison to a lot of the functional exercise, athletic specificity type of exercises, which was really what the athlete pulls from and then builds upon. So if you don't build upon this core foundational strength, you're not gonna be at that peak level that you could achieve. Well, this is so core, it's so important that quickly I'll dismiss another program that somebody wants me to look at when I see this is missing. Totally. Like, I don't even easy. I don't even need to read the whole fucking thing. If you hand me the first couple days and

working out and practicing these lifts off of it. And these are in there or one, maybe it's in there out of all and like the rest is all these creative exercises that they have got that they put in there or different, you know, right away. I will tell somebody this person doesn't know a lot about programming because they're missing some of the biggest bang for your buck movements. And so to me, that's one of the quickest ways to be able to look at a program and know, okay. And so, and then the same is true that if I see that they have these in there, okay, now I'm intrigued.

I'm going to read further. I'm going to read deeper into this programming because if they already built it around the core, I already know they're ahead of like 90% of the programs that are out there on the internet. So. Exactly. In fact, every program that people talk about by name as being effective muscle builders,

not like, oh, bodybuilders work out. The ones that people always mention, this one of the things that all have in common, is they do place a special emphasis on these core lifts and this is one big thing that you find in the maps programs is they focus, I don't care which program of ours you follow and they're all very different, all of them this is one component is that there's core lifts in there that you focus on because they just, they just give you the most. And I think it's important to the audience to, like like as being completely transparent, I mean, as a young kid and trainer even,

I straight away from that, for many years, it wasn't until way later that I come back in and really, and apply it to so many clients. We talk about on the show a lot of time about, we were better to our clients than we were ourselves with training because I fell in that trap of doing all these crazy exercises on time and collecting these core movements.

It wasn't until way later in my career, it wasn't actually long before we all met that I was just piecing it together. And it was the big selling point when you had me look at MAP Santa Block when you and Doug had already put it together and you said, hey, could you take a look at this? And that was what got me on the phone.

Was I said, at that point in my career, I had really just pieced that together. Like, this is a program should be built around this. And I remember opening up and being like, oh my god, okay, I want to talk to him on the phone. Now, the next point about German volume training is probably the most characteristic, you know, feature of this program. This is probably what people know the most about it, which is doing 10 sets of 10 reps of many of these primary exercises.

That's really the big, like what differentiates German volume training from other forms of training. By the way, German volume training probably borrowed that from Olympic lifting, okay? Because if you look at Olympic lifting, which I've made this argument before and I'll make it all day long. The most scientific strength training programming

you'll find anywhere in the world is Olympic lifting because it's been in the Olympics, they treat it as a skill and it's something that you need to practice continuously. And that's like an added value of what they're promoting with this program is just that amount of sets, that amount of reps, like really honing in on that movement skill. Yes.

And I think that's the key takeaway that we obviously all of us picked up from that. Now, we apply ours more with frequency and maps, right? So, but we take that same concept and that's what we talk about on the show all time is that it's the practice of the movement that is so valuable. Now they've, and I love the idea,

and I love doing this with somebody, especially I love doing this with clients that were new because I wanted to get them good at squatting, I wanted to get them good at deadlifting, and nothing better than to just stay focused on that one movement for 20 plus minutes or 30 minutes of the workout, that's all we're doing. Because it's gonna take at least that much time

if you're doing 10 sets of this exercise. Something that people forget, and this is a big mistake. It's a mistake I made, I think everybody makes until you become very experienced, is that you look at workouts and you forget that it's a skill. Like, if I play a sport, no, everybody knows a sport is a skill. Like you play any sport and people realize

that the exertion and the sweat and the soreness is secondary. Really the primary thing is there's a skill involved. Football is football because there's a skill to throwing and catching and running and the way that you operate in the sport. Same thing with basketball. Soccer, all of them make you, you know, sweat, all of them make you burn calories. But what makes soccer soccer and football football and basketball basketball is this skill, right?

All of a sudden, you go to the gym and it's all at the window. It has nothing to do with skill. It's all about hammering my legs, hammering my shoulders. It's about getting through it. It's about soreness and sweat. You see this with running. People do this with running all the time.

They say, oh, I'm gonna start getting a better shape. I'm gonna go run, forgetting that running is a skill. And so what do they do? They go and run until they're tired. Form is crap, terrible biomechanics, and this is why running has one of the highest injury rates of all forms of exercise. It's not because humans weren't made to run. In fact, we evolved to run, where the best running animals on the planet when it comes

to distance, but it's a skill. And if you forget that skill and you don't treat it like a skill, getting better at it, you're gonna hurt yourself, it's not gonna be effective. The same thing with exercise. How do you get better at a skill? You practice it often. So if I wanna go in the gym and I'm gonna work out and I wanna do, I'm gonna work my legs out

and I know the best exercises squats, and I should get good at squats. So instead of doing two sets of, two sets of a bunch of different exercises, what if I did 10 sets of just squats, right? You get better at squats very quickly and you get a lot of that return from the squats. This is again one of the most characteristics things about German volume training.

And I think this is one of the primary reasons why when people try it, they're like, oh my gosh, I get tremendous gains. What was borrowed in maps? Adam, you hit the nail on the head. You practice those primary lifts often. You do more sets of squats, deadlifts, presses, and rows in a maps program than you do of any other exercise. And the way that it's presented in maps is rather than doing 10 sets, you may do five sets, but you're doing it three days a week, 15 sets in that entire week. And again, this was borrowed from Olympic lifters. I think this was after the Soviet Union collapsed.

We started learning about their training methodologies, and you saw these Olympic lifters practicing over and over and over again, and just getting so good. Well, you get strong quickly doing it. You show me a person who eats well and can perform those five main lifts with beautiful form and I'll show you a great physique. Almost always, right? If they eat well and that's pretty relative to it, it doesn't need to be perfect. Just they eat good, they don't eat like an asshole, right?

And they don't abuse food and eat well over their calories and their balance and eat their protein like they're supposed to, that person, and if they have a beautiful squat, a beautiful deadlift, a beautiful shoulder press, I will show you a great physique. Show me somebody where those two things are at and the present, and they don't have a beautiful physique. I will stand by that statement all day long.

All right, so one of the other characteristics of German-volute training, and this isn't necessarily different from other programming, but they do place an emphasis on 90 second rest periods in between sets of these primary lifts. So if you're doing 10 sets,

you're doing a set, you're resting 90 seconds, you're doing another set, and so on. They do say 60 seconds for what a cold accessory lifts were to like more of your isolation lifts, but otherwise they do place an emphasis on about 90 seconds. I'll tell you where that's very different. This was one of the things we talked about assessing a program pretty quick and then dismissing it.

This was one of the things that made me dismiss CrossFit so fast was because they didn't put emphasis on longer rest periods with these compound lifts. That is one of the things, and I think that's actually a very important staple point that they make in this programming is that when you're doing these compound lifts, you should be getting adequate rest. Could you do it in 30 seconds back to back? Yeah, you could. Would that build a gas tank and stamina by from doing that? Sure. But then it defeats the-

The rep-period determines a pure strength focus. Right. It does. And that's something that, yeah, you have to have that emphasis on that in order to adapt properly in that direction. Otherwise we're convoluting that signal to the body and we're fighting the fact that is this endurance, is this strength, I'm trying to kind of adapt to both at the same time. Now the major difference between GVT here and like maps is that we play with all the respirators. Yes.

So we see there's tremendous value in lower rest periods and even longer rest periods. And then the body is going to adapt to whatever rest period that you're doing on a regular basis. And we know that phasing in and out of that is even more value to that person. That's the, so you're kind of moving towards is the Achilles heel of any effective workout, which is eventually, even how well programmed it is if you always do it over and over again, it stops working. So speaking to rest periods, they're, you know, generally speaking, 90 seconds is a good

rest period, but that doesn't mean there isn't value to a 30 second rest period and that doesn't mean there isn't value to a 30 second rest period and that doesn't mean there isn't value to a three minute rest period. Sure. So it's important to incorporate all of those in your programming. So what you find in maps, programs, and one of the reasons why we have, we created so many different maps, programs is specifically so people can move from one to the next one. And then what you experience is 90 second rest periods, three minute rest periods, 30 second rest periods, along with variations in the way exercises are put together

and reps and all that stuff. So that rest period recommendations good, especially with this type of training, and I'll say from experience by the way, 10 sets of 10 reps, 90 seconds does not feel like you're going to go as fast. Yes, it does. It's actually, it does kind of hammer your stamina a little.

But also you need that adequate rest to be able to then perform your next set, right? And to be able to do that with good form and technique. And so like that, that's another factor to that where you don't want to just jump back into that exercise with any bit of fatigue. I kind of feel like they had to do 90 seconds, right? Because obviously even longer rest periods for a strength focused program would be even more ideal, generally speaking,

but you extend a program that's built around 10 by 10 and you do two minute, three minute rest, imagine how long the workout's going on. Yeah, it's a long workout. Yeah, now you got a three hour workout and so I think 90 seconds is probably the minimum amount of rest that you'd want to give this type of training or the maximum.

Yeah, right. And so I think that's, and because you go much longer than it's going to extend the program out. Oh yeah, these workouts actually take a while. They don't look like it because there's one exercise. You're too, you're doing that. That's right.

So I can dance it down to the biggest bang for your bike. Actually, if you do two, just two of these foundational movements in a workout, you're doing it's 20 sets. Yeah. So it's a long work. It does. Here's the next point. This is where people get confused. And this is where I messed up the first few times I tried German volume training. And then I went back and corrected this. And this is the difference between this kind of workout not being effective and this kind of workout being very effective. Here's the key. You only add weight to the bar if you can perform all 10 reps on all sets by ever going to failure.

And by the way you don't go to failure. So they do advocate stopping about two reps short of failure. You've heard us say that a billion times, you'll see that in every single maps program, you'll also see in every maps program that we give you a rep range. And you have to adjust your weight because the goal is to stay in that rep range. So here's what happens when you try German volume training.

You go to do your 10 by 10, and inevitably you miscalculate. Yeah, you think I'm gonna pick a weight that I could easily do 10 to 15 reps, which you're not factoring in as set 6, 7, 8, 9, you're gonna be fatigued and you're gonna have to start. I normally tell people half. So if you got a weight, if you got a weight

that you know you can move 10 times relatively easy, easily get to 10, you know you can get 10 times relatively easily, easily get to 10, you know you can get 10 right now cold or whatever. 50% of that. Yeah, start there because you're gonna be surprised when you get to set 7, 8, and 9 that you're gonna be struggling to get 10. I actually remember a workout where I did this.

I said, oh, I'm gonna do this with dead lifts. I'm gonna do 10 by 10 with dead lifts. And I picked a weight that I thought I should be able to do 10, right? It wasn't 50%, right? So I didn't think to myself, pick a way I could do 20 with. I thought, I could do like 15. That should be good for all 10 sets. And it was one of the most, it was one of those workouts

that you remember because it set me back like two weeks because it was just too much. After I was done, I remember, and of course, you know, when you put it in your head, like, I'm going to finish this workout I did. And I was fucked for a while. In fact, I couldn't deadlift for like two weeks. And it was a learning lesson to me was like, okay, when you're doing something like this, you got to make sure you start easy.

And so now people, here's the question people will have, and they'll have this with some of our programs is, well, the first sets are easy then, that's okay. You're training the central nervous system just as much as you're training the muscles, and that volume adds up and believe me and makes a big difference. And it doesn't mean that those early sets

were a waste of time, they're also very valuable. So the way it feels is easy until it's not anymore. By the time you get, like you said, set six or seven. I can't remember if it was GVT that was the first place that I actually read somebody actually advocating for two reps, short of failure. It might have been GVT. I can't remember if it was or not, but I do remember this being one of the most pivotal moments or game changer moments in my career was actually doing that because up into this point, I was always training to failure or using a spotter and I thought,

oh my God, doing a whole workout where I'm stopping two reps, sort of failure. I'm not gonna get the results. And I remember getting stronger and stronger every week, every day I came back to the gym by doing that and forever changed the way I look at it. So this is psychologically challenging, right? Because it's very much of an ego check

because you realize you really do have to reduce that load, you have to reduce the weight to get through and perform it correctly. So to not do that, because we've been drilled in our head by like so many different marketing machines out there that we need to put and exert as much effort as possible every single time you're in the gym

and lifting. And so this is very much more calculated, methodical, scientific, and so you just have to come into it with that. There's two ways you can apply this. One is much more advanced, will hammer your body more, the other one is probably more appropriate for most people. So here's the first one. Your weight adjusts with each set, you're always stopping two reps short of failure. The cons of that is it's you're doing 10 sets of two reps before failure is hard.

And figuring the weight out can be difficult. So if you're advanced and you know your body, you might be able to do this. Here's the other way of doing it, it's more appropriate for most people. Start with about 50% of the weight. In other words, start with the weight you know you could do 20 with and then just stick to that and do 10. So that means that the first four or five sets are easy.

And then you start to get to two reps before failure towards the end of that particular 10 set workout. That's best for most people. You'll see that in some of our programs where like Maps PowerLift, for example, uses percentages where you start to use that. Another program you'll hear say in the program, two reps short of failure on every single set.

Both have value, although if you're doing this particular type of workout, I do think for most people, start with the 50, 60% of what you think, and then then just stick to that even though it's easy in the beginning. Alright, so the next one, and so we already talked about the starting weight, which I think is important. The next one is accessory exercises. You can put in accessory exercises in this type of programming. I've seen German volume training where they do no accessory lifts. So it's all primary lifts. Like, you know, day one is, you know, squat and bench press

or whatever and so on. And then I've seen others where they'll do that and then they'll throw in like two or three sets of like, you'll do a set of flies or you'll do, you know, some curls or maybe some rear laterals, that type of stuff. When you do the accessory lifts, German volume training says, at the most, do three sets of those 10 to 20 reps,

I like this advice because that's exactly the way accessory lifts should be used. There's a reason why they're called accessory lifts. They're a great way to add volume, get a little bit more of a pump, but they should not be the bulk of the volume of your workout. The bulk of the volume of your workout. The bulk of the volume should be those main lifts. And what you find in maps programs often

is exactly that unless there's a specific phase in some of our programs, there's a specific phase where we flip that on a tad and it's primarily for the adaptation purposes. Well, the truth is if you do a really good job and you're practicing and you get stronger in all these big lifts You're gonna hit all the secondary muscles, too So it's not like you do bench press you get really good. That's just your chest. Yeah, shoulders and triceps are very much So involved in that and let me tell you if you see if you never did a shoulder workout or a tricep were actually another Like a specific isolation exercise for shoulders or triceps But you watched your bench press go up 50 to 75 pounds.

I guarantee your shoulders and triceps get bigger. Oh, yeah. So that's going to happen as a byproduct of you getting really good at these lifts. So it doesn't take very much of this accessory. This was another thing that took me a really long time to piece together. As a kid, I was, and you know what? I'll tell you, being honest, what kept me from this was the compounds were hard. Yeah, they were hard.

Ten sets of floss. Yeah, they were more demanding. They were difficult to perform perfect. They exhausted me. They were hard to do. And it was really easy to walk over to a cable machine and do some push downs or sit down on a preacher curl machine and do some cable curls.

Like that stuff, and I could do lots of it. So I felt like, oh, I'm doing a lot of stuff, so that's as good, but it's just not. You just do not get as much benefit from those correlates. So building it mostly around that, and okay, if I have a little extra time, I've got this accessory work. And this is actually more like how I train today.

Many times I'll go in the gym and only do one or two of these correlates and not do any accessory work and then hey on the days When I'm feeling really good. I'm training all my I'm training my my foundational stuff And then I'm also touching some isolation action now. I do want to be clear like most things in fitness There's truths, but there's also caveats, okay? Is there value to doing lots of angles of exercises in different varieties of movements? Yes, there definitely can be, you see this often in advance bodybuilder training where they go in and they do seven different exercises, hitting different angles of the muscle,

really good for squeezing out a pump, really good for connecting to certain muscle groups. So let's say you have poor connection to your chest, there may be some value in doing some cable flies to really connect and squeeze that muscle. So there is value, especially if all you ever do are the core lifts, like if all you ever do are squats, and then I say, okay, you've been six months only doing squats, which is great,

and you've gotten great results. Let's try throwing a little bit of leg extension and some leg curls or some only doing squats, which is great, and you've gotten great results. Let's try throwing a little bit of leg extension and some leg curls or some sissy squats, and all of a sudden the person's like, oh my gosh, I'm squeezing out new muscle growth. So there definitely is value in that. And again, the Achilles heel of this program, like any program is, it's the same thing over and over again,

and you miss the potential that benefit. This is why again, in our maps programs, generally speaking, it's focused on the core lifts, but there are phases in some of our programs, especially the more advanced bodybuilding focus programs, where you do see a lot of variation with accessory lifts, especially in a program like Maps Split, Maps aesthetic on the focus sessions.

Like, I don't think focus sessions will be valuable if you're doing compound lifts on the focus sessions. Like, I don't think focus sessions will be valuable if you're doing compound lifts on the focus days. Like, that's a great way to over train. But if you go in to add extra frequency and you're doing some leg extensions or some laterals for your shoulders, now there's some value to doing some of these. So, it's definitely true, but there are some, you know, caveats.

All right, here's the next one. Um, GVT training typically recommends that you hit each body part for every four to five days. Some people say every seven days. So just once every four or five days or once every seven days back, once every, you know, four to seven days, right? And the reason why they can get away from it, get away with this, only training one time in a week is because of how much volume they're going.

Yes, that's the name. Now here's where I'll digress a little bit, or I move a little bit from. I see more value, and I've seen more value in my clients with taking that volume and breaking it up and increasing the frequency. I just do. Now here's what, right?

You're doing all 10 sets of squats and one workout. Let me tell you, that is, and you're doing that once a week, is very fatiguing. It's very challenging. There's value to it. But oftentimes, form goes down, and it fries your body a little too much. Your body starts to worry more about healing

than it does with adapting. In my experience, I've seen people get better results doing five on one day and five on another day, so they're hitting the squats twice a week. Each time you practice the squats, you get more, you're more fresh and you have better form. Not saying you can't get value from the one,

10 set workout, but in my experience, a little more frequency seems to be better for most people. Not to mention the time length of the workouts, too, to get through, is just like, that all adds up when you're doing that many sets and that many reps, and you're doing it with the appropriate amount of resting between. I've found that a lot of times, for people in their schedule,

too, especially to be able to break that up in chunks and then spread that out throughout the week. Actually, like plays a lot more, you know, effectively within the way that they can approach it. Well, speaking of scheduling, this, the main reason why I liked, you know, frequency two, three times a week. And so if you do, if you're hitting a muscle group two to three times a week, you're doing either an upper, lower split or you're doing a full body routine.

That's basically what you're doing. And what I have found in my experience with training clients, especially, is the inevitable happens rarely ever does someone not miss a day. Like life happens. That's a good point. And they miss a day. When you are training a program that's a one body part per day type of routine and you miss that one day. Screw. It throws everything off. And now you're behind on everything or what it actually tends to happen is I miss legs and I don't like legs. Is that one body part?

Yeah, it's what you conveniently always miss the days that you don't like training. And so I just think that that's where bad habits start to happen. And what I have found with a full body type or an upper lower split with clients is that, oh, they missed one day in that week. It's okay.

I'm never letting a week go by when I know that their entire body isn't getting hit at least once. If not, you are so cruel. This is, I want to emphasize this point because I know people watch, oh, I won't miss a workout. Look, inevitably in 60 days, you might miss two workouts or three. What if all those two workouts was shoulders or chest, right? But if you're working the whole body and you're doing it frequently,

the damage is much lower. And this is something that we need to consider whenever we follow a program. We can't just think what's in front of us, we have to think long term. Which program is, do I mitigate the potential damage of the inevitable the most? What if I get hurt? What if I get sick? What if I have an event? I can't make it work out.

This is important because ultimately at the end of, you know, at a year or two years or however long you plan on training, which hopefully is the rest of your life, you develop a more balanced physique with more frequent training. With body parts splits, you know what you tend to find, except for this super ridiculous fanatical, what you tend to find, honestly, are more often than not lagging body parts. And it's typically those body parts that don't like to train and, oh, when they miss a workout, that's the body part that they don't end up training. That's why you can't, we can't only argue the science. It's important.

And if you're good trainer, you need to know the science that supports you. Yeah, but don't ignore the other stuff. You can't ignore the behavioral part and there's and in fact I would make the case of that part's even more important So you have to understand the tendencies of most people and what ends up happening and so and that took me again Years of training clients to start to piece together sure on paper You can make the case for why this is perfect or this program is amazing But then I also have to take into consideration you can make the case for why this is perfect, or this program is amazing,

but then I also have to take into consideration, okay, now when I take a pool of 100 random people and I apply this to them, what percentage of them follow to a T. And if they don't follow to a T, how detrimental is it if they miss this or miss that or cheat this or don't do that? We got a factor that in.

In fitness, especially the hardcore, maybe the academics or the, you know, the super trainers or whatever have been doing it for a while. They tend to focus on the science too much and they ignore what actually happened in the real world. You know, I remember as a trainer, early trainer, right? If somebody came to me and said, Hey, Sal, I'm going to do cardio in the morning, which one do you think is the best? And I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do 30 minutes every morning, which one's the best. I would pick the one that I know that burns the most calories.

Oh, you should go run on a treadmill. That burns the most calories. Later on as a trainer, I realized that that actually was not important at all. What was important was which one's gonna be the most consistent sort of. So then I would reply and it's a actually what do you like to do the most do that one Because I know over six months or a year whatever you're gonna get better shape from doing the one that you like the most because you're gonna be the most consistent better Retentively if you don't consider this you're gonna screw yourself the behavioral aspect of it is the number one reason why people Don't work out. It's the number one reason why people don't hit their goals. It's the number one reason why problems happen.

It's ranked higher than the science of the actual workout itself. All right, the last point that they'll typically make in GVG training is the tempo. And I think they do a good job of this. And they say, you know, people who advocate for Charles Pollock, when he used to talk about this, and he would say, make sure you do a four second negative on your lips, or maybe three second negatives on the accessory lips. You know, I agree with that.

I think generally speaking, doing a four second, or maybe even a three second negative, it's gonna point you in the right direction more often than not. Now here's the con or the drawback. It ignores the fact that there's benefits to other tempos. Is there a benefit from a faster, more explosive tempo? Duh, of course, especially athletic applications, but if you're experienced, you can build a

lot of muscle doing that. What about a even slower tempo? What if you did a seven or eight second negative or pause at the bottom of a rep? Is there value in that? Absolutely. And we tend to ignore it when we only look at, oh, just three to four seconds, and we miss this whole other area that can benefit us.

Generally speaking, though, this is one of the things that I actually loved about GVT that they did put emphasis on this, because a lot of programs don't put any emphasis on that. They don't say it at all Yeah, they don't talk about it all and I remember From when I learned this and then I went and applied it and I talk about it on the show all time like I still to this day go Go to the gym get try and find somebody. Yeah

Show me a four second negative go in the gym and you will not I definitely if you might find a person You won't find five. Yeah, you will not find a handful of people that are truly doing a four second negative, and that's so important to building muscle and strength. Yes, all the other tempos have value, but if you're not even doing one of the most important tempos to build muscle and strength, you're really missing out. So I remember going and applying and feeling like home and feeling the workouts for the next month,

I was like, it felt like I just started all over again. Yeah, well, I just like the emphasis on that slow, controlled, because I just feel like it helps you to really focus in on what you're doing and be present in your lifts and really emphasizing technique and being aware of your body and the signals that's providing you. So again, with beginners, but also even advanced lifters, this is something that creates massive benefit and also helps to break down muscles to rebuild them quite effectively. Right. However, right? If you just do this, you are ignoring the value of other tempos. And there is value. I tell you what, if you've been more, especially if you're experienced

and you've been training a while and you got good control, go try some explosive lifts. Tell me that you don't all of a sudden develop some muscle. It's a perfect example of taking some, probably bodybuilders the closest to following this to it to you, right? Like really doing a four second, you know, eccentric or negative portion of the exercise, right? They're probably the best, or most consistent, I should say, with that tempo. You take a bodybuilder who's never trained like maps performance style exactly, and it will completely blow and change their body,

because they've gotten so good at training that one tempo all the time, that doing something more explosive will absolutely send a new signal to the body to grow and adapt. Now, here's some cons to GVT training. Again, I have a lot of experience following it and doing the programming. Now, one is the Achilles heel of any program, which is eventually you do the same thing over and over again, your body just doesn't respond anymore. So like any program, at some point,

you're gonna probably have to move and try something different. For me, that usually look like the 60 to 90 day period. Usually after about 90 days, whatever I was doing, no matter how great it was, kind of stopped working. It's working. It's working. It's working.

It's working. It does. And so, again, if you look at our programs, if you were to go to maps, fitnessproducts.com, you'll find a lot of different workout programs. We actually designed them in an order that we'd like people to follow them. This is just our integrity as trainers. It could be quite honest, if we just want to sell workout programs, the very first program we would have released would have been like Maps Hit.

It's interesting too, because I think the perception is that we created these programs just to fit certain types of people. When in fact, we created all these different types of programs to expose people to more options of training that they need to incorporate. Instead of just sticking with the same formula every single time, and this is a mold we've been trying to break on this show is to expose people to value

in pursuing completely different types of episodes. On that point, I wanna point this out since you went there and you said that. We do, because I get this question all the time in my DMs on the Mindput Media IG where the highlights are, I know that Chokey had you write all the ideal orders of the programs based off your goal. So whatever your goal is, here's the ideal work.

Now that doesn't mean you can't go this one to that one. That's what's great about it. You absolutely can do that. But when we wrote them, we wrote them with this intent. If I had a clean slate and I wanted to, didn't this client, you wanted everything. Build muscle, lose body fat, be mobile, long jeopardy, all that extra fuel.

Yeah, they wanted the ideal version of themselves that had possessed all these attributes. How would I take them through these training programs? We've written them in an order like that. Yeah, so your body gets used to it if you always do the same thing. So you want to change it up after 60 to 90 days and our maps programs tend to be about 60 to 90 days long. Also again, psychologically, things also can get boring. So it's fun to move into a different focus.

Well, now I'm focusing a little bit more on mobility, now I'm focusing more on powerlifting. Now I'm doing more strong man inspired type workouts. Now I'm doing more bodybuilding type workouts. If your goal is to train your body forever, if this is something that you wanna do for the rest of your life, which is a great mentality towards exercise. I think the wrong mentality is I'm going to get in shape and then stop.

That doesn't make any sense, right? If you want to do it forever, it's a good idea to weave in and out of different styles of training. Your body's only going to progress better as a result of it, which takes me to the next one. And this is the big thing that I noticed from GVT, is I would start to get a little bit of nagging, you know, pain in certain parts of my body. Now, why was this happening to me?

Well, here's what happens. If I only ever do squats, if my form is off by 1%, which is almost impossible to notice, especially in yourself, right? It can actually look perfect, but there's a little bit of instability in the hip and a little bit of instability in the ankle

or maybe my lateral strength isn't so great, but I always do squats and my squat weight keeps going up, up, up, up, up. Eventually I run into this wall where that little problem now is what's preventing me from progressing and then you start to get like IT band tightness. Oh, my back is a little tight on the right side. What's going on? So the fact that GVT is a bit limited with its planes of motion, it can cause, it can at least exacerbate or increase

the risk of injury. Well, yeah, you get stronger. It just, it just makes that gap bigger. Yes. Right. Like when you first start, you're kind of weak in the schedule playing, you're kind of weak in the frontal playing, there's not a big discrepancy there, you might not notice any joint pain, you don't have any injuries issues going on, but as you get stronger and stronger and stronger just in the sagittal plane,

then you create a greater discrepancy. So now you have a lot of power forward, which are really weak left and right, which that's where injury tends to occur, that's where chronic pain normally starts to reveal itself. And that is the one drawback of like following just a, like kind of a powerlifting type of a program where you're just, just focusing mainly on the core. And we're just not expressing the true potential movement patterns that the joint is capable of. And, and you know, that, that's just something that you get really,

like you say, you get really strong in that signal keeps getting louder and louder, but we haven't brought up the secondary, you know, support muscle groups that help to keep everything in its proper position in healthy joint function. Which, to that exact point, is the reason why, one, I wouldn't want someone to stay in just maps and a bulk and the reason why Maps performance is program number two. That's right is we knew that

Maps and a bulk is close most closely related probably to gvt as far as a lot of the programming is concerned and If it has a limiting factor is that we don't incorporate a lot of other planes. Oh, it's mass, strength, muscle. Uh-oh, I need to move in different directions. Uh-oh, I need to focus on some mobility and some performance different planes because if I don't, I'm not gonna keep gaining. I'm not gonna keep progressing in maps performance if you follow the program.

You know, there's a special emphasis on different planes of movement. And what's the result of that? Will you move better? You feel better, you're more athletic, definitely, but here's what people often don't realize that they do at the end of the program.

I built more muscle, oh my gosh, because you've eliminated these limiting factors. Here's another point, this is a big con, and it's almost like you get fooled. You look at GVT training and you think, oh, it's basic, I'm only doing two or three exercises. All right, this is cool. No, you will easily fry your body

if you underestimate this program. I'm telling you right now, 10 sets of 10 reps of squats will fry your body more than 20 sets of a bunch of other leg exercises. So keep that in mind, this will fry your body if you're not careful. And I really think that's mainly because it is really difficult to do two of the main points that we already addressed that they do, which is two reps short of failure. And

then also when you're doing 10 sets of something, starting off at 50 to 60 percent of intensity, picking adequate weight. Like people just 50 to 60 percent of intensity does not register for most people. If they're on set two or three and they're like, oh, that's really easy. Real hard for them not to slap more weight on there. So it takes a lot of discipline to know that, oh, this is going to get progressively more more challenging as we get closer to sets 10. So I'm going to stick with this way, even though it feels easy right now, that's hard for people.

And because of that, they always end up kind of pressing more than they should. I remember a workout that you that you and Adam did together, where you guys went and did squats. I think you put 225 on the bar and both you guys decided. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just do 10 sets of 10. Keep going. Yeah. Easy. 10 sets of 10.

No, by the way, 225 for these guys, 10 reps is easy. Both of you could squat 405 pounds for a single or whatever. If you had to go as hard as you could for 10 reps, probably be closer to 315. So you picked 225. And I remember because you guys were like on set number seven. Yeah, it was seven, I think, is when I had a bail, seven or eight. Yeah, both of you guys were like, I don't know, man, this is really addin' up. And only because we committed it was I even, because I already, at that point, I think,

by the time we got to set six, I probably already by six I knew was coming right and seven I was like I'm already well beyond overreaching now This is purely ego to prove that I could commit finish what I But I this would be terrible training right now to finish the tip and it would fry your body I remember you guys came into podcasts the next day, and I'm like why you guys walking that like that? Why you guys guys moving funny? We decided to do this, I'm like, oh shit. So you could definitely easily fry your body. So consider that if you follow something like this.

Here's another one, lack of different angles, but we kind of address that with the different planes of motion, but I'm speaking more from a body building perspective. One thing that body building has brought to the muscle building, strength building world is the value of different angles. You know Arnold used to talk about this all the time. And there definitely is value to it from a muscle hypertrophy perspective, especially as you get more advanced.

I don't think this is as important when you first get started. But if you've been working out for a few years, it starts to make a difference to hit your muscle groups from different angles, different elbow positions when I do curls and different angles when I hit my chest and my back. It starts to make a difference in terms of muscle hypertrophy. In GVT really does lack angles.

It's very focused on a few core lifts. Well, that reminds me of another con, which is just purely the lack of variety and exercises. Because there is so much emphasis on the biggest bang for your buck movements, which should be that way, it does lack a little variety. And that's the thing that it's like what you keep saying. It's boring. Yeah, it gets boring and not having something that you're doing different.

Like I remember this is again, going back to, you know, applying this to clients. As much as I knew, like certain exercises we should be doing this all the time for my clients, after a while they want to feel something different or they want to at least try some of the difference so you have to kind of learn to sprinkle that in as a coach. I know what the course should be and what I want them to stick to

because I know this is gonna give them the most benefit, but I also recognize that, yep, we're doing that again today. Yep, we're doing that again today and you say that enough times to a client that they're like, I can, we do something different today. So the, and there's a lot of different exercises that are similar to the core that can complement.

That's right. That can complement and or are similar to BIM. Like for example, always doing a barbell backspot and making sure that you're doing some front squats or Bulgarian split squat or a walking lunge. I mean, those exercises have tremendous value and big bang for your buck movement. So it lacks in the variety like that. Yeah, and if you dismiss the, you know, boredom factor, you are, I'm telling you right now, you're going to set yourself up for failure because what's the number one reason why people

stop working out, right? That's not exciting anymore. So changing it up is very important. You actually touch on something, Adam, that I'll say is definitely another con, which is the lack of unilateral or split stance exercises. There's a lot of value in doing that. In fact, I've trained with strength athletes who were incredibly strong bilaterally, like could squat 600 pounds, never do a split-stant squat, never do walking lunges, could barely do walking lunges with 135 pounds,

because they had the lack the stability of that split-stant. They, their pelvis wasn't strong in that position, that back leg couldn't support them, they were shaking, and it was a huge hole in their performance. Well, yeah, and it's so important because it highlights the discrepancies from one side to the other, because there's so many compensations that happen when you're just focused bilaterally all the time. You can really sort of mask a lot of those compensations and signals. You should be paying attention to that. Very glaringly obvious when you go to one side versus the

other. So, and again, this is another to the previous points of being able to address other angles and other things you need to incorporate to build support around the joints. Like, you know, unilateral training does a great job of that. Absolutely. So there you have it. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com. We have tons of free guides there that can help you build muscle, burn body fat, improve your body composition. Also, of course, we do, we have lots of workout programs, they're called maps workout programs, and there's a lot of them to choose from. You can find those at maps, fitness

products.com. And finally, find us them to choose from. You can find those at mapsfitinistproducts.com. And finally, find us all on Instagram so you can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin, me at Mind Pump Salon, Adam at Mind Pump Adam. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPump Media dot com. Check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps for formants and maps aesthetic,

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