Every time Charles Poliquin came by the gym to get a workout in, we spoke about colleagues, new protocols and obviously, training and what we were doing recently. We always spoke about martial arts and new things coming or his thought process when it comes to programming for combat and his army/secret service guys. I reposted a short excerpt of his German volume article he did a while ago and all hell broke loose on social with so many kinds of variations, which obviously, everyone had a say about. So I felt the need to clear up a few details about this great program and how to maximize it for our fighters.

The program

10 sets of 10 reps, pairing up antagonist muscles. If you choose to do only one exercice (Ex: Deadlift only), rest should be about 90-120 sec rest between sets. For best results, compound exercises are a must. 10 sets of leg extension obviously won’t have the same RPE of 10 sets of squats. Challenge yourself.

Torso

A1 Flat benchpress

A2 Wide pronated grip pulldown

10 sets of 10 reps

Rest 60s between (no more than 90sec)

B1 Incline 45° DB fly

B2 One arm DB bent-over row neutral grip

2-3 sets of 10-12

Rest 60 sec between

Legs

A1 Barbell back squats

A2 Lying leg curl

10 sets of 10 reps

Rest 60 sec between sets

B1 Seated leg extension

B2 Seated leg curls

2-3 sets of 10-12 reps

Arms

A1 Triceps BB close grip press

A2 Standing straight bar Supinated curls

10 sets of 10 reps

Rest 60 sec between sets

B1 EZ bar triceps lying extension

B2 scott bench 45° DB neutral grip curls

2-3 sets of 10-12 reps

Who should do it?

Trainees with (at least) a good year of strength training under their belt for neurological efficiency. It’s a lot of volume for beginners.

What weight should I use?

For 10 sets of 10 reps, use a 12 RM weight. You know if you have the good weight when suddenly at set #7-8, you can’t so more than 7-8 reps. Surprisingly, you may be able to hit 10 on your last 2 sets. If you never experienced GVT before, start with rest intervals of 90 seconds between sets. 60 seconds is very challenging.

Which tempo should I use?

Constant variables will allow you to adjust your weights on the next workout. Remember that this is not an exact science, weight and % of max varies daily. Aim for a tempo of 3020, which means 3 seconds eccentric and 2 seconds on the concentric part of the lifts.

Advanced version

10 sets of 6 reps. Used with a 8-10 RM weight. Athletes with more than five years of training may experience superior results with the advanced version of German Volume.

Now, how can we apply it to our combative world.

The high volume and low intensity makes it ideal for fighters to increase lean muscle mass. Most people don’t believe the claim of Charles when it comes to the possible gains of lean muscle, but imagine something, and I’ve stated this fact many times before.

Remember that in all methods, most study and results can be interpreted like the bell curve. For those unfamiliar, the term bell curve is used to describe the mathematical concept called normal distribution. “Bell curve” refers to the bell shape that is created when a line is plotted using the data points that meets the criteria of what we will call a normal distribution.

In a bell curve, the center contains the greatest number of a value and, therefore, it is the highest point on the arc of the line. This point is referred to the mean, but in simple terms, it is the highest number of occurrences of an element, which in this case, what we see as ‘’most result’’. So some might gain between 2 to 4kg during that time period. The both ends of the curves are the flat lines, when we have almost no results, and on the other end, those who got crazy results, like 6 to 8kg. Always keep that in mind. What you’ll often see on social media are both extremities.

Now for fighters, and like any method, we must find the perfect balance. Needless to say that recovery is always an issue with the workload, so it must be optimized when using this method. Being a very effective method to gain muscle, we can also use it to focus on priorities strength training wise. It is always a good idea to focus on big lifts when using GVT, so in this case, pulling exercises and everything that can improve the posterior chain or lower body strength can add a lot of strength, not to mention pure conditioning at the same time.

Going through the first round of GVT with the traditional 10×10 will set up a good base and will be some type of preemptive preparation for what I feel is the best strategy if you want to increase strength in some weaknesses, the 10×6 advanced GVT method. Although there is no major difference in how to approach this method compared to the 10×10, the difference lies in what lifts you may use. Here is a sample workout for this advanced variation.

Grapplers method

Arms

A1 Triceps dips

A2 Gi Chin ups

10 sets of 4-6 reps

Rest 90-120 sec between sets

B1 Incline 30° close grip barbell press

B2 scott bench 45° DB zottman curls

2-3 sets of 8

Rest 60 sec between sets

Legs

A1 Barbell front squats

A2 Lying leg curl

10 sets of 4-6 reps

Rest 90-120 sec between sets

B1 DB split squats

B2 Barbell good morning

2-3 sets of 8 reps

60 sec rest in between sets

Torso

A1 Incline 30° fat grips BB Benchpress

A2 One arm seated row fat grips

10 sets of 4-6 reps

Rest 90-120s between sets

B1 Incline 45° DB fly

B2 Wide pronated grip lat-pulldown

2-3 sets of 8 reps

Rest 60 sec between sets

For most, the workload might be too much depending where you are in your competitive year. In order to adjust, you can only perform 2 days (arms and legs, or torso and legs) and alternate those days to fit your schedule. There are many ways to explore as long as they will improve your strength and conditioning as well as fit your needs.

Coach Eric