What is this anyway?
Hello world! My name is Ivan Milosavljević, I am 35 years old and in the next 12 weeks I'll conduct an experiment on myself. The goal of the experiment is to see whether a bodybuilding system called German Volume Training (GVT) works (for me at least) or not. Since "works" is not particularly exact term, I defined following criteria for this experiment to be successful:
- I must gain at least 3kg of body mass
- I must gain at least 1.5kg of lean muscle mass
- My body fat percentage must fall by at least 1 percentage point, from 17.9% to 16.9%
| Parameter | Before | Desired outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Height | 182cm | 182cm |
| Body weight | 76.3kg | 79.3kg (or more) |
| Lean muscle mass | 35.5kg | 37kg (or more) |
| Body fat percentage | 17.9% | 16.9% (or less) |
What is that GVT thing again?
In a nutshell, German Volume Training is brutally hard method for building muscle mass fast. It originated in Germany (obviously), was used by their weightlifters and was popularized by coach Rolf Feser and, later, Charles Poliquin. It is also known as 10x10, since it's basic structure is to do 2 body parts per training, 1 exercise per body part, and 10 sets of 10 reps per exercise.
There are several excellent resources about GVT and I recommend reading at least following articles: excellent Poliquin's intro to GVT, Steve Shaw explains core principles and exercises, nice overview with exercises.
How am I gonna do it?
Experiment will start on September 1st, 2014. I'll separate timeframe of 12 weeks into 3 phases: phase 1 will last for 5 weeks, phase 2 for 2 weeks and phase 3 for 5 weeks. Phases 1 and 3 are "working" phases and they will follow 10x10 principle of GVT rigorously, while phase 2 is "rest" phase between them. Naturally, I expect most of muscle growth to occur in phases 1 and 3, while phase 2 will be lighter recovery period between those two heavy-duty cycles. In all phases I'll have 3 workouts a week intertwined with 4 rest days.
To track the progress, I will try to write one blog post every day. Those posts will be fairly "ascetic" - I'll mostly write training logs (exercises, sets, reps I performed) and diet logs (what I ate, how much and at what time). I'll try to keep it simple and organized. Your questions, suggestions etc. are welcome in comments!
This is enough talk for now, let's get ready for 12 weeks of hell!
