Modified Volume Training for Women

[Arch0wl]

I made this program for my girlfriend. She used to lift linear 5x5, but had a stomach virus and lost most of her gains. In the mean time I learned a lot about volume training and read what Menno Henselmans had to say about sex differences in training. So instead I designed a daily undulating volume program to help her recover and maximize her gains.

This program is based on these principles:

1. Women can handle higher rep ranges than men better
2. Women recover better from high-rep training

Therefore, you will not go outside your 10-rep max for most of these workouts and for some you will be leaving 3 reps or more in the tank.

HOW THIS PROGRAM WORKS / REASONING BEHIND IT

The original German Volume Training program is a 5-day or 7-day program where you work one body part once per session. The total rep amounts are 100 per week and 150 per week, respectively. This means that you will be working each muscle group 1x/week to 1.5x/week.

Normal 5-day GVT would look like this:

Day 1 – Chest and Back: bench press 10x10, chin ups 10x10, two accessories 3x10
Day 2 – Legs and Abs: squats 10x10, leg curls 10x10, two accessories 3x10
Day 3 – Off
Day 4 – Arms and Shoulders: dips 10x10, dumbbell curls 10x10, accessories 3x10
Day 5 – Off

This might work, but I don't think it works optimally. Even if you're doing 10 sets, something like four or five days of recovery are probably excessive -- even Stronglifts (which uses 5 sets of 5, which are far more taxing on recovery) gives two days of recovery toward the end of the week, as opposed to the five days of recovery per muscle group that GVT does. Also, dumbbell curls are an accessory exercise in and of themselves, and isolating them this way seriously neglects major muscle groups.

You might also notice that if you worked legs on day 2, it's going to be a full four days (and probably half of another day) before you actually work legs again. Your legs will be recovered much faster than this. So, this program uses major compounds for its volume training, splits up the rep numbers across the week, and uses half-sets of less taxing compounds to train full body in a way that maximizes recovery.

Note that this program has eight exercise variations: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, ABC1, and ABC2. Each of these corresponds to a particular day. The "ABC" days are full body days. Exercise variation for similar muscle groups has been shown to be more effective than simply training the same exercise every session. This does not mean tons of isolation exercises though -- this program still uses compound movements to target large muscle groups, instead of isolation exercises that target individual muscles.

This program splits the reps up across several days and abuses the two-day rest period toward the end of the week; you work each body part 3x/week, but at different volumes. So for example, for one muscle area you might do 60 reps on workout day 1, 30 reps on workout day 2, and 60 reps on workout day 3 for 150 total, like the traditional GVT. The last exercise day of the week is the hardest, which is why you have two rest days. The very last exercise day of the program is the hardest day in the whole program, because ending it with a deload means you'll have three rest days.

The intensity of this program undulates every other week. You'll still be doing quite a few reps, but they won't be as hard as the week before or after.

Some weeks you will do lots of reps -- way more than GVT. Others you will do much less. But the total two-week rep # never exceeds what a 5-day GVT would give you over the course of two-weeks; or, if it does, it barely does so.

TERMINOLOGY:

* For all sets that aren’t accessories, rest period is ~90 seconds.

* For all sets (ABC / DEF), add accessories as needed in 3 sets of 10, with 60 second rest periods. Do maximum two accessories per workout, so any one workout (e.g. Chest and Back A) would have 2 major compounds, and 2 accessories, e.g. overhead press / romanian deadlift, and two of the following: barbell curls / calf raises / oblique turns / reverse barbell curls / etc. But it may be better to just do one accessory per workout.

* The structures below are just keys for which exercises to do. So if you see "[C1]" you'd do the C1 lifts.

MAIN STRUCTURE

A1:
* Overhead press
* Machine row
* Squat (half the sets you did for all the other exercises, so if you did 6 sets you'd do 3 here, if 10 sets you'd do 5, etc.)

A2:
* Leg press (going as deep as possible)
* Leg Curls
* Flat bench (half the sets you did on A1, so if you did 6 sets you'd do 3, if 10 sets you'd do 5, etc.)
* Lat pulldowns (half the sets)

B1:
* Flat barbell bench
* Lat pulldown or pullup (use a pullup machine that supports you, since you probably don't have a 15-20 rep max for bodyweight pullups. if you don't have such a machine or it's unavailable, use lat pulldowns instead)
* Leg press (half the sets you did for all the other exercises, so if you did 6 sets you'd do 3 here, if 10 sets you'd do 5, etc.)

B2:
* Squat
* Leg Curls
* Overhead press (half the sets)
* Machine row (half the sets)

C1:
* Incline barbell bench
* Conventional Deadlift (do 1/3 to 1/2 the # of sets you'd do for the bench)
* Leg press (half the sets you did for bench)

C2:
* Box squat
* Pullups (use a pullup machine that supports you, since you probably don't have a 15-20 rep max for bodyweight pullups. if you don't have such a machine or it's unavailable, use lat pulldowns instead)
* Overhead press (half the sets you did for the other exercises)

ABC1:
* Flat bench, incline bench, or overhead press (whichever feels good)
* Squat
* Bent-over barbell rows

ABC2:
* Flat bench, incline bench, or overhead press (whichever feels good)
* Leg press (going deep)
* Conventional deadlift (half the # of sets you'd do for the other exercises)

DELOAD STRUCTURE

D:
* Overhead press
* Machine Rows
* Squat

E:
* Flat Barbell Bench
* Lat Pulldown
* Leg curls

F:
* Incline barbell bench
* Pullups (if you can't do bodyweight pullups, use a pullup machine that supports you)
* Leg press (going as deep as possible)

ESCALATION PHASE (recovery/buildup to volume)

(this may not be necessary if you are already used to high-volume training)

1 - [D] 4x8 (3+ left in the tank)
2 - Off
3 - [E] 4x8 (3+ left in the tank)
4 - Off
5 - [F] 4x8 (3+ left in the tank)
6 - Off
7 - Off
8 - [D] 5x8 (3+ left in the tank)
9 - Off
10 - [E] 4x10 (4+ left in the tank, getting used to 10-rep sets)
11 - Off
12 - [F] 7x10 (5+ left in the tank, approaching typical main phase volume before starting)
13 - Off
14 - Off

MAIN PHASE

You are doing sets of 10, but these are 10 reps of your 15-rep to 20-rep max. So pick something you can rep out about 17 times, and that weight is going to be what you'll lift 10 times. I repeat: if you can lift something 15-20 times, you are picking that weight and lifting it for however many sets of 10. You are NOT lifting to failure (the point where you can't lift anymore) -- not anything resembling it.

Your rest periods are 60-90 seconds. 90 seconds should be the most you wait before doing another set. Your workouts will start out at about 30-45 minutes. Your longest workout will be something like an hour and 15, on the final stretch of workouts. You aren't in the gym for more than 3-5 hours per week.

These set numbers are suggestions, you may end up doing less or more than suggested. On a 7x10 day you might do 6x10, so use 6 sets for the rest of the exercises for that week, and try to get the suggested number next week. Remember, you're doing 10 reps out of something you could lift 15-20 times and resting for 60-90 seconds each set, so if you're doing something you can lift for only 10 reps and no more, that's too heavy.

Add weight each week. You're still doing your 15-rep max, so try to add anywhere from 3lb to 10lb of weight to your lifts each week, so if you bench 100 for 10 out of the 17 reps you could have done maybe try benching 105lb for 15 to 20 reps the next week. This doesn't seem like a lot, but remember, this is adding 3-10lb to something you could lift for 15 reps or more.

1 - [A1] 6x10 (of your 15-rep or higher max, so you'll have at least 5 and at most 10 reps "in the tank" -- reps you could have done, but didn't -- per set.)
2 - Off
3 - [A2] 6x10
4 - Off
5 - [ABC1] 7x10 (do 4 sets for half-sets)
6 - Off
7 - Off
8 - [B1] 4x10
9 - Off
10 - [B2] 4x10
11 - Off
12 - [ABC2] 5x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
13 - Off
14 - Off
15 - [C1] 6x10
16 - Off
17 - [C2] 6x10
18 - Off
19 - [ABC1] 7x10 (do 4 sets for half-sets)
20 - Off
21 - Off
22 - [A1] 4x10
23 - Off
24 - [A2] 4x10
25 - Off
26 - [ABC2] 5x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
27 - Off
28 - Off
29 - [B1] 7x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
30 - Off
31 - [B2] 7x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
32 - Off
33 - [ABC2] 8x10
34 - Off
35 - Off
36 - [C1] 5x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
37 - Off
38 - [C2] 5x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
39 - Off
40 - [ABC2] 6x10
41 - Off
42 - Off
43 - [A1] 7x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
44 - Off
45 - [A2] 7x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
46 - Off
47 - [ABC1] 8x10
48 - Off
49 - Off
50 - [B1] 5x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
51 - Off
52 - [B2] 5x10 (do 3 sets for half-sets)
53 - Off
54 - [ABC2] 6x10
55 - Off
56 - Off
57 - [C1] 8x10
58 - Off
59 - [C2] 8x10
60 - Off
61 - [ABC1] 9x10 (do 5 sets for half-sets)
62 - Off
63 - Off

From here you have some options: start deload week, or restart escalation phase, or restart main phase, or continue main phase from any point that you feel comfortable or that you body can adjust to. It's your judgment call to make.

DELOAD

A deload may or may not be necessary, since this workout incorporates lighter volume every other week for recovery purposes. Still, you might feel you need to incorporate a deload week anyway, so here is one:

1 - Off
2 - [D] 3x8 (of 12-rep max, so about 4 reps left in the tank)
3 - Off
4 - [E] 3x7 (of 12-rep max, so about 4 reps left in the tank)
5 - Off
6 - [F] 3x6 of 12-rep max, 6 left in the tank -- this will be your lightest day, by far
7 - Off

[Arch0wl]

(I should clarify: her stomach virus lasted for weeks, so she was in nearly constantly caloric deficit and lost nearly 20lb.)

[Arch0wl]

made major revisions to this after I realized (a) the deload period was way too long and (b) it makes no sense to go from 10x10 --> 6x10 rather than the other way around if you're going to have two off days following the final workout

[Arch0wl]

updated again