OnFitness Magazine - July/August 2014 - 63

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MUSCLE
SCIENCE
BY DANIEL MEYER

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BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN WELLNESS & FITNESS
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MS IN EXERCISE SCIENCE & HEALTH PROMOTION
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O N L I N E

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Arm workout
> Concentration curl: 4 x 8-12, peak contraction at the top
of each rep for 1-2 seconds
> Dumbbell kickback: 4 x 8-12, peak contraction at the top
of each rep for 1-2 seconds
Leg workout
> Leg extension: 4 x 8-12, peak contraction at the top
of each rep for 1-2 seconds Z

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V O L

focus to successfully pull off. Your mind has to be fully engaged at
all times, and particularly at the peak of the repetition.
This is a tweak that hurts, and you have to be able to handle the
pain of holding that hard contraction beyond the initial action. But
the upside is that this extra pain will bring extra growth.
Triceps pushdown example. Push the bar down as you normally
would, getting a full extension. At this point hold the weight where
it's at, and forcibly contract the triceps as hard as possible. Hold this
contraction for one to two seconds.
The hold-out range may sound brief, but when you're
performing an all-out contraction, it can seem like an eternity. To
compensate, and to enable one to fully contract at each peak, cut
down the amount of exercises per body part.
For instance, for the biceps, the preacher bench curl for four sets
is plenty of training if these four sets are peak contraction reps.
Have your client perform 8-12 repetitions, going with eight for
the ﬁrst few sessions, and working up to 12 reps as they get into the
groove of peak contraction action. A single exercise will be more
than adequate for a huge burn in the muscles.
Some exercises seem to lend themselves better to peak
contraction than others: leg extension, triceps press-down,
dumbbell kickback, pec deck ﬂye and cable crossover, for some
examples.
For a real challenge, perform the wide grip chin-up with a hard
contraction at the top of the move.
You can employ the peak contraction workout on one muscle
group or try a cycle featuring the upper torso, the lower body or the
entire body. And this technique is a great supplemental tool for a
standard workout to instantly boost intensity by several degrees.

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There is a variety of training programs
designed to cause excessive muscle damage
through resistance training with the idea of
increasing muscle size. One such program
is known as German volume training.
.....My own experience with German
volume training came from strength coach
guru Charles Poliquin. He introduced the
method in one of his training manuals,
although the method has been thrown around for some time.
There's really no magic to this approach: excessive time under
tension, little rest periods to suffocate the muscles, and high blood
pressure to push ﬂuid in the muscle ﬁbers; the result is muscle
hypertrophy. As mentioned there are many conﬁgurations of sets and
repetition schemes to accomplish hypertrophy, but GVT has to rank
among one of my personal favorites.
Let me ﬁrst provide some cautions. There will be a signiﬁcant
amount of muscle damage from German volume training, so this
type of training is not for the newbie.
Rabdomyolysis is a painful condition that results from excessive
muscle damage. Even experienced Division-1 college football players
can incur such damage as evidenced by the University of Iowa's
football team a few years back when doing a 100 rep scheme. So
again, be smart.
If there's excessive muscle damage there also must be signiﬁcant
recovery to allow for the regeneration and rebuilding of damaged
ﬁbers. GVT then is not a high frequency activity and must be

TRAINING MODEL

W W W. O N F I T N E S S M A G . C O M

German volume training
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OnFitness Magazine - July/August 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of OnFitness Magazine - July/August 2014
