2018 New Year's Challenge Week 4 Live Tutorial Transcript

Happy Super Bowl Sunday for the JYM Army, guys. I know a lot of people ask me who do I have in the Super Bowl—I'm not a huge fan of either team. I'm not a hater of either team, but it really doesn't matter to me. I guess I'd like to see the Eagles win it this year, if had to choose. 

But today, before the Super Bowl starts, I wanted to squeeze in a discussion on—we're doing now, my New Year's Challenge. We finished Week 3—at least those who started January 15th along with me. Remember, you don't have to be doing this with me. You could've started Week 1 back at the end of January and not quite up to Week 4. 

German Volume Training Explained

But for those of you who are following along, I am starting Week 4 now. This is the German Volume Training here—my version of German Volume Training. Now, with my version of German Volume Training, you're going to be doing 10 sets of 10 reps—as the original has you. 

Now what I recommend using is—you're only going to be taking one minute of rest between each one of those 10 sets, so you only have one minute of rest—so somewhere around 60-70% of your one-rep max tends to be the sweet spot here to get all—remember, you have to complete all 10 reps for all 10 sets, it's 100 reps, right? You're going to be 100 reps per exercise. 

Switching to the Two-Day Split

So this 10 times 10 takes a while. With one minute of rest, 10 sets of 10—it's going to take you at least ten minutes, probably closer to 12-15 to get one set done of German Volume Training. Now, prior—in Weeks 1, 2, and 3—we were doing full-body training. So we would do ten exercises, one for each muscle group.

Now if each set is going to take us a good 15 minutes and we have ten exercises to do? That's going to take us at least 150 minutes a workout. That's over two and a half hours. That's a two and a half hour workout, and that's going pretty quick—which just is not feasible, especially that amount of volume. Like I said, this is high-volume German Volume Training. 

So if you're doing 10 sets of 10 on the bench press, barbell row, then the barbell shoulder press, barbell shrug, the crunch; then you've got squat, standing calf, triceps, biceps, and forearms, ten exercises—what I've done, as you'll see here, is I've split it up into two different workouts.

So we're taking the full-body and turning it into a two-day split. So over the course of two days we'll train the entire body, and since there are six workouts that means we're going to be training each muscle group with intense German Volume Training three times per week.

What I've basically broken the workouts down—remember, we typically do ten exercises per workout to cover the whole body—here I've basically broken down Workout 1 into torso, if you will: We've got bench press for chest, barbell row for back, barbell shoulder press for shoulders, barbell shrug for traps, and crunch for abs. So mainly the torso.

Workout 2, we're looking at limbs here. So we've got legs: Squat. Lower legs: Calves. Then we have triceps, biceps, and forearms. So legs and arms on the next day's workout. And then we just repeat, so torso again—so if this was Monday, tomorrow when we start this torso workout—bench press, barbell row, barbell shoulder press, barbell shrug, and crunch—that's it. Five exercises.

Then tomorrow you complete the other half of the body—squat, calves, triceps, biceps, and forearms—and then we repeat come Wednesday back to torso, Thursday back to limbs, Friday torso...you get the point. Saturday back to limbs. So we're hitting each muscle group three times per week.

Still Pressed for Time? Don't Sweat It—Superset It!

Now, as I mentioned it's very time-consuming. And even though I've broken the workouts essentially in half, these are still long workouts. Remember, 10 sets of 10 with one minute of rest—it's going to take you a minimum of ten minutes—bare minimum, if you were flying through, banging out those 10 reps. You're not going to get it in ten minutes, so it's going to take you longer than ten minutes—in most cases somewhere around 12-15 minutes per exercise. 

So if we're doing 15 minutes on bench press, 15 minutes on row—that's 30 minutes right there. 45 minutes for shoulder press, an hour for the shrug, and then an hour and 15—so that's over an hour and 15-minute workout, for five exercises, six days this week.

Now, that's a lot. So what I recommend doing is—what I've been doing is what I call my "Super GVT" where you're basically taking supersets and combining them with the German Volume Training. So what is that? Let's take bench press and the barbell row here.

You can superset these two exercises—bench press and the row. Not sure if everyone can see this clear. Again, I've got limitations to what I can see on the screen and on the whiteboard. But I'm going to superset bench press with the barbell row. 

So basically what I would do is—I'm going to do my 10 reps, right? For set number one on the bench press—then I'm going to track my time so that when I do my barbell row, I'm done with the row with enough time to get back to start the bench press without my time going over a minute.

You just have to be cognizant of the times for both of these. So basically, 10 reps for the bench press, do 10 reps for the barbell row, then you go back to the bench press for 10, back to the row for 10, back to the bench press for 10, back to the row for 10. 

Essentially, you're doing rows during some of those 60 seconds that you're resting on the bench press. And since rows aren't really affecting your chest and your strength on the bench press there's no detriment here, so you might as well use the time. 

For those of you who want to come in and use all 10 sets of 10 reps, and just sit there and rest, then do each of five exercises—that's completely fine. If you have the time to go in and do that over an hour per workout, that's fine to do these as straight sets. 10 sets of 10 bench press, then move on to the row—you could even do cardioacceleration for that minute if you want. Or you can superset.

The Do's and Don'ts of Supersetting

If you were going to superset, let me talk about some pairing up of exercises because while the bench press and the row—two opposing movements—is a great superset, you really don't want to be supersetting the shoulder press with the shrug. 

Why is that? Well, you use your traps for shoulder presses so it's not ideal to really superset the shrug and the shoulder press because doing the traps is going to fatigue your shoulder press.

What I would recommend doing is either taking the barbell shoulder press and doing it by itself, and then pairing up the shrug and the crunch as your superset, or you can do the barbell shoulder press with the crunch as your superset—so change the order—and then finish with the barbell shrug. But don't superset shoulder press with the shrug.

Same with the squat on Workout 2. I would not recommend supersetting—you can, however I really wouldn't recommend supersetting the squat with the calf raise because you need the calves for squats. You use calves on squats for balance, for pushing through. If you're fatiguing your calves it's going to influence your squat strength negatively. 

So what I would recommend doing here is you've got the triceps and the biceps curl is a perfect superset, right? So you want to superset these two. So what I would do is I would probably superset calves and wrist curls at the end of the workout—the very end. 

And so what you would do is do squat as just straight 10 by 10, then move into triceps and biceps supersetted, and then do your standing calf and your dumbbell wrist curl superset. That's a far better order of exercise. 

Don't Be Afraid to Change Things Up!

The other thing I'll mention here is you can also switch the orders here—you could do barbell row first if you want. I wouldn't do shoulder press first before bench press, just because the shoulders will have a detriment on the bench press. But you can do any order. 

You also don't have to pick these exercises. Just pick another. If you can't do the bench press for whatever reason—maybe you have an injury, maybe you don't have a barbell—you can use dumbbells, or smith machine, or a machine, chest press. Or, if you want to focus more on single-joint movements—let's say that's your goal—you could do the flye. It's up to you, really up to you.

But let's talk about the other workouts. For Workout 3, again—with the chest and back, this is a perfect superset pair. But I would not do the lateral raise with traps, so what I would either do here is do lateral raises alone and then pair up your push-down with your woodchopper, or do the lateral raise with the woodchopper and do the straight-arm push-down last on its own.

Then again here, Romanian deadlift—don't fatigue your calves while you're doing Romanians. So superset the lying triceps extension with barbell curl, and then maybe doing Romanians by themselves and then superset seated calves with the barbell reverse wrist curl at the very end of the workout. 

So I'm pretty sure you can see the pattern here for each one of these. Again, Workout 5 the first two exercises—perfect superset pair—and then you can decide what you want to do with the hip thrust and the shrug, whether you're going to pair these up as a superset and do the upright row alone, or if you're going to superset upright row with the hip thrust and then do the shrug at the end as the last exercise alone, just straight 10 sets of 10.

Here again, we're going to be doing triceps and curl—and again, you could do this superset pair, the biceps and triceps, first if you wanted to. Again, like I said, the order doesn't really matter because you're doing the legs. Just make sure you don't do deadlift with leg press calf raises as your superset, because again those calves are going to negatively impact the deadlift. 

So you could either do deads by themselves, then do your triceps and biceps, and finish with the calf raise with the wrist curls. You could to triceps and biceps first, followed by the deadlift, and then superset the leg press and the wrist curl at the end. 

So those are a few options. This will speed up—you're essentially getting both these exercises done in the same time it took you to do one. So it's going to trim these workouts basically almost in half—again not quite because we have five exercises, so one exercise is going to have to be done on its own. So it won't be quite half, but pretty close to half the time that it really takes you to complete these five if you're just doing each exercise alone with German Volume Training.

Choosing the Right Weight

Now, with the technique—again, 10 sets of 10 reps. So Workout 1, you're going to come in on the bench press. You've got to use 60-70% of your one-rep max—that's a weight you can get around 15-20 reps, somewhere around there and that's going to vary from individual to individual—but somewhere, like I said, a little bit over half of your one-rep max weight, something you can get for around 15-20 reps. 

You're going to come in, do 10 sets of 10 reps with only one minute of rest in between. Obviously, that first set, second set, even third set aren't going to be that difficult to do. But remember, you've got to complete all 10 sets of 10 reps. So don't worry if the weight feels too light at the beginning.

Now, if the weight still feels too light and you're getting into like set number six or seven, and you think, "Oh I'm going to be able to get all ten sets of ten reps with very little struggle," then you can increase the weight. 

Likewise, if you're going long, you put on 185lbs on the bar or something and you think, "God, I've only done two sets of ten, this is getting tough. There's no way I'm going to be able to bang out ten sets of ten reps," you can decrease the weight halfway through those sets. 

So don't think just because you picked a weight you have to stick with it. Ideally, you want to try to use that same weight that you used, but if it's just too much you can reduce the weight, and vice versa—if it's not enough, you can increase the weight as well. 

Week 4 Summary

Let me just pull this forward for those of you who are having difficulty seeing this—whether it's due to the size of the letters, or its my chicken scratch, or it's just a glare on the whiteboard—but like I said, German Volume Training is what I'm going to be starting tomorrow. 

Six days, splitting the body in half, so we're no longer doing full-body training this week. We're doing a two-day split, training half the body—basically torso muscles in one workout, limb muscles in the second workout. Then we're going to do that for three times, meaning training each muscle group three times for a total of six workouts. 

And as you'll see, each workout the exercises are different so you're not just sticking with the same exercise—do bench press for chest in Workout 1, and then in Workout 3 we do the cable crossover. And then in Workout 5, the third time we do chest we do the reverse-grip dumbbell bench press.

Again, those aren't the three exercises you need to use but consider using similar ones. And like I said, you can pair up some of these exercises to basically complete two at the same time it takes you to do one. 

Obviously, it's a bit more intense because you're training two muscle groups with an intense technique—10 by 10 German Volume Training—but it's a great way to boost your intensity, boost your calorie burn, and decrease the time you spend in the gym. It's all about efficiency and effectiveness. 

So, really that's German Volume Training in a nutshell, at least my version of it that I'll be doing this week. For those of you—whenever you get to Week 4 of my New Year's Challenge, you'll be introduced to German Volume Training. 

Now, I will say for those of you who are aware of my Train with Jim series, I've already taken you through this German Volume Training, so you can go back on my social media—you'll probably even find some videos posted where I talk about these different techniques. So some of you may have already run through it once. Now it's time to run through it again.

The New Year's Challenge – It's All about Variety

If you've never tried German Volume Training, you're going to love it and hate it at the same time. You're going to love the results, you're going to love the switch-up in your training style—which is really the real key to this New Year's Challenge, is it really changes up—six weeks of six different training techniques, so you're basically getting to test run each one of these techniques. And then you can take them on your own later on. 

The nice thing here, though, is that with those changes you have something to look forward to every single week. A new style of training keeps your body guessing, keeps it fun, keeps the results coming. 

Have Any Questions? You Know Where to Find Me!

So I will post this to my Facebook. I'll also save it on Instagram as well so you can go back and watch this later. If you have any questions, head to my Facebook feed of this video—where I post it on Facebook—and post your question right underneath the video in the comments section. I will get you a response.

Try your best—under this post at least, I ask—you can ask me anything, whatever, but if you can try to keep the questions focused on either German Volume Training or at least the New Year's Challenge. You'll be able to find plenty of other supplement posts that I make where you can ask your supplement questions and other training styles as well. 

Again, I won't ignore you if you ask me a question about creatine, I'll definitely get you a reply. But I would appreciate if everyone tries to focus their questions under this post as German Volume Training or the New Year's Challenge, just so I can focus on getting those answers to you guys on this post, which is more relevant than, say, a question about creatine.

Bonus Tip: Surviving Super Bowl Sunday!

So it'll be up. Post your questions. Now it's time to go enjoy the Super Bowl. One thing I will say about the Super Bowl is I hope you guys—those of you who are having parties—read my Holiday Survival Guide. Remember, I talked about this for Thanksgiving, through Christmas, through New Year's—same for Super Bowl. 

Don't go making—at least I'll tell you, I'm not going to go make low-fat, low-carb snack options. No, if it's a party it's a party. Going to enjoy myself. What I do is I prep before the party, and if you go to JimStoppani.com my absolutely free—search for my Holiday Survival Guide, and in there you'll find the techniques that can help you be able to enjoy the Super Bowl party so that you can pretty much eat what you want without it having too much of a negative impact on your physique.

And it varies, obviously—we're pretty much an hour away, so there are only a few tips that you'll find to be helpful if you haven't started any of those tips earlier. The tips go back all the way to a week prior to the event, but check it out for any future parties you may have. It's pretty much what I use so that I can go to a party and enjoy all the food and all the festivities. 

Thank you guys for joining in, enjoy the Super Bowl. I hope your team wins, and I hope you truly enjoy yourself today. Have some fun—but make sure you train before you start enjoying those treats. That's the easiest trick right there, is to turn that Super Bowl party into your post-workout recovery foods. 

That way—I'm not saying you won't gain any body fat, but it'll help minimize the amount of body fat that you store because most—or at least, I'll say a lot—of those calories, a lot of those carbs and fat, will be put into recovery processes versus the body going, "What should we do with this fat and carbs? We've got plenty so just store them." No, since you're recovering it turns that food into recovery agents, and like I said less chance for fat gain. That's just one of the tips that you'll learn in my Holiday Survival Guide. 

But again, back to my German Volume Training, back to my New Year's Challenge. I'm through the halfway point. I'll post my end of Week 3 photos today in just a bit, so you can check it out as well and watch my progress. I'm watching everyone else as well—so many people already partaking in this challenge. 

So hang in there guys, and good luck to everyone through this challenge. Like I always say, even if you don't win the grand prize you still end up being the winner because the results that you get from the challenge.

Alright, it's time to get my workout in. I'm going to have to get in a little early if I want to see all of the Super Bowl, but that's okay. Every once in a while I train out of my feeding window, for those of you who know I start eating around 4 p.m. I'll probably start my workout soon, and then what I'll do is I will train fasted—however, I will sip on my Pre JYM during the workout. And then I will start eating immediately when the workout's over—my post recovery—and I plan on having some fun Super Bowl foods.

Alright guys, happy Sunday, happy Super Bowl Sunday. Looking forward to seeing all your progress photos during my New Year's Challenge. Enjoy, guys. Enjoy your weekend. Stay JYM Army Strong. Thank you. 

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