 Boom! Surprise! It's mind pump time! Alright, uh, we got a great giveaway for you. In fact, today's episode, we review a popular workout program, and it's not a maps program, but as we're talking about it, we talk about, you know, some of the things we borrow from this particular workout program to create maps programs. I mean, we definitely stand on the shoulders of giants, and this is what makes the maps program so effective. So, here's the giveaway! Here's the giveaway for today's episode. The first three maps programs that we created, maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic are the three perfect programs to follow in that order. Guess what we're giving away? All three of those. Here's how you can win maps anabolic, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Leave a comment the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode, and tell us what program you would like us to critique on the next episode, and tell us why. If we pick your comment, we'll let you know, and you'll win those three programs for free. You also have to subscribe to this channel, though, and turn on your notifications. One more thing, two programs are on sale right now, 50% off. Maps performance is 50% off, and maps suspension is 50% off. You can find both of those at mapsfitnessproducts.com. Just use the code September 50 with no space for that discount. All right, here comes the show. You know, one of the most, I'd say, common messages that we get emails, could be a lot of emails, right, from people who follow our programs, and they have questions, or they make comments. And a common one, of course, and not to toot our own horn, but I'm going to do it right now anyway, is about just how effective the workouts are, and oh my gosh, I'm getting great results, and this works really well. Yeah, no, not that specifically, but really just how effective the workouts are, and it's because we're geniuses. No, that's not why, the reason why they're so effective, and this is what I tell these people, is that we, it's not like we invented, you know, workouts or what's effective, but rather, we stand on the shoulders of giants, right? Of course. There are lots of effective programs that have been out there. Some of them came from the weightlifting world or the powerlifting world, sometimes even bodybuilding principles, and they've been around for a long time, and they've shown incredible effectiveness and of course, we've trained people for so long that we see what works and what doesn't work, and that's how we're able to put, you know, our programs together and make them so effective. Well, I think it's just that, it's that between the three of us, there's not too many, especially good programs out there that exist that one of us, if not all of us, has either one trained ourselves, read about, and or applied to lots of clients, you know, a good pool of people so that we could then test and see, this works really well, oh, this doesn't work well, or, oh, I felt this different, so I didn't notice that, or, oh, this makes a lot of sense, and so I think that's, I mean, that's really where, that's where MAPS is. MAPS has been born from all of that experience, all that knowledge of others well before us, because nothing that we created in any of those programs is revolutionary or new. In fact, that's actually one of the biggest critiques that we always have to deal with when we get people, the first thing they do, if they open it and they're used to fancy programs that have weird exercises and are unique, they're like, wait a second, these are like the most fundamental movements, I already know all these. Even then, we've experimented with all those new concepts and a lot of the flash of the pan type of things that come through and realize like, the efficacy of those things, you always go back to those fundamental principles that you get from specific types of programming from the strength world, from the body building world, that actually work with your clients. So like just stick to the basics. Yeah, and they stand the test of time, right? And one of the cool things about, because we're all old enough to remember the fitness world before the internet and after the internet. And there's been some changes. One of the changes with the internet is you get lots of people can come together and communicate, well, this works and this doesn't work. And so old training methods or programs, which in the fitness space that was dominated by magazines, oftentimes would get hidden because the magazines, there was no, they didn't make any money promoting some of these basic things. Like why would they even promote them? They're not gonna be able to sell supplements with them or whatever. But when the internet came along and you got fitness forums and stuff, people were like, you know, this old training method, I tried it and it worked. Someone else was like, oh my God, this is really effective. And you see some of these stand the test of time. And so what I'd like to do, and I don't know if this will become a series, but I'd like to kind of cover some of these programs that are actually really good and that some of the concepts and program that we applied in maps came from some of these old programs that we kind of learned from. I love this idea. So the first one, and this is a popular training program. It's been around for a long time. I can remember certain bodybuilders talking about borrowing concepts from this particular type of training in the 80s in particular. This program is called German volume training, or GVT is how you'll see people refer to it. And we've actually gotten over the years quite a few questions about GVT. I'd say it's top five. I'd say it's top five that we get asked about, like what we think about this program. And I remember the first time that I went through it. And I never bought a program or a book that was, and I followed GVT. Like I remember reading all about the principles behind it and like going like, oh, at this point in my career, a lot of the stuff made a lot of sense. And I'm like, oh, this is cool. So I've always applied the principles of GVT and I've had great results from it. So it's definitely up there with one of my favorite programs outside of maps that's out there on the internet. Yeah. And I'd like to break it down. Now, obviously, I think it originated in Germany. I first did GVT years ago. I think I was like 19 years old and I read about it. And I can't remember what bodybuilder talked about applying some of the principles. And I thought, this is so simple and basic. And then I thought, well, I wonder if something simple and basic like this can have some good effects. So I have a lot of experience with GVT. I actually applied a lot of the principles throughout the years in my training and some of my clients' training. So let's kind of run down the principles of GVT, German volume training, and the pros and cons, I guess, of each of them and why we borrowed some of these concepts. So the first part of GVT, if you ever follow German volume training, one of the things you'll notice is that there's a heavy emphasis on fundamental primary movement. Yeah, a handful of exercises. Yeah. There's a lot of focus on squats and deadlifts and overhead presses and bench presses and rows and just some of these basic exercises that we've talked about so many times on the show as being the most bang-for-your-buck exercise. They're just so effective at building strength and muscle in comparison to other exercises. Which, by the way, this is the critique that we get about maps. This is one of the first things. I remember when we released Maps and a Bog. Especially Maps and a Bog. Yeah, because Maps and a Bog has mostly this. This is what is built around. The whole thing is really built around these core compound lifts that give you the biggest bang-for-your-buck. And the idea for us, and that's why it's the first program, is listen, if we're getting somebody who has either won, never lifted or has been out of the gym for a long time and they're starting their routine, these are the core movements that they should build their entire routine on. And it should stay that way. Like, this should be the core. Now, there's lots of value of going outside of that down the road, but they definitely don't ever want to stray too far from these movements because they'll forever reap benefits from it. Dude, the first time I figured this out, I was a kid working out, wanted to build muscle, and I was one of the few people my age who actually thought that I should train my legs. I know a lot of guys, when you start working out, you don't even think about working at your legs. It's not beach muscles. But I wanted to work out my legs because I was skinny all over and I knew I'd gain more weight if I did that. So I did leg press and hack squat and leg extension and leg curls and every leg machine in the gym. And I got some gains and I gained some strength and it was okay. And I talk about the story because this was just so impactful. I was in there working out and I'm doing leg press and I am intense, man. I am a kid and I'm going after it. And there was this group of older power lifters and they were squatting. And the whole leg workout, right? So my whole leg workout took an hour and I did, I don't know, seven different exercises. All they did was squat. And these guys were jacked. They were some of the biggest dudes I'd ever seen in person in my entire life. And they noticed me because the intensity that I was applying, just like I do now as an adult. Right, you see a kid working out really hard. You normally go over it. That's normally the kid I go over and say something to. Yeah, because I'm like, oh, that's great. They're putting so much effort. So one of the guys comes over and he's like, man, you're really going hard. I was like, what's your goal? I'm trying to get big. And he goes, why aren't you in the cage? Like, why should I be in the cage? He goes, just squat. Just do squats. He goes, here, come over here. Let me have you do some squats and see how you feel. And I did. It was the first time I ever did them. And he said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to focus only on squats for a long time and watch what happens. That summer, there's no joke. And that was, I also did deadlifts. That was the first time I did deadlifts as well. That summer I gained 12 pounds, which is a lot of weight for a squatting deadlift. Oh yeah. I was like a 16 year old kid. I remember I think I was 15. I went from sophomore to junior year and I showed up and everybody's like, what happened to you? And that's the first time that I learned that not all exercises are created equal. And I could do four exercises and they would not equal the effectiveness of this one super effective exercise. Speaking too from like an athletic perspective and in the athletic world, I feel like it really shifted away from these fundamental type of chord lifts that really generate the most amount of force, which I think athletes have, you know, unfortunately straight away from because of the coaching and the programming because of this myth around like being muscle bound and being too big and not being as functional and really where this applies, these basic type of exercises do the best job of building overall strength in comparison to a lot of the functional exercise, athletic specificity type of exercises, which is really what the athlete pulls from and then builds upon. So if you don't build upon this core foundational strength, you're not going to be at that peak level that you could achieve. Well, this is so core. It's so important that quickly I'll dismiss another program that somebody wants me to look at when I see this as missing. Totally. Like I don't even need to read the whole fucking thing. If you hand me the first couple of days and you're not practicing these lifts. You're in there or one maybe is in there out of all and like the rest is all these creative exercises that they've got that they put in there or different, you know, right away. I will tell somebody this person doesn't know a lot about programming because they're missing some of the biggest bang for your buck movements. And so to me, that's one of the quickest ways to be able to look at a program and know, okay, and so, and then the same is true that if I see that they have these in there. Okay, now I'm intrigued. I'm going to read further. I'm going to go deeper into this programming because if they already built it around the core, I already know they're ahead of like 90% of the programs that are out there on the internet. Exactly. In fact, every program that people talk about by name as being effective muscle builders, not like, oh, bodybuilders work out with the ones that people always mention. This is one of the things that all have in common is they do place a special emphasis on these core lifts. And this is one big thing that you find in the maps programs is they focus. I don't care which program of ours you follow and they're all very different. All of them, this is one component, is that there's core lifts in there that you focus on because they just give you the most. And I think it's important the audience knows too, like as being completely transparent, I mean, as a young kid and trainer even, I strayed away from that for many years. It wasn't until way later did I come back and apply it to so many clients. We talk about on the show all the time about we were better to our clients than we were ourselves with training because I fell in that trap of doing all these crazy exercise on time and neglecting these core movements. It wasn't until way later in my career, it wasn't actually long before we all met that I was just piecing it together. And it was the big selling point when you had me look at MAP Santa Bloc when you and Doug had already put it together and you said, hey, could you take a look at this? And that was what got me on the phone. At that point in my career, I had really just pieced that together like a program should be built around this. And I remember opening it up and being like, oh, I got, okay, I want to talk to him on the phone. Now, the next point about German volume training is probably the most characteristic feature of this program. This is probably what people know the most about it, which is doing 10 sets of 10 reps of many of these primary exercises. That's really the big, like what differentiates German volume training from other forms of training. By the way, German volume training probably borrowed that from Olympic lifting. Okay, because if you look at Olympic lifting, which I've made this argument before and I'll make it all day long, the most scientific strength training program and you'll find anywhere in the world is Olympic lifting because it's been in the Olympics. They treat it as a skill and a science. And a something that you need to practice continuously. And that's like an added value of what they're promoting with this program is just that amount of sets, that amount of reps, like really honing in on that movement skill. And I think that's the key takeaway that we obviously all of us picked up from that. Now, we apply ours more with frequency and maps, right? But we take that same concept and that's what we talk about on the show all time is that it's the practice of the movement that is so valuable. And I love the idea and I love doing this with somebody, especially I love doing this with clients that were new and wanted to get them good at squatting or wanted to get them good at deadlifting and nothing better than to just stay focused on that one movement for 20 plus minutes or 30 minutes of the workout. That's all we're doing. It's going to take at least that much time if you're doing 10 sets of this exercise. Something that people forget and this is a big mistake. It's a mistake I made. I think everybody makes until you become very experienced is that you look at workouts and you forget that it's a skill. Like, you know, if I play a sport, sport is a skill. Like, you play any sport and people realize that the exertion and the sweat and the soreness is secondary. Really, the primary thing is there's a skill involved. Football is football because there's a skill to throwing and catching and running in the way that you operate in the sport. Same thing with basketball, soccer, all of them make you, you know, sweat, all of them make you burn calories. But what makes soccer, soccer and football, football and basketball, basketball is this skill, right? All of a sudden, you go to the gym and it's all at the window. It has nothing to do with skill. It's all about hammering my legs, hammering my shoulders. It's about getting through it. It's about soreness and sweat. You see this with running. People do this with running all the time. They say, oh, I'm going to start getting in better shape. I'm going to go run. Forgetting that running is a skill. And so what do they do? They go and run until they're tired. Form is crap. Terrible biomechanics. And this is why running has one of the highest injury rates of all forms of exercise. It's not because humans weren't made to run. In fact, we evolved to run. We're the best running animals on the planet when it comes to distance. But it's a skill. And if you forget that skill and you don't treat it like a skill, getting better at it, you're going to hurt yourself. That's not going to be effective. The same thing with exercise. How do you get better at a skill? You practice it often. So if I want to go in the gym and I'm going to work out and I want to do, I want to work my legs out and I know the best exercise is squats and I should get good at squats. So instead of doing two sets of, you know, a bunch of different exercises, what if I did ten sets of just squats, right? You get better at squats very quickly and you get a lot of that return from the squats. This is again, one of the most characteristics things about German volume training. And I think this is one of the primary reasons why when people try it, they're like, oh my gosh, I get tremendous gains. What was borrowed in maps? Adam, you hit the nail on the head. You practice those primary lifts often. You do more sets of squats, deadlifts, presses and rows in a maps program than you do of any other exercise. And the way that it's presented in maps is rather than doing ten sets, you may do five sets, but you're doing it three days a week. It's 15 sets in that entire week. And again, this was borrowed from Olympic lifters. I think this was after the Soviet Union collapsed and we started learning about their training methodologies. And you saw these Olympic lifters practicing over and over and over again and just getting so good. And you get strong quickly doing that. You show me a person who eats well and can perform those five main lifts with beautiful form. And I'll show you a great physique. Almost always, right? Yeah. If they eat well, and that's pretty relative to it. It doesn't need to be perfect. Just they eat good. They don't eat like an asshole, right? And they don't abuse food and eat well over their calories and their balance and eat their protein like they're supposed to. That person and if they have a beautiful squat, a beautiful dead lift, a beautiful shoulder press, I will show you a great physique. Show me somebody where those two things are at and the present and they don't have a beautiful physique. I will stand by that statement all day long. So one of the other characteristics of German volume training, and this isn't necessarily different from other programming, but they do place an emphasis on 90 second rest periods in between sets of these primary lifts. So if you're doing 10 sets, you're doing a set, you're resting 90 seconds, you're doing another set and so on. They do say 60 seconds for what are called accessory lifts, which are like more of your isolation lifts, but otherwise they do place an emphasis on about 90 seconds. I'll tell you where that's very different. This was one of the things we talked about assessing a program pretty quick and then dismissing it. This was one of the things that made me dismiss CrossFit so fast was because they didn't put emphasis on longer rest periods with these compound lifts. And I think that's actually a very staple point that they make in this programming is that when you're doing these compound lifts you should be getting adequate rest. Could you do it in 30 seconds back to back? Yeah, you could. Would that build a gas tank and stamina by from doing that? Sure. The rest period determines a pure strength focus. And that's something that, yeah, you have to have that emphasis on that in order to adapt properly in that direction. Otherwise we're convoluting that signal to the body and we're fighting the fact that is this endurance, is this strength, is I'm trying to kind of adapt to both at the same time. Now the major difference between GVT here and like maps is that we play with all the rest periods. Yes. So we see there's tremendous value in lower rest periods and even longer rest periods and then the body is going to adapt to whatever rest period that you're doing on a regular basis and we know that phasing in and out of that is even more value to that person. So you're kind of moving towards is the Achilles heel of any effective workout, which is eventually even no matter how well programmed it is if you always do it over and over again it stops working. So speaking to rest periods generally speaking 90 seconds is a good rest period but that doesn't mean there isn't value to a 30 second rest period and that doesn't mean there isn't value to a 3 minute rest period. So it's important to incorporate all of those in your programming. So what you know what you find in maps programs and one of the reasons why we have we created so many different maps programs is specifically so people can move from one to the next one and then what you experience is 90 second rest periods, 3 minute rest periods, 30 second rest periods along with variations in the way exercises are put together and reps and all that stuff. So that rest period recommendations good especially with this type of training and I'll say from experience by the way 10 sets of 10 reps 90 seconds does not feel like very fast. Yes it does it's actually it does kind of hammer your stamina. But also you need that adequate rest to be able to then perform your next set right and to be able to do that with good form and technique and so like that's another factor to that where you don't want to just jump back into that exercise with any bit of fatigue. I kind of feel like they had to do 90 seconds right because obviously even longer rest periods for a strength focus program would be even more ideal generally speaking but you extend a program that's built around 10 by 10 and you do 2 minute, 3 minute rest imagine how long the workout is. Long yeah it's a long workout. Yeah now you have a 3 hour workout and so I think 90 seconds is probably the minimum amount of rest that you'd want to give this this type of training or the maximum yeah right and so I think that's that and because you go much longer than it's going to extend the program these workouts actually take a while they don't look like it because there's one exercise or two that you're doing that's why I have to condense it down to the biggest bang for your buck exercise well yeah if you do two just two of these foundational movements in a workout it's 20 sets yeah so it's a long while it does here's the next point this is where people get confused and this is where I messed up the first few times I tried German volume training and then I went back and corrected this and this is the difference between this kind of workout not being effective and this kind of workout being very effective here's the key you only add weight to the bar if you can perform all ten reps on all sets never going to failure and by the way you don't go to failure so they do advocate stopping about two reps short of failure you've heard us say that a billion times you'll see that every single maps program you'll also see in every maps program that we give you a rep range and you have to adjust your weight because the goal is to stay in that rep range so here's what happens when you try German volume training you go to do your ten by ten and inevitably you miscalculate yeah you think you think I'm going to pick a weight that I could easily do ten to fifteen reps which you're not factoring in is set six seven eight nine you're going to be fatigued and you're going to have to start I normally tell people half so if you got a way much lower than you think if you got a way that you know you can move ten times relatively easily get to ten you know you can get ten right now cold or whatever fifty percent of that yeah start there because you're going to be surprised when you get to set seven eight and nine that you're going to be struggling to get ten actually I did a I remember a workout where I did this I said oh I'm going to do this with deadlifts I'm going to do ten by ten with deadlifts and I picked away that I thought I should be able to do ten right it wasn't fifty percent right so I didn't think to myself pick a weight I could do twenty with I thought I could do like fifteen that should be good for all ten sets and it's it was one of the most it was one of those workouts that you remember because it sent me back like two weeks because it was just too much after I was done I remember and of course you know when you put it in your head like I'm going to finish this workout I did and I was fucked for a while in fact I couldn't deadlift for like two weeks and it was a learning lesson to me was like okay you when you're doing something like this you got to make sure you start easy and so now people here's the people the question people will have and they'll have this with some of our programs is well the first sets are easy then that's okay you're training the central nervous system just as much as you're training the muscles and that volume adds up and believe me it makes a big difference and it doesn't mean that those early sets are a waste of time they're also very valuable so the way it feels is easy until it's not anymore by the time you get to like you said set six or seven I can't remember if it was GVT that was the first place that I actually read somebody actually advocating for two reps short of failure it might have been GVT I can't remember if it was or not but I do remember this being one of the most pivotal moments or game changer moments in my career was actually doing that because up until this point I was always training to failure or using a spotter and I thought oh my god doing a whole workout where I'm stopping two reps short of failure I'm not going to get the results and I remember getting stronger and stronger every week every day I came back to the gym by doing that and forever changed the way I look at it so this is psychologically challenging totally right because it's a very much of an ego check because you realize you really do have to reduce that load you have to reduce the weight to get through and perform it correctly so to not do that because we've been drilled in our head by so many different marketing machines out there that we need to put and exert as much effort as possible every single time you're in the gym and lifting and so this is like very much more calculated methodical scientific and so you just have to come into it with that there's two ways you can apply this one is much more advanced will hammer your body more the other one is probably more appropriate for most people so here's the first one your weight adjusts with each set you're always stopping two reps short of failure the cons of that is it's you're doing 10 sets of two reps before failure is hard and figuring the weight out can be difficult so if you're advanced and you know your body you might be able to do this here's the other way of doing it's more more appropriate for most people start with about 50% of the weight in other words start with a weight you know you could do 20 10 so that means that the first four or five sets are easy and then you start to get to two reps before failure towards the end of that particular 10 set you know workout that's best for most people you'll see that in some of our programs where like maps power lift for example uses percentages where you start to use that other programs you'll hear say in the program 10 to reps short of failure on every single set both have value although if you're doing this particular type of workout I do think for most people start with the 50-60% of what you think and then just stick to that even though it's easy in the beginning alright so the next one and so we already talked about the starting weight which I think is important the next one is accessory exercises you can put in accessory exercises in this type of programming I've seen German volume training where they do no accessory lifts so it's all primary lifts like you know day one is you know squat and bench press or whatever and so on and then I've seen others where they'll do that and then they'll throw in like two or three sets of like you'll do a set of flies or you'll do you know some curls or maybe some rear laterals that type of stuff when you do the accessory lifts German volume training says at the most do three sets of those 10 to 20 reps I like this advice because that's exactly the way accessory lifts should be used there's a reason why it's called accessory lifts they're a great way to add volume get a little bit more of a pump but they should not be the bulk of the volume of your workout the bulk of the volume should be those main lifts and what you find in maps programs often is exactly that unless there's a specific phase in some of our programs there's a specific phase where we flip that on its head and it's primarily for the adaptation purposes well the truth is if you do a really good job and you're practicing to get stronger in all these big lifts you're going to hit all the secondary muscles too so it's not like you do bench press you get really good it's not just your chest shoulders and triceps are very much so involved in that and let me tell you if you see if you never did a shoulder workout or a tricep or another like a specific isolation exercise for shoulders or triceps but you watch your bench press go up 50 to 75 pounds I guarantee your shoulders and triceps get bigger oh yeah so that's going to happen as a byproduct of being really good at these lifts so it doesn't take very much of this accessory this was another thing that took me a really long time to piece together as a kid and you know what I'll tell you being honest what kept me from this was the compound lifts were hard they were hard they were much more demanding they were difficult to perform perfect they exhausted me they were hard to do and it was really easy to walk over to a cable machine and do some push downs or sit down on a preacher curl machine or do some cable curls like that stuff and I could do lots of it so I felt like oh I'm doing a lot of stuff so that's as good but it's just not you just do not get as much benefit from those core lifts so building it mostly around that and oh okay if I have a little extra time I've got this accessory and this is actually more like how I train today many times I'll go in the gym and only do one or two of these core lifts and not do any accessory work and then hey on the days when I'm feeling really good and I'm training my foundational stuff and then I'm also touching some isolation exercises now I do want to be clear like most things in fitness there's truths but there's also caveats okay is there value to doing lots of angles of exercises and different varieties of movements yes there definitely can be you see this often in advanced bodybuilder training where they go in and they do different exercises hitting different angles of the muscle really good for squeezing out a pump really good for connecting to certain muscle groups so let's say you have poor connection to your chest there may be some value in doing some cable flies to really connect and squeeze that muscle so there is value especially if all you ever do are the core lifts like if all you ever do are squats and then I say okay you've been six months only doing squats which is great and you've gotten great results let's try throwing a little bit of leg extension and some leg curls or some sissy squats and all of a sudden the person's like oh my gosh I'm squeezing out new muscle growth so there definitely is value in that and again the Achilles heel of this program like any program is it's the same thing over and over again and you miss the potential benefit this is why again in our maps programs generally speaking it's focused on the core lifts but there are phases in some of our programs especially the more advanced bodybuilding focus programs where you do see a lot of variation with accessory lifts especially in a program like maps split maps aesthetic on the focus sessions like I don't think focus sessions will be valuable if you're doing compound lifts on the focus days like that's a great way to over train right but if you go into add extra you know frequency and you're doing some leg extensions or some laterals for your shoulders now there's some value you know to doing some of these so it's definitely true but there are some you know caveats alright here's the next one gvt training typically recommends that you hit each body part for every four to five days some people say every seven days so chest once every four or five days or once every seven days back once every you know four to seven days right and the reason why they can get away from it will get away with this only training one time in a week it's because of how much volume they're doing yes yes the name now here's where I'll I digress a little better I move a little bit from I see more value and I've seen more value in my clients with taking that volume and breaking it up and increasing the frequency I just do now here's why right you're doing all 10 sets of squats and one workout let me tell you that is and you're doing that once a week is very fatiguing it's very challenging there's value to it but often times form goes down it fries your body a little too much your body starts to worry more about healing than it does with adapting in my experience I've seen people get better results doing five on one day and five on another day so they're hitting the squats twice a week each time you practice the squats you get more you're more fresh and you have better form not saying you can't get value from the one you know 10 set workout but in my experience a little more frequency seems to be better for not to mention the the time length of the workouts to get through is just like it that all adds up when you're doing that many sets and that many reps and you're doing it with the appropriate amount of rest in between you know I found that a lot of times you know for people in their schedule to especially to be able to break that up in chunks and then spread that out throughout the week actually like plays a lot more you know effectively within the way that they can approach it well speaking of scheduling this the main reason why I liked you know frequency two three times a week and so if you do if you're hitting a muscle group two to three times a week you're doing either an upper lower split or you're doing a full body routine that's basically what you're doing and what I have found in my experience with training clients especially is the inevitable happens rarely ever does someone not miss a day like life happens such a good point and they miss a day when you are training a program that's a one body part per day type of routine and you miss that one day it throws everything off and now you're behind on everything or what it actually tends to happen is I miss legs and I don't like legs that one body part you conveniently always miss the days that you don't like training and so I just think that that's where bad habits start to happen and what I found with a full body type or an upper lower split with clients is that oh they missed one day in that week it's okay I'm never letting a week go by when I know that their entire body isn't getting hit at least once if not you are so correct this is I want to emphasize this point because I know people watch I won't miss a workout look inevitably in 60 days you might miss two workouts or three what if all those two workouts was shoulders or chest right but if you work in the whole body and you're doing it frequently the damage is much lower and this is something that we need to consider whenever we follow a program let's think what's in front of us we have to think long term which program is do I mitigate the potential damage of the inevitable the most what if I get hurt what if I get sick what if I have an event I can't make a workout this is important because ultimately at the end of you know at a year or two years however long you plan on training which hopefully is the rest of your life you develop a more balanced physique with more frequent training with body part splits you know what you tend to find except for this meticulous fanatical what you tend to find honestly are more often than not lagging body parts and it's typically those body parts that don't like to train and oh when they miss a workout that's the body part that they don't end up training that's why you can't we can't only argue the science that's important and if you're a good trainer you need to know the science that supports but don't ignore the other stuff you can't ignore the behavioral part and there's and in fact I would make the case of that parts even more important so you have to understand the tendencies of most people and what ends up happening and so and that took me again years of training clients to start to piece together sure on paper you can make the case for why this is perfect or this program is amazing but then I also have to take into consideration okay now when I take a pool of a hundred random people and I apply this to them what percentage of them follow to a T and if they don't follow to a T how detrimental is it if they miss this or miss that or cheat this or don't do that or that in in fitness especially the the hardcore maybe the academics or this you know the super trainers or whatever been doing it for a while they tend to focus on the the science too much and they ignore what actually happens in the behavior in the real world you know I remember as a trainer early trainer right if somebody came to me and said hey Sal I'm gonna do cardio in the morning which one do you think is the best and I'm gonna do it I'm gonna do 30 minutes is the best I would pick the one that I know that burns the most calories oh you should go run on a treadmill that burns the most calories later on as a trainer I realize that that actually was not important at all what was important was which one's gonna be the most consistent so then I would reply and say actually what do you like to do the most do that one because I know over six months or a year whatever you're gonna get better shape from doing the one that you like the most because you're gonna be the most consistent better if you don't consider this you're gonna screw yourself the behavioral aspect of it is the number one reason why people don't work out it's the number one reason why people don't hit their goals it's the number one reason why problems happen it's actually it's ranked higher than the science of the actual workout itself alright the last point that they'll typically make in in GVG training is the tempo and I think they do a good job of this and they say you know people who advocate for it Charles Paula Paula Quinn used to talk about this and he would say make sure you do a four second negative on your lifts or maybe three second negatives on the accessory lifts you know I agree with that I think generally speaking doing a four second or maybe even a three second negative it's gonna point you in the right direction more often than not now here's the the con or the drawback it ignores the fact that there's benefits to other tempos is there a benefit from a faster more explosive tempo duh of course especially athletic applications but if you're experienced you can build a lot of muscle doing that what about even slower tempo what if you did a seven or eight second negative or pause at the bottom of a rep is there value in that absolutely and we tend to ignore it when we only look at oh just three four seconds and we miss this whole this whole other area that can benefit us generally speaking though this is one of the things that I actually loved about GVT that they did put emphasis on this because a lot of programs don't put any emphasis on that they don't say it at all yeah they don't talk about at all and I remember from when I learned this and then I went and applied it and I talk about it on the show all time like I still to this day go go to the gym try and find somebody yeah show me a four second negative go in the gym and you will not definitely if you might find a person you won't find five yeah you will not find a handful of people that are truly doing a four second negative and that's so important to building muscle and strength yes all the other tempos have value but if you're not even doing one of the most important tempos to build muscle and strength you're really missing out so I remember going and applying and feeling like home and feeling my the workouts for like the next month I was like it felt like I just started all over yes yeah well I just like the emphasis on that slow controlled because I just feel like it helps you to really focus in on what you're doing and be present in your lifts and really emphasizing your technique and being aware of your body and the signals that's providing you so again with beginners but also even advanced lifters this is something that you know creates massive benefit and also helps to break down muscles to rebuild them quite effectively right however right if you just do this you are ignoring the value of other tempos and there is value I tell you what if you've been especially if you're experienced and you've been training a while and you got good control go try some explosive lifts tell me that you don't all of a sudden develop some muscle it's a perfect example of taking somebody probably bodybuilders the closest to following this to you right like really doing a four second you know eccentric or negative portion of the exercise where they're probably the best or most consistent I should say with that tempo you take a bodybuilder who's never trained like maps performance type the style exactly and it will completely blow and change their body because they they're gotten so good at training that one tempo all the time that doing something more explosive will absolutely send a new signal the body to grow and adapt yes now here's some here's some cons to to deep gvt training again I have a lot of experience following it and doing the programming and now one is the Achilles heel of any program which is eventually you do the same thing over and over again your body just doesn't respond anymore so like any program at some point you're going to probably have to move and try something different for me that usually look like the 60 to 90 day period usually after about 90 days whatever I was doing no matter how great it was kind of stopped you know tapers off after it does and so again if you if you look at our programs if you were to go to mapsfitnessproducts.com you'll find a lot of different workout programs we actually design them in an order that we'd like people to follow them and this is just our integrity as trainers to be quite honest if we just want to sell workout programs the very first program we would release would have been like maps hit well it's interesting to because I think the perception is that we created these programs just to fit you know certain types of people when in fact we created all these different types of programs to expose people to more options of training that they need to incorporate instead of just sticking with the same formula every single time and and this is this is a mold we've been trying to break on this show is to expose people to value in pursuing completely different types of out on that point I want to point this out since you went there and you said that we do because I get this question all the time in my DMs on the my input media IG where the highlights are I know that Chokey had you write all the ideal orders of the program based off your goal so whatever your goal is here's the ideal work now that doesn't mean you can't go this one to that one that's what's great about it you absolutely can do that but when we wrote them we wrote them with this intent of if I had a clean slate and I wanted to in this client you wanted everything build muscle lose body fat be mobile longevity all that yeah they wanted that they wanted the ideal version of themselves that had possessed all these attributes how would I take them through these training programs we've written them in an order like that so your body gets used to it if you always do the same thing and so you want to change it up after you know 60 to 90 days and our maps programs tend to be about 60 to 90 days long also again psychologically things also can get boring so it's fun to move into a different focus well now I'm focusing a little bit more mobility now I'm focusing more on power lifting now I'm doing more strongman inspired type workouts now I'm doing more body building type workouts if your goal is to train your body forever if this is something that you want to do for the rest of your life which is a great mentality towards exercise I think the wrong mentality is I'm going to get in shape and then stop that doesn't make any sense right if you want to do it forever it's a good idea to weave in and out of different styles of training your body's only going to progress better as a result of it and which takes me to the next one and this is the big thing that I noticed from gvt is I would start to get a little bit of nagging in certain parts of my body now why was this happening to me well here's what happens if I only ever do squats if my form is off by 1% which is almost impossible to notice especially yourself right it can actually look perfect but there's a little bit of instability in the hip and a little bit in the instability in the ankle or maybe my lateral strength isn't so great but I always do squats and my squat weight keeps going up up up up eventually I run into this wall where that little problem now is what's preventing me from progressing and then you start to get like it band tightness oh my my back is a little tight on the right side what's going on so the fact that gvt is a bit limited with its planes of motion it can call it can at least exacerbate or or increase the risk of injury as you get stronger it just it just makes that gap bigger yes right like when you first start you're you know you're kind of weak in the sagittal plane you're kind of weak in the frontal plane there's not a big discrepancy there you might not notice any joint pain you have any injuries issues going on but as you get stronger and stronger and stronger just in the sagittal plane then you create a greater discrepancy so now you have a lot of power forward which are really weak left and right which that's where injury tends to occur that's where chronic pain normally starts to reveal itself and that is the one drawback of like following just the type of a program where you're just focusing mainly on the core left we're just not expressing the true potential movement patterns that the joint is capable of and you know that that's just something that you get really like you say you get really strong and that signal keeps getting louder and louder but we haven't brought up the secondary you know support muscle groups that help to keep everything in its proper position in healthy joint function which to that exact point is the reason why one I wouldn't want someone to stay in just maps anabolic and the reason why maps performance is program number two that's right is we knew that maps anabolic is close most closely related probably to GVT as far as a lot of the program is concerned and if it has a limiting factor is that we don't incorporate a lot of other planes with mass strength muscle I need to move in different directions I need to focus on some mobility and some performance different planes because if I don't I'm not going to keep gaining I'm not going to keep progressing in maps performance if you follow the program you know there's a special emphasis on different planes of movement and what's the result of that well you move better you feel better you're more athletic definitely but here's what people often don't realize that they do at the end of the program I build more muscle oh my gosh because you've eliminated these limiting you know factors this is another point this is a big con and this is it's almost like you get fooled you look at GVT training you think oh it's basic I'm only doing two or three exercises alright this is cool no you will easily fry your body if you underestimate this program I'm telling you right now ten sets of ten reps of squats will fry your body more than twenty sets of a bunch of other leg exercises so keep that in mind fry your body if you're not careful and I really think that's mainly because it is really difficult to do two of the main points that we already addressed that they do which is two reps short of failure and then also when you're doing ten sets of something starting off at fifty to sixty percent intensity like people just fifty to sixty percent of intensity does not register for most people if they're on set two or three and they're like oh that's really easy real hard for them not to slap more weight on there so it takes a lot of discipline aggressively more and more challenging as we get closer to sets ten so I'm going to stick with this weight even though it feels easy right now that's hard for people and because of that they always end up kind of pressing more than they should I remember a work out that you and Adam did together where you guys went and did squats I think you put two twenty five on the bar and both of you guys decided let's just do ten sets of ten easy ten sets of ten by the way two twenty five for these guys ten reps is easy both of you could squat four hundred and five pounds for a single or whatever if you had to go as hard as you could for ten reps probably be closer to three fifteen so you picked two twenty five and I remember because you guys were like on set number seven yeah it was seven I think is when I had a bail seven or eight yeah both of you guys were like uh I don't know man this is really adding up yeah and only because we committed to it was I even because I already at that point I think by the time we got to set six I probably already by six I knew was coming right and seven I was like I'm already well beyond overreaching now this is purely ego to prove that I could commit finish what I committed to but this would be terrible training right now to finish the ten sets yeah and it would fry your body I remember you guys came into podcast the next day and I'm like why are you guys walking that like that why are you guys moving funny we decided to do this and like oh shit so you could definitely easily fry your body so consider that if you follow you know something like this here's another one lack of different angles but we kind of address that with the different planes of motion but I'm speaking more from a bodybuilding perspective one thing that bodybuilding has brought to the muscle building strength building world is the value of different angles you know Arnold used to talk about this all the time and there definitely is value to it from a muscle hypertrophy perspective especially as you get more advanced I don't think this is as important when you first get started but if you've been working out for a few years it starts to make a difference to hit your muscle groups from different angles different elbow positions when I do curls and different angles when I hit my chest and my back it starts to make a difference in terms of muscle hypertrophy and gvt really does lack angles is very focused on on a few you know core lifts well that reminds me of another con which is just purely the lack of variety and exercises yeah because there is so much emphasis on the biggest bang for your buck movements which should be that way it does lack a little variety and that's the thing that it's like what you keep saying yeah it gets boring and not having something that you're doing different like I remember this is again going back to you know applying this to clients as much as I knew like certain exercises we should just be doing this all the time for my clients after a while they want to feel something different or they want to at least try something different so you have to kind of learn to sprinkle that in as a coach I know what the core should be and what I want them to stick to because I know this is going to give them the most benefit but I also recognize that yep we're doing that again today yep we're doing that again today and you say that enough times to a client they're like I can we do something different today so the and there's a lot of different exercises that are similar to the core that complimentary that's right that can complement and or are similar to benefits like for for example always doing a barbell back squat making sure that you're doing some front squats or Bulgarian split squat or a walking lunch I mean those exercises have tremendous value and big bang for your buck movement so it lacks in the variety like yeah and if you dismiss the you know boredom factor you are you are telling you right now you're going to set yourself up for failure because what's the number one reason why people stop working out right that's not exciting anymore so changing it up is very important you actually touched on something Adam that I'll say is definitely another con which is the lack of unilateral or split stance exercises there's a lot of value in doing that in fact I've trained with strength athletes who were incredibly strong bilaterally like could squat 600 pounds never do a split stance squat never do walking lunges could barely do walking lunges with 135 pounds because they had the lack of stability of that split stance they their their pelvis wasn't strong in that position that back leg couldn't support them they were shaking and it was a huge hole in their performance well yeah and and it's so important because it highlights the discrepancies from one side to the other like because there's so many compensations that happen when you're you know just focused bilaterally all the time you like you can you can really sort of mask a lot of those compensations and signals you should be paying attention to they're very glaringly obvious when you go to one side versus the other so and again this is another to the to the to the previous points of being able to address you know other angles and other things you need to incorporate to build support around the joints like you know you lateral training does a great job of that absolutely so there you have it look if you like our information head over to mind pump free com we have tons of free guides there that can help you build muscle burn body fat improve your body composition also of course we do lot we have lots of workout programs they're called maps workout programs and there's a lot of them to choose from you can find those at maps fitnessproducts.com and finally find us all on instagram so you can find Justin at mind pump Justin me at mind pump Sal and Adam at mind pump Adam