Ultra High Volume Experiment

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Hey everyone, I am about to try something that I’ve never read about being done before. I’m going to do deadlift carries/Waterbury Walks five days a week and shoot for a weekly volume of 100,000+ pounds lifted.

For this, I plan to use at least 70% 1RM and to wave my volume by 60% on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll increase the weight 5-10 pounds each week and take a deload every fourth week. I’ll do some plyometrics 1-2 times a week to keep up my speed.

My thought process behind this routine is that an extreme amount of time under tension, while still using a heavy enough load, will allow for very fast hypertrophy. I’ve helped my dad with warehouse work in the summer and gained weight like crazy while hauling things around day in and day out.

I know overtraining is a possibility, but I’m 17, eat like a horse, and have plenty of time to rest.

I would like to know what everyone, readers, mods, and authors think of this plan. It’s going to be hard, but I think it’ll work.

Thanks,
RJ

2

Overtraining is highly likely rather than possible. The effects are largely systemic and not just the obvious things like DOMS and general fatigue. The main issue is that many of the enzymic reactions and biochemical processes have knock on effects and can trigger a whole chain of undesirable effects. In its most simple undesirable form you will get flu like symptoms and temperature elevation.

3

You may have to eat like three or four horses.

4

Your youth should help. Be sure to get a ton of rest and eat well.

The danger with overtraining is that you will impair your ability to continue, or even trigger an injury response in your body causing it to try to defend itself, which isn’t what you’re looking for.

So go hard and heavy, but listen very carefully to your body and when it says it’s had enough, pay attention.

5

Okay, upon doing the math and breaking the work up, I’ve decided to cut down the total work to 50,000 pounds a week, at least intitially.

This should be much easier to handle and will allow room for increased volume or intensity later on.

6

I think experiments are cool, as long as you don’t hurt yourself.

Might I suggest that you consider ramping up though, rather the leaping straing into it?

Something like:
week 1: 12k LB, over 3 days
week 2: 20k LB, over 3 days
week 3: 28k LB, over 4
week 4: 35k LB, over 4
week 5: 40k LB, over 4
week 6: 10k LB, over 3
week 7: 45k LB, over 5
week 8: 50k LB, over 5

etc.?

There’s no rhyme or reason to the breakdown, but to me, if you’re trying to get your body to go from not very much to very high volumes, doing it slowly is a good thing? You still risk allm the overtraining stuff, but you give yourself time to adapt to this at least.

Chad Waterbury’s Perfect Ten program is structured towards high-frequency training; I assume you’ve read that six times also?

Other than that, listen to your body all the time - it will let you know when it’s had anough shit and needs a break. Good luck whatever you do; p’raps you’ll post an update on how it goes?

WiZlon

7

I would come up with to different workouts and vary them. Eat, and don’t hurt yourself. A good injury can bother you the rest of your life. Otherwise, just do it.

8

[quote]RJ24 wrote:
Hey everyone, I am about to try something that I’ve never read about being done before. I’m going to do deadlift carries/Waterbury Walks five days a week and shoot for a weekly volume of 100,000+ pounds lifted.

For this, I plan to use at least 70% 1RM and to wave my volume by 60% on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll increase the weight 5-10 pounds each week and take a deload every fourth week. I’ll do some plyometrics 1-2 times a week to keep up my speed.

My thought process behind this routine is that an extreme amount of time under tension, while still using a heavy enough load, will allow for very fast hypertrophy. I’ve helped my dad with warehouse work in the summer and gained weight like crazy while hauling things around day in and day out.

I know overtraining is a possibility, but I’m 17, eat like a horse, and have plenty of time to rest.

I would like to know what everyone, readers, mods, and authors think of this plan. It’s going to be hard, but I think it’ll work.

Thanks,
RJ [/quote]

Terrible idea. You won’t last more than 2 weeks before quitting this program.

9

I would shit can the plyo’s if your going to play with real high volume. Maybe just do some standing broad jumps before your sets if you’re real worried about it.

You might want to consider waving your poundage week by week too, but then again try it out and see.

Read this article:

http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=551687

I’m interested. Lets see how it goes.

10

Periods of planned overreaching can be fantastic for strength and hypertrophy gains. Without knowing a detailed training history and watching you while you go through the program, I’d estimate 2 weeks of the very high volume and one week at low volume, alternated twice, would be a good starting point for a plan.

Like was said, though, pay attention to your body. It doesn’t lie.

-Dan

11

[quote]WiZlon wrote:
I think experiments are cool, as long as you don’t hurt yourself.

Might I suggest that you consider ramping up though, rather the leaping straing into it?

Something like:
week 1: 12k LB, over 3 days
week 2: 20k LB, over 3 days
week 3: 28k LB, over 4
week 4: 35k LB, over 4
week 5: 40k LB, over 4
week 6: 10k LB, over 3
week 7: 45k LB, over 5
week 8: 50k LB, over 5

etc.?

There’s no rhyme or reason to the breakdown, but to me, if you’re trying to get your body to go from not very much to very high volumes, doing it slowly is a good thing? You still risk allm the overtraining stuff, but you give yourself time to adapt to this at least.

Chad Waterbury’s Perfect Ten program is structured towards high-frequency training; I assume you’ve read that six times also?

Other than that, listen to your body all the time - it will let you know when it’s had anough shit and needs a break. Good luck whatever you do; p’raps you’ll post an update on how it goes?

WiZlon

[/quote]

WiZlon, I train each muscle group 3+ times per week, so I’m already accustomed to somewhat high volume. My thought process behind jumping in at such a high work load is to shock my body into new growth. I believe the human body is an amazingly adaptable organism, and I think that if I force myself to adapt, I will.

I realize this will be tough on me, but I’ve got youth and stubborness on my side. The way I see it, a set up like this will either completely bury me, or it will give me the best results of my life.

12

Thanks for the link conorh, I have that article on my computer already. I know recovery is the key here. Also, my plyo routine consists of very few depth jumps and some standing triple jumps. I don’t think this will be too much.

And buffalokilla, thanks for the tip. I was planning to go 3 weeks on, one off, but your suggestion sounds more plausible.

13

3 times a week per body part is great, but thats high frequency not high volume. I once did leg workouts with 80+ sets once a week for about 2 or 3 weeks. It was pretty hellish. My body did’nt like it that much either I don’t recommend it. The DOMS was unreal too. I would also do at least 50 sets for every other body part.

14

what well founded, well balanced advice from the experts.
take heed folks

15

[quote]RJ24 wrote:
Hey everyone, I am about to try something that I’ve never read about being done before. I’m going to do deadlift carries/Waterbury Walks five days a week and shoot for a weekly volume of 100,000+ pounds lifted.

For this, I plan to use at least 70% 1RM and to wave my volume by 60% on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll increase the weight 5-10 pounds each week and take a deload every fourth week. I’ll do some plyometrics 1-2 times a week to keep up my speed.

My thought process behind this routine is that an extreme amount of time under tension, while still using a heavy enough load, will allow for very fast hypertrophy. I’ve helped my dad with warehouse work in the summer and gained weight like crazy while hauling things around day in and day out.

I know overtraining is a possibility, but I’m 17, eat like a horse, and have plenty of time to rest.

I would like to know what everyone, readers, mods, and authors think of this plan. It’s going to be hard, but I think it’ll work.

Thanks,
RJ [/quote]

Could you post updates on your progress? I’m also interested in this high frequency training.

16

I carried out my plan for a week and all I can say is, “Oh…my…god.”

I was so rundown and sore that walking up steps, even a few of them, was nothing short of a momentous task. I even got sick towards the end of the week.

As for the results, I slowed down, and my vertical dropped 1", but my deadlift was up by 30 pounds a week later. Just last week I nearly pulled 405, but lost it at knee level.

I have no intentions of doing this type of thing again and have since returned to a DB Hammer (go ahead, laugh. It really works though) style workout. However, if anyone wants to try something like this, I would advise them to start with 50-60% of their 1RM. Besides that, just take recovery measures and you’ll be fine.

17

[quote]RJ24 wrote:
I carried out my plan for a week and all I can say is, “Oh…my…god.”

I was so rundown and sore that walking up steps, even a few of them, was nothing short of a momentous task. I even got sick towards the end of the week.

As for the results, I slowed down, and my vertical dropped 1", but my deadlift was up by 30 pounds a week later. Just last week I nearly pulled 405, but lost it at knee level.

I have no intentions of doing this type of thing again and have since returned to a DB Hammer (go ahead, laugh. It really works though) style workout. However, if anyone wants to try something like this, I would advise them to start with 50-60% of their 1RM. Besides that, just take recovery measures and you’ll be fine.[/quote]

So, the bottom line is that you got better at what you did a lot of.

Makes sense.

18

[quote]RJ24 wrote:
I carried out my plan for a week and all I can say is, “Oh…my…god.”

I was so rundown and sore that walking up steps, even a few of them, was nothing short of a momentous task. I even got sick towards the end of the week.

As for the results, I slowed down, and my vertical dropped 1", but my deadlift was up by 30 pounds a week later. Just last week I nearly pulled 405, but lost it at knee level.

I have no intentions of doing this type of thing again and have since returned to a DB Hammer (go ahead, laugh. It really works though) style workout. However, if anyone wants to try something like this, I would advise them to start with 50-60% of their 1RM. Besides that, just take recovery measures and you’ll be fine.[/quote]

No recovery measures in the world will stop you getting overtrained with that volume, and you found out anyway. But if it helped your dead max that’s a good thing.

19

Guy, just try and stick with it for two months and don’t listen to anybody who’s trying to tell you otherwise.

But if you want a better progression try not to increase the load but instead do more volume and add a pressing exercise. For instance, pick weights you can easily handle then set the clock for 30 min. Now do Waterbury walks and military presses for the whole workout and write down how many you did of each. Rest as much as you like but when 30 min are up you’re outta there. Now try to stay with that volume for the week and add sets and reps next week. Deload after week 4 or 5 by adding another day off - i.e. 3 days straight. That should be enough if you’re not overtraining. Then you can add a little weight if the volume is getting crazy.