I entirely agree with that Guy. I’ve only attempted this because I’ve got about a years foundation of reasonably intense workouts as a foundation otherwise I would not recommend it whatsoever.
The other reason for doing it is I fancied a challenge and it’s relatively short being a six week program. It’s quite unlike my normal training in terms of the sheer volume. The benefit should be a jolt to the metabolism and a legacy of then dropping reps and feeling that you can push more weight in the next program cycle.
As I think I said above, the stress of GVT means you would only ever do this once a year and maybe twice if you’re a complete and utter masochist. I’ve been shocked how hard it is and it really pushes your willpower to the edge on legs day - the other two sessions are much easier especially shoulders and arms day due to the relative size of them not taxing your CNS and cardio- vascular systems quite as much.
And after tonight that’s week 2 done and 4 weeks to go…
Chest and back day. Usual 10 sets of 10 reps nonsense plus some gym ring exercises just to throw some extra pain into the mix - ring press ups and lying ring pulls.
Rings absolutely smashed my chest the other day - hurt for days.
Last night was 10 sets of squats again - but lower back really tightened up and so had to switch to leg press machine (very very poor substitute) for the last 5 sets. Difficulty walking after that lot so spent 20 mins on the treadmill trying to walk it off before attempting to walk out of the gym (otherwise I would have fallen down the stairs on the way out).
Very little DOMS today which probably means a bucket full tomorrow…
Weight up a kilo to 86.2 (smack on 13st) - haven’t had my bf scanned so it could be muscle or it could be fat
Sounds like you were not properly warmed up though. Calves are tough things though and recover quickly unless you’ve torn one (which I have in the past) in which case it takes months to heal without steroids.