Q:  I am recovering from an arm injury. Someone told me to use German Volume Training because it will stimulate muscles enough to keep size and maybe continue growing. Is that true or false?

A: Well I’d say you have nothing to lose in this case, because most arm injuries sideline bodybuilders for all upper body work until they are healed, so any amount of maintenance, let alone gain, will be good. My personal opinion is that GVT is good for working around injuries because the weight doesn’t feel heavy. I’ve used it for arm exercises such as curls, lateral raises for shoulders and on the Smith machine with front squats and find it moderately effective. I also use it for dips once I’ve been doing dips for awhile and have my joint strength back. Point is, you’re wanting to use it to compensate for not being able to use your arms in traditional training. Since I don’t know what your arm injury is, you’re going to have to find exercises - even machines at the gym - that will immobilize the area of the arm that is injured. If it’s a tendon issue in the lower arm, that will be hard. But the advantage to this system is lighter weight, so you can do 10×10, like GVT suggests, or even less - like 7×7 if you need. And the fact that you choose one exercise per body part and perform the ROM slowly gives you a leg up on injury prevention. I’d say try it and see how you go. But ultimately, you’ll be working around an injury no matter what you do.

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