Dave's VIF Workout

Volume Intensity Frequency Workout

The bodybuilding world has become fascinated by the new Dave Herber VIF workout. Dave is both an ACE and a NSCA registered personal trainer for the last 15 years and he has used his VIF 12-week program to help his clients burn body-fat and build muscle consistently.

His VIF stands for Volume Intensity and Frequency, V.I.F for short. We are unable to publish all the different cycles that need to be done in each of the three 4-week phases making up a total of 12 weeks. Below we have briefly described each of these three 4 week phases.

VOLUME DOMINANT PHASE:

As the name suggests you will be doing many sets for each muscle group doing a lot of volume to stimulate growth. Over the 4 weeks you will be progressing from doing 8 sets on each muscle group and slowly build up to 20 sets. This high volume training only allows you to train one or two muscle groups every time you train. Each muscle group is trained once a week starting with 80% 1RM.

The 4 weeks will be split the following way:

Week 1 = 2 X 10 Reps for each exercise
Week 2 = 3 X 8 Reps for each exercise
Week 3 = 4 X 6 Reps for each exercise (Never more than 10 sets)
Week 4 = 5 X 6 for each exercise (Never more than 10 sets)
Resting 60 seconds between sets weeks 1 and 2 and 90 seconds for weeks 3 and 4.

INTENSITY DOMINANT PHASE:

The "Intensity-Dominant" phase uses heavy weights, sticking to 80-90% 1RM range. Your reps will be in the 6 - 8 range. Although the sets and reps listed are quite high for 4 a week, the overall volume is fairly low. For the next week you will be doing 1-2 exercises for each muscle group using low training volume. You'll be able to train each muscle group twice a week, splitting your workouts Upper body and Lower body.

The objective when doing the intensity phase is to try and increase the weight you move every week using the following format.

Workout Volume:

Week 1 = 3 X 8 Reps
Week 2 = 3 X 8 Reps (increase weight)
Week 3 = 4 X 6 Reps (increase weight)
Week 4 = 4 X 6 Reps (increase weight)

Resting 60 Seconds between sets during weeks 1 and 2, then progress to 90 Seconds rest between sets in weeks 3 and 4.

FREQUENCY DOMINANT PHASE:

As the name implies you will now be increasing the frequency that you target a muscle group three times a week. This is the last lap in the 12 week VIF program "forcing" your body to improve its neural drive and add muscle. It is important to keep your training volume VERY low so that over-training can be avoided.

Frequency training means using "Undulating Reps" meaning the selection of rep ranges when training the whole body needs to change every week. This is designed to shock your body into growth.

Workout Volume:

Week 1 = Workout A 2 X 6 Reps, Workout B 2 X 10 Reps, Workout C 2 X 12 Reps
Week 2 = Workout A 2 X 10 Reps, Workout B 2 X 12 Reps, Workout C 2 X 6 Reps
Week 3 = Workout A 2 X 12 Reps, Workout B 2 X 6 Reps, Workout C 2 X 10 Reps
Week 4 = Workout A 2 X 6 Reps, Workout B 2 X 10 Reps, Workout C 2 X 12 Reps.

Workout Loads:

2 X 6 Reps 85% of 1 RM Resting 90 Sec Between Sets
2 X 10 Reps 75% of 1 RM Resting 60 Sec Between Sets
2 X 12 Reps 65% of 1 RM Resting 30 Sec Between Sets

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