H.S.T. question

[lennoxchi]

i was looking into HST training and read something that must have been printed incorrectly or i read it wrong. but the article said (i'll use bench press for this example)to find your max lifts for 15,10, and 5 reps, then on monday do your 15 reps, weds. do your 10 and friday do your 5. now it said (i'm just going to use round #'s here) if your 15 rep max is 100lbs. and your doing that on monday, and 150 X 10 on weds. and 200 X 5 on friday, the next monday should be 210 X 15 and so on......does that sound correct? it should have been 110 X 15 right? always increasing the weight by 5-10 lbs. per week? does anyone have any experience with HST? how did it work for you?

[dertynasty]

Ok, Im having a really hard time understanding what you are attempting to explain but I think your basic jist is off, so allow me to help

The first week: You would go on monday and find all of your 15 rep maxes, record them. Wednesday you would go and find all of your 10 rep max's, record them. Then finally that friday you would go and find all of your 5 rep max's, record them and take 9-12 days off (strategic deconditioning).

After your 9-12 days of SD'ing, you would start your cycle, beginning with the 15's.

For example: Your max for 15 reps of bench press is 200 lbs. Since you have 6 workouts to work up to that weight, depending on the increments you want to go up every week, that is how you judge what weight to start on. An example would be a 10 lb weight increase every workout.... so on day 1 (monday) you would do 140 x 10. On day 2 (wednesday) you would do 150 x 10. And day 3 continues upward with the weight, until workout 6 when you should be doing your 15 rep max of 200 lbs.

I hope this made sense, if you have any other q's just ask

[lennoxchi]

thx....yea i was close but still a bit off. thx again

[celc5]

i was looking into HST training and read something that must have been printed incorrectly or i read it wrong. but the article said (i'll use bench press for this example)to find your max lifts for 15,10, and 5 reps, then on monday do your 15 reps, weds. do your 10 and friday do your 5. now it said (i'm just going to use round #'s here) if your 15 rep max is 100lbs. and your doing that on monday, and 150 X 10 on weds. and 200 X 5 on friday, the next monday should be 210 X 15 and so on......does that sound correct? it should have been 110 X 15 right? always increasing the weight by 5-10 lbs. per week? does anyone have any experience with HST? how did it work for you?

Just wondering if you got that from one of my posts when I was asking questions about hst BEFORE I ever tried it. It just sounds really familiar. After running it twice, it's a much better routine if you just follow the recommended design as closely as possible rather than trying to modify it yourself.

[lennoxchi]

Just wondering if you got that from one of my posts when I was asking questions about hst BEFORE I ever tried it. It just sounds really familiar. After running it twice, it's a much better routine if you just follow the recommended design as closely as possible rather than trying to modify it yourself.

yea i did...........going to give it a shot. it's good to mix it up a bit from time to time....gotta you know?

[celc5]

yea i did...........going to give it a shot. it's good to mix it up a bit from time to time....gotta you know?

Actually, I'm usually pretty resiliant to following pre-designed routines. But, I've gotta admit, as I went, I shifted more TOWARDS the protocols listed. The Mx15, Wx10, Fx5 will NOT work and it was a horrible idea on my part btw.

Also, mixing it up with variations doesn't work with HST. It's all about progressive load and strict structure. Mix it up AFTER you complete your hst routine... and it's better the second time around so you can make personal intelligent adjustments.

[JDF]

Follow the mesocycles as described on the website: 15reps for the first mesocycle, 10reps on the second mesocycle, and 5 reps on the third mesocycle.

Im about to start the 2nd week of my 3rd mesocycle and I honestly love this routine.

I've read that the bigger the jumps in weight ( 10lbs compared to 5lbs ) the bigger the gains you'll make. I try and make it 10lbs for most of my lifts except auxillary types of lifts ( 5lbs ) - hammer curls, calves, etc.

[lennoxchi]

Follow the mesocycles as described on the website: 15reps for the first mesocycle, 10reps on the second mesocycle, and 5 reps on the third mesocycle.

Im about to start the 2nd week of my 3rd mesocycle and I honestly love this routine.

I've read that the bigger the jumps in weight ( 10lbs compared to 5lbs ) the bigger the gains you'll make. I try and make it 10lbs for most of my lifts except auxillary types of lifts ( 5lbs ) - hammer curls, calves, etc.

thx 4 the feedback on this. i am going to try to make those weight jumps (10lbs. on the compound moves too). i'm going to check out your routine, might have some questions.

[celc5]

thx 4 the feedback on this. i am going to try to make those weight jumps (10lbs. on the compound moves too). i'm going to check out your routine, might have some questions.

This is good advice. Keep in mind that there's some things that will tick you off the first time around, including not being able to plan your weight increments the way that you know you should have. It's great to have a preconcieved idea that you want to have 5 or 10 pound increments but it doesn't always work out that way.

*A good rule of thumb that I read in the monster HST pdf is to start your mesocycle with 70% of your rm lift for that mesocycle. Then just increase weight evenly/proportionally until you hit your rm. I doubted it at first but that 70% estimate turned out to be dead on for productive workouts.

The second time you run HST, you'll know exactly what changes need to be made and all of these intricacies that seem confusing will clear up quite easily.

For example, I saw a lot of results in the 15 and 10 mesocycle but nothing from the 5's or the drops. So the second time, I ran 16's, 12's, and 8's and no extra dropset mesocycle. That was way more more productive for me personally.

On the flip side, I've seen a handful of people that hate the 10's and 15's so they run it 12,8,4. So be open minded and only tweak after you've really given the protocol a fair shot. That's hard advice to follow if you're used to creating your own routines so you really have to let your mind accept the philosophical change.

[lennoxchi]

good advise from all, and i thank you. i do believe the biggest hurdle i am going to have is adjusting from being in the gym 6 days a week down to 3. does anyone do light cardio on their days off? i doesn't think following the 15,10,5 routine will be a problem for me, i can be VERY regimented if i see good reason. and the ST time "out of the gate" with this routine i do not expect to perfect it, and I'm also sure changes will have to be made for a second time as well. the main reason i picked this routine is the ability to keep "old school" compound moves, dead lifts:dl:,squats etc......thx again

[JDF]

I switch between LISS and HIIT all week, depends on the mood but I try not to do HIIT 2 days in a row or to late in the week because my legs really need the rest come thursday night.

Im also on a CKD which can make wednesdays/fridays pretty tough as Im pretty depleted by that time, I've adjusted though I actually feel stronger on fridays than I do on wednesdays

[celc5]

JDF
HST + CKD? whoa, I dunno if I could handle that myself. Props to you for, well, surviving that combo Do you still get the HST pumps being so carb depleted?

lennox
yes, I do cardio, abs, and calves twice per week on "off" days. You may have to back off a bit on cardio intensity because the hst will have metabolism skyrocketing in itself... unless you're on an all out cut of course.

also, consider alternating between squats and deads. I did this my second time around. Reason being, those lifts tend to require more warm up sets and it's unreasonable to spend 20-25 minutes on 2 consecutive exercises in this routine. Then total workout time gets close to 2 hours if you try to do everything on every session.

The HST pdf also suggests 2 alternatives:

M/W/F: upper
T/Th/S: lower

or

M/W/F push
T/Th/S pull

If I had the time, I'd do the push pull 6day/wk split. Stupid work schedule

[JDF]

JDF
HST + CKD? whoa, I dunno if I could handle that myself. Props to you for, well, surviving that combo Do you still get the HST pumps being so carb depleted?

I cant compare to say whether or not the pumps would be better if I was eating carbs but I still get a really sick pump while working out.

I really dont think you can beat a full body pump, I look huge about 1/2 through my workouts. I wish I could stay like that all the time.

Push/Pull - 6 days would without a doubt be intense. You'll need to eat like freaking mad, Im cutting so the 3 day split works for me because it frees up more time for cardio which I tend to neglect on a 5 day 1 bodypart a day split.

[LT*]

Actually, I'm usually pretty resiliant to following pre-designed routines. But, I've gotta admit, as I went, I shifted more TOWARDS the protocols listed. The Mx15, Wx10, Fx5 will NOT work and it was a horrible idea on my part btw.

Also, mixing it up with variations doesn't work with HST. It's all about progressive load and strict structure. Mix it up AFTER you complete your hst routine... and it's better the second time around so you can make personal intelligent adjustments.

I agree that anyone trying HST should always start with the basic protocol and use it at least 2 or 3 cycles minimum. I started using it back in 2001, and have trained with it since I started then. I've used a bunch of different variations, but the past 7 cycles have been M-15s, W-5s, Sat-10s using progressive overload in each range as the cycle progresses. I have to say that for shear size, the basic works VERY well. The style I use now works best for recomping IMO. Even though I'm as big as I want to be right now, I do still gain, it's just very slowly. It also allows me to go heavier towards the end of the cycle which has helped in strength gains more so than the basic protocol.

[celc5]

I feel like I'm in an underground cult now that I'm promoting HST training

The Grand-daddy pdf of all things HST:
http://users.telenet.be/aaitee/HST%20Faq_book.pdf

Short summary pdf:
http://www.hypertrophy-research.com/...principles.pdf

These links were shown to me by Sfearl1. He also played a role in critiquing my second routine.

I would read the summary first. Then the giant pdf really sells the strategies. Remember to keep it simple!