Lingering HST questions...please help

[srx600]

I have research HST quite a bit, but have a few questions:

How much rest in between sets or does it not matter?

After one full 8 week cycle, you have not made any weight increases at all, you are where you started. I would suspect that your maxes will have stayed the same as before you started, so your next cycle will look exactly the same, right?

It seems like a vicious cycle of never increasing strength/weight.

Also, would these workouts even really be that intense with no set rest times and submaximal loads?

Any insight would help.....

 

[CDB]

I have research HST quite a bit, but have a few questions:

How much rest in between sets or does it not matter?

How much do you need? Like any other program, take what you need to recover, which will likely be longer as the load progresses.

After one full 8 week cycle, you have not made any weight increases at all, you are where you started. I would suspect that your maxes will have stayed the same as before you started, so your next cycle will look exactly the same, right?

No. Strength gains are supposed to be coming too, just not as fast as if you were using some other programs. A general rule of thumb is to add 5lbs to small lifts and 10lbs to larger lifts and then repeat the cycle with those newer, heavier weights. Also there is no need for the cycle to be limited to 8 weeks. A lot of people see the most strength gains during the heavier lifting towards the end of the cycle. You're supposed to stop the HST cycle when gains plateau, not at some arbitrary time. If you can keep lifting and increasing the weights as you near the end of the planned cycle, you keep lifting. If you're still getting gains from the heavier weights even though you're not increasing them much, keep lifting. If you're still getting strength gains, keep lifting.

Then at the true end of the cycle, when gains have plateaued, you retest for you max lifts, and they should have gone up, replan a cycle, and then decondition and start with that new cycle that has the heavier weights.

Also, would these workouts even really be that intense with no set rest times and submaximal loads?

Any insight would help.....

For some people after strategic deconditioning the lighter starting weights are murder. Some people, like myself, don't use such low weight and work out a progression that starts in the 8 rep range and moves to the 3 rep range so the overall cycle stays focussed on the heavier weight ranges. Like a lot of people you're looking at the cookie cutter one size fits all routine presented on the HST site as if it's the routine. There is no such thing as one standard HST routine. It's a set of principles, nothing more, that can be applied to any number of workout schemes with emphasis on varying aspects depending on what's best suited for your ends.

 

[srx600]

wow

Wow, that was a great and insightful response. That really helped a lot and thanks a bunch.

What would the rep/weight sheme look like if you were to continue beyond the 8th week? 3 reps? Would this mean you have to initially find your 3rm?

Also, what if you were to start out a little heavier so that by the 6th workout you could maybe exceed your initial max by 5-10lbs? Or would you just take the increases as they come and possibly you'd end up there anyway by making bigger increases than expected?

 

[firefighter2032]

Here's what I do.

When I get to my final workout of the first two weeks of 5's I figure out what exercises I can and cannot raise my weights on.

So...lets say your bench press was scripted so that your max was 250 for 5 reps. But when you get there you find that you can do more. So the next workout you do, do 255 and see how that feels. If you feel like you can do more, go for 260 on your next workout, if not stay at 255.

One last note...CDB likes to end with 3's I like 7's. I find I get a better response from my body when I stay in the 7 rep range when I go heavy for some reason. As he said, you have to find what works for you.

Good Luck

 

[CDB]

Wow, that was a great and insightful response. That really helped a lot and thanks a bunch.

What would the rep/weight sheme look like if you were to continue beyond the 8th week? 3 reps? Would this mean you have to initially find your 3rm?

Not necessarily. You can play it by ear if you want to. Just maintain a balance. If in order to get the weight up you need to drop volume dramatically, make up for that with some extra sets at a lower weight. You should forget about the reps, they're a construct. Think in terms of weight and volume, and let that dictate reps and sets.

Also, what if you were to start out a little heavier so that by the 6th workout you could maybe exceed your initial max by 5-10lbs? Or would you just take the increases as they come and possibly you'd end up there anyway by making bigger increases than expected?

Some people do just that, they max out at the end of each micro cycle, even going to failure. It's just important not to do that every workout is all. Just remember the principles and progress the weight, try and keep volume up as much as you can compensating with lower weight work when necessary, and let gains dictate your end points.

 

[CDB]

One last note...CDB likes to end with 3's I like 7's. I find I get a better response from my body when I stay in the 7 rep range when I go heavy for some reason. As he said, you have to find what works for you.

Exactly. Some people do better with more volume, as such they tend to stick to the lower weight ranges to get that volume in. Some people, like me, need the heavier weight, so we ditch volume to an extent to get the heavier weights in. Some need load and volume, in which case you need heavy work sets followed by a lot of lower weight lifting, and they even drop to two workouts a week to accomodate all the work.

One thing I did to maintain volume once was to repeat the corresponding workout from the previous microcycle after the current one. Meaning after I got done with the third workout in the 5s, I'd repeated the third from the 8s, and so on. It's an easy way to keep volume up without burning yourself out as the work comes in waves and only really peaks at the end of each microcycle.

 

[dawaro]

Here are some suggestions from an article by Charles T. Ridgely

"What Comes After the 5s?

Once you finish the 5s, you have choices on what to do during the two final weeks of your HST cycle. Certainly, if at this point you are feeling overtrained or are injured, you may wisely choose to terminate the cycle and go into a nice, rehabilitative SD. On the other hand, if you?re still raring to go, then you can do one of the following.

By far the most popular, and likely most beneficial, approach is to use your 2RM for negative, or eccentric, repetition training. With negatives, you generally have a partner help you lift the weight and then you lower the weight under control. You may choose to perform five of these negative reps or you may choose to perform two concentric, or positive, reps on your own followed by three negative reps where your partner helps you lift the weight. The choice is really yours so long as you can perform the negatives without injuring yourself.

Another popular approach is to perform drop sets in place of negatives. With drop sets, you generally use a much lighter weight than your 5RM, such as your 15RM weight, and you do the drop set as quickly after your 5RM set as you can. You can continue working out with your 5RM weights at the same volume you?ve been using and then do additional drop sets; or, you can use less volume with your 5RM weight and add drop sets.

Alternatively, you can continue to increment your weights on up to your 4RM or your 3RM. You can also add drop sets to these workouts. The only caveat is to watch out for failure. With such few reps, failure can come on rather quickly.

Of course, if you don?t want to use any of above-discussed methods, you can always continue working with your 5RM weights. Choosing this approach is beneficial because the 5RM weights are heavy enough to remain productive for two more weeks."

I have also seen logs from people that once they reached their pre-determined 5RM they continued with the 5's but added 5lbs each work out until they could no longer get the reps. The final succesful weight was what they used as their 5RM for the next cycle.

There are lots of options. Some of them are going to depend on whether you train alone or with a partner. If you are trainging alone it is probably safest to stay away from failure, it also make the negative cycle impossible.