Total Rep Volume and Rep Ranges

And... it will likely work for a long time. The only reason I switched from HST at all early on was because I wanted to focus more on strength. But when I wanted size, I always came back to HST principles. These days, I'm doing almost vanilla HST.

You'd be surprised how many people decide to change things when it is working. It is very prevalent in weightlifting. I think people get weightlifting ADHD, or as I've heard it called "****arounditis" - they can't stick with something long enough. You see it with people who can't decide whether to bulk or cut too, and those people never make as much progress as they could.
 
T-man said:
I'm wondering if a lot of us (Tot excluded) continue to think that more is better? That more intensity, more volume, and more exercises must mean better results faster and forgetting that growth takes place on recovery days. I know I have a hard time with it.
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A lot of people think more is better.

My thing is... just do enough to get the results.
 
HST_Rihad said:
But isn't this what all seasoned natural lifters eventually end up doing? I mean, decreasing the frequency of loading a MG for the sake of increasing the per-session volume? I'm not sure if there's any difference between doing 2 sets 3 times a week, and doing 3 sets 2 times a week. Total weekly volume stays the same. It's the immediate load-response that's different. Bryan in his works says it is better to spread the volume evenly over a week. Following his words, it would be better to pick 2 sets 3 times a week, than 3 sets 2 times a week. However, thegentelman1981 has to train twice a week, so why not retain the weekly volume by doing 3 sets?

AlexAustralia, you said that for your chin-ups you use clustering or, in other words, pick your 5RM load and do sets one shy of failure to reach a rep target of 20-25. That's actually quite a bit of volume at that load. Do you feel like you need to drop the frequency with that, or can you do that 3 times a week?
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Having bumped it from 17-22 ish to 22-25ish over the last fortnight or so, I've hit a massive wall of 'fatigue' and am almost definitely dropping it back to ~20. I work out every other day, having 2 days off (consecutively) here and there. Working out at home removes the need for MWF, MWF and lets me go MWFSuTuThSa->MWF etc...

I also am not training for hypertrophy gains right now and am wanting to push my CNS capacity. I suppose it could be categorised as 'heavy load endurance'. If I was looking to get bigger right now, I'd set my rep target at 15-16 and would train in the 3-5RM range. The principles are still the same (progressive load, frequency, eating enough, light-moderate volume per workout).

thegentleman1981 said:
I also think that there is a minimum threshold of weight and volume you need to reach for a session to create an effective bout.
Blade has onced replied in a post that there is a difference if you devide your work on one day or more days.

I think also advanced can hold a higher frequency but then the cycle would equal more a concentrated overreaching cycle if volume and weight is not modulated (HLM)
I know Alex is not in favour of this HLM approach but fleck&kraemer showed the advantages compared to linear loading.
Also Blade used a DUP routine with clients.
So more ways to skin the cat
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Blade spent considerable time with HST, and wasn't rigid in doing so. The knowledge learned is what's important. HLM is not especially supported/evidenced. Furthermore, it makes very little sense to me (logically) and perhaps of most relevance toyou, it didn't work for you.

Totentanz said:
Do you really think that you can improve your results beyond what is normally possible for someone early in their training age? There is a point of diminishing returns where the extra work is doing little to nothing to add to your results.

So again... my point... doing less can be better. In fact, more volume, etc, burns more calories, puts more stress on your body, can hurt your immune system, sleep patterns, etc, which means it can actually compromise gains if you push volume too far. So why push it? If you are making gains, why push further when what you are doing is working?

I guess for me it just doesn't make sense when something is working to say "well, this is working, so I better change what I am doing." When something is working for me, I stick with it until it doesn't work anymore and only then do I start making adjustments.
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This this this.

T-man said:
I'm wondering if a lot of us (Tot excluded) continue to think that more is better? That more intensity, more volume, and more exercises must mean better results faster and forgetting that growth takes place on recovery days. I know I have a hard time with it.
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For non-workout periods, my biggest focus is to eat. Just get the food in there, protein, fats, some carbs, whatever. Eating is the 'recovery'.

Totentanz said:
A lot of people think more is better.

My thing is... just do enough to get the results.
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This this this ... again.
 
Totentanz said:
But when I wanted size, I always came back to HST principles. These days, I'm doing almost vanilla HST.
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You mean you're doing 1-2 MG sets no matter at what reps, and load a muscle 3 times a week? Could you write down or point us to your recent bulking weekly routine?
 
HST_Rihad said:
You mean you're doing 1-2 MG sets no matter at what reps, and load a muscle 3 times a week? Could you write down or point us to your recent bulking weekly routine?
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Yes, everyone has a huge boner for volume these days, but I'm doing lower volume than what most now recommend and still seeing some results. Keep in mind that I'm pretty much right near my genetic threshold for muscle mass, so any gains are good for me. I successfully did cut down and lost little muscle while doing this kind of volume. If you check my log, you can see what my routine looked like. Look in the training logs section, it's called "Back to Basics."
 
AlexAustralia said:
Having bumped it from 17-22 ish to 22-25ish over the last fortnight or so, I've hit a massive wall of 'fatigue' and am almost definitely dropping it back to ~20. I work out every other day, having 2 days off (consecutively) here and there. Working out at home removes the need for MWF, MWF and lets me go MWFSuTuThSa->MWF etc...

Blade spent considerable time with HST, and wasn't rigid in doing so. The knowledge learned is what's important. HLM is not especially supported/evidenced. Furthermore, it makes very little sense to me (logically) and perhaps of most relevance toyou, it didn't work for you.
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As mentioned there are studies which support DUP/HLM and were done by fleck &kramer. If you are interested I can search the sources out of the books.

HLM DID worked-I gained strength of 2 pounds the week and mass came along.But I messed up the transition period.
I think if I would also backed down the weights more it would have worked longer but I was too proud to train with 40%of my 1rpm. My fault.
 
BTW.
Yesterday was the second session of the 15´s. I slept short and ate less yesterday because I had a important meeting for a job.
NEvertheless I went to the gym but had to rest quite long between the 2 sets because my breath was really weak.
I got all reps and sets in. The only exercise were I couldn´t get the second set were curls. I got 15 on the first set and 8 on the second although i rested 3 min.
So i thought to simply drop the second set and stick to one.
If this one will also be too much and I struggle to get my old 15PR I will drop curls all together and will re introduce them on the 10´s.

Time to eat.
 
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