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[Joe.Muscle]

I would love to see this question answered

Thanks

For the past two years I have always switched between two programs. HST and a simpler program which reuired me to attempt to simply add 1 rep or a couple lbs everytime I lift.

So, I'm considering trying out a program that sorta combines both.

3days a week. Full body each day. 1-2 exercises per bodypart. 1-2 sets per exercise. All sets taken to 1-2 before failure. (My body can handle this intensity/volume.)

Monday do 15 reps, Wed. do 10 reps, Friday do 5 reps. Each week try to add weight or a rep to each workout.

The only problem I see is the possibility of hitting a strength wall which happens with the second routine I do. Although usually I don't do anymore than 9 reps so the 15's and 10's may help with recovery and hypertrophy.

Thoughts?

-aeckhardt

 

[Lance]

I would rather suggest you do this for hypertrohy and strength gains. If you can handle it, i don't think it's that bad of a program to be honest.

Same thing you said, except you wouldn't have the 15's, 10's, and 5's all in one week. You'd start with the 15's, keep trying to add weight or more reps each workout, and keep going until you hit a strength wall. Then you move onto the 10's, and do the same. Then the 5's.

If you want to get really fancy, and still think you can handle it, during the 5's add some metabolic work. Say a set of 15's after your working sets. Pulses and the likes may be a little tough to keep up with, but once again, if you think you can handle it then it's an option. Loaded stretches, clustering, negatives are another next step you could take after the 5's to really soak the hypertrophy out of this full program.

I think it'd be cool to do this workout 6xweek with a split routine, like the Ironagers used to do it! Although they tended to up the volume a bit more than the average Joe.

Diet wise, you're really going to need the carbs during the 15's. They will be very tough and burn alot of calories. If you do metabolic work during the 5's, make sure you get enough calories/carbs as well, they will be very demanding.

Hope this helped,
Lance

 

[BIZ]

Doing 15, 10, and 5 reps on different days of the same week is counter intuitive to the HST format. As you increase weights, this becomes more of an issue, as you will condition your muscles to a progressively heavier load each workout, but then digress to a lighter load as you begin a new week. As Lance stated, stick with a traditional format where progressing the load every (or at least every other) workout.

 

[imported_dkm1987]

I agree with Lance and Biz, the pyramid scheme works BUT, it's not the most advantageous to hypertrophy due to undulation in load you'll experience. Once you hit heavy loads you bein to adapt to that load so the 15 and 10 RM workouts in the same week are only delaying growth. I think you are better off either working for Hypertrophy or working for strength, as you would be in the dual progression system you talked about.

 

[Hypertrophier]

Hi.

What you are going to do shouldn´t be be a problem.

In the past I used 2 HST cycles. At the first cycle, I gained 2 pounds of muscle, and some pounds of strength. After the second, i lost the 2 pounds and very much strength. Altogether, i invested 20 weeks of pure time waste. After that i found a protocol that was called "the 8 week squat program". With it i gained 6 pounds of pure muscles, 30 pounds of pure strength and it didn´t end. After that experience i used another 8 week squat cycle, and i gained 9 musclepounds in the 2 months with another 50 pounds strength increase. That was the best evidence for me, that hst doesn´t work with me. The hst protocol is just, i don´t know.

Now i am doing the smolov protocol, which is nearly the same what you are going to do. It uses different repdays, and i´m in the 5th week. I better don´t say numbers, but i can say to you, that i got again plenty musclemass gains, and tremendous strength raises. So, try your idea.

Here are the links to the protocols:

8 week squat cycle. It uses 3 different weight days. A heavy, a light and a medium day. HST theory says it doesn´t work. Real world shows that it works.

http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=198014

Smolov:
http://www.ontariostrongman.ca/Resources/training/smolovsquatcycle.htm

Sheiko:
http://www.zyworld.com/powerlifting/workout.htm

 

[Totentanz]

HST theory does NOT say that your system will not work. What it does say is that your system is less effective for hypertrophy, and that eventually you will not be able to make very good gains in comparison to what you did when you first started. As many have stated, virtually any system will work for you - for a while at least.

Further, I would surmise that if you lost weight, then you were not eating enough. Since you also lost strength, I would say that your diet was likely way out of whack. What kind of food were you eating? How much?
Almost always, when someone is not seeing results, regardless of what system they are using, HST or something else, it is almost always because of diet.

Congratulations on getting results on the system you are currently using. Just remember to come back to HST in a few years when your current system stops working and nothing else, short of steroids, will allow you to grow anymore.