HST Write-up
By
Shwaym
So you do not have to go back to any of my previous posts- here is a summary of my first HST cycle:
[note as I write this I am almost high{to be explained later} & am taking periodic breaks to watch Hypocrisy’s ‘Live & Clips’ DVD. So if it starts getting nonsensical and/or brutal during the course of the write-up do not be surprised.
I started BBing in December of 02 weighing ~115-120lbs, describes as ‘looking like Bruce Lee’. The heaviest I ever got was around 180lbs at ~10-15%BF. I stopped lifting around May or June 05 but was still doing very intense cardio multiple times a week, doing what I have since called “cutting like a dumbass” for about a month. This was to train for THIS http://www.uskuoshu.org/usckf/2004-tournament-results.htm#lei-tai
Being way too hypocaloric and just losing a ton of muscle. Then, I broke my collar bone on July 14th 05. After counting down the days to when I could lift once again I lifted 09-13-2005 for the first time in 3 months and no physical activity at all for about a month except for the occasional song of DDR. Since I could not lift during my injury I decided I might as well read about training some more. I had done extensive independent reading prior to this but had not really given HST much thought. One of my friends said he would do HST as his next program before he suddenly disappeared so I went to www.hypertrophy-specific.com and familiarized myself with the principles of HST. Impressed, I decided to give it a try.
{wow, Peter Tägtgren has some gyno…}
PROGRAM: Started 09-13-2005 at a weight of ~150lbs. All weigh-ins were done first thing in the morning after my 1st visit to the restroom with no water or food in my stomach & only in boxers so all increments could be directly attributed to actual weight fluctuations. My training and diet methodologies changed very drastically throughout the cycle. It progressed very organically depending on my current experiences and by feel.
TRAINING: [this is how it was for the majority of the cycle, not how it started] 4 days a week. ‘A’ & ‘B’ workouts alternating between two sets of exercises. Projected rep scheme per-week was 15,12,10,8,6,5, Post(negatives). Midway through the cycle I dropped all isolation exercises(because they are almost useless) besides calves.
Here are the exercises I used and their progressions in weight:
• ’-‘ indicates a rest-pause.
• Many machines were used only as extra precaution against aggravating my injury.
• I only used wrist straps on Pulldowns and BB Standing Calf.
• I have never been very ‘strong’, I always use (what I consider) perfect form and have never trained for strength so being this weak after 3 months of not lifting doesn’t bother me that much but it did make it difficult to increment the weight!
• Smith weights include approximate bar weight as 45lbs.
• I did Doggrapp’s shoulder rotations & Joe DeFranco’s shoulder injury prevention stretches, both of which I really liked.
• I dropped 3/4ROM deadlifts mid-cycle as my lower back could not take it.
-Decline BB: Much preferred over any other BB chest movement, could not do dips because I wanted to make sure my injury was fully healed and it is much easier to progress BB weights and use low reps, as opposed to DBs. 95lbsx15 to 150x5-2-2-2.
-Incline Smith Bench: 95x15 to 160x5-1-2-1-1.
-Hammer Strength Military press- 40lbsx15 to 95x6-2-2
-Smith Military: 65x17 to 115x5-2-2-1.
-Pulldowns: 8plates x14 to 11x5-3.
-Yates row- 65x9 to 120x7-3
-Angled machine toe press: 8plates x12 to 14x8-4-3.
-Standing calves w/ BB: 145x15 to 225x9-2-3-1.
-Squats: gave me the most trouble. They have always been awkward for me due to my long legs and short torso. I changed my form several time during the cycle which killed my strength gains. 135x12 to 180x9-1-5.
-Static DB Lunges: 45lbs DBs x12 reps with left leg forward then 10 reps with right leg forward to 75lbs DBs x 6/5.
-DB Farmer's Walk 50lbs DBs to 75lbs DBs. I love this EXS, but only did it for about 3 weeks near the end of the cycle then I cut them out.
From the 6s on I did 1 or 2 isolation burn sets and then a loaded stretch after the last working rep of most bodyparts.
Obviously the biggest jumps were made in HSM Military, Yates Row & Static DB Lunges. And as you can see I never even made it to my 5RM on many EXS since I was gaining strength so rapidly.
I tried eccentrics but I really really really did not like them….at all. Maybe if I had a lifting partner I could do them in the future but until then I will have to find something else to do for the ‘Post’ weeks.
DIET: Started with 2000 calories a day which was probably slightly under maintenance even when I wasn’t lifting. Then added ~100 calories every week. At first It appeared I was gaining muscle while loosing fat, but I was not getting big enough, fast enough. Got up to 3100, noticed some fat gain, dropped it to 3000 for the last week or so.
Experimented with apple cider vinegar (if you are not familiar with its uses go to the advantlabs board) I think it helped me control some excess edema issues which I have always struggled with but I think it made me tired and maybe made it difficult for me to gain muscle, so I am still undecided on its usage in the future.
REULTS: On 09-13-05 I was ~150lbs LBM. On 11-12-05 I was ~160. I would say that I gained maybe 1 or 2 lbs of fat, so gaining 8-9lbs of LBM while being hypocaloric for the first 2-3 weeks and being overtrained the last 2-3weeks of the cycle (not to mention genetics) I would say that is pretty dang good.
Took some pictures this morning. Will take more tomorrow. Whichever ones look better ill post.
LEARNED: That doing both the ‘15,12,10,8,6,5, Post’ rep-scheme and the 4x a week training led me to overtrain sooner than I would have liked.
ISOLATION EXS ARE THE SUCK.
I need to sleep more and do less sets, staying further away from failure to avoid overtraining.
SUMMARY: I have reached my best in terms of diet and training strategies and yet I am strongly considering ending my bodybuilding situation. Maybe it’s the overtraining talking but that’s what I am leaning towards right now. I will be SDing for ~3weeks so we shall see how I feel after that. I do know that if I were to lift again I would, without a doubt, be using HST principles.
But dang! ‘A Coming Race’ is a killer song!
heres my bbing.com jounral if anyones interested:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=577896
By
Shwaym
So you do not have to go back to any of my previous posts- here is a summary of my first HST cycle:
[note as I write this I am almost high{to be explained later} & am taking periodic breaks to watch Hypocrisy’s ‘Live & Clips’ DVD. So if it starts getting nonsensical and/or brutal during the course of the write-up do not be surprised.
I started BBing in December of 02 weighing ~115-120lbs, describes as ‘looking like Bruce Lee’. The heaviest I ever got was around 180lbs at ~10-15%BF. I stopped lifting around May or June 05 but was still doing very intense cardio multiple times a week, doing what I have since called “cutting like a dumbass” for about a month. This was to train for THIS http://www.uskuoshu.org/usckf/2004-tournament-results.htm#lei-tai
Being way too hypocaloric and just losing a ton of muscle. Then, I broke my collar bone on July 14th 05. After counting down the days to when I could lift once again I lifted 09-13-2005 for the first time in 3 months and no physical activity at all for about a month except for the occasional song of DDR. Since I could not lift during my injury I decided I might as well read about training some more. I had done extensive independent reading prior to this but had not really given HST much thought. One of my friends said he would do HST as his next program before he suddenly disappeared so I went to www.hypertrophy-specific.com and familiarized myself with the principles of HST. Impressed, I decided to give it a try.
{wow, Peter Tägtgren has some gyno…}
PROGRAM: Started 09-13-2005 at a weight of ~150lbs. All weigh-ins were done first thing in the morning after my 1st visit to the restroom with no water or food in my stomach & only in boxers so all increments could be directly attributed to actual weight fluctuations. My training and diet methodologies changed very drastically throughout the cycle. It progressed very organically depending on my current experiences and by feel.
TRAINING: [this is how it was for the majority of the cycle, not how it started] 4 days a week. ‘A’ & ‘B’ workouts alternating between two sets of exercises. Projected rep scheme per-week was 15,12,10,8,6,5, Post(negatives). Midway through the cycle I dropped all isolation exercises(because they are almost useless) besides calves.
Here are the exercises I used and their progressions in weight:
• ’-‘ indicates a rest-pause.
• Many machines were used only as extra precaution against aggravating my injury.
• I only used wrist straps on Pulldowns and BB Standing Calf.
• I have never been very ‘strong’, I always use (what I consider) perfect form and have never trained for strength so being this weak after 3 months of not lifting doesn’t bother me that much but it did make it difficult to increment the weight!
• Smith weights include approximate bar weight as 45lbs.
• I did Doggrapp’s shoulder rotations & Joe DeFranco’s shoulder injury prevention stretches, both of which I really liked.
• I dropped 3/4ROM deadlifts mid-cycle as my lower back could not take it.
-Decline BB: Much preferred over any other BB chest movement, could not do dips because I wanted to make sure my injury was fully healed and it is much easier to progress BB weights and use low reps, as opposed to DBs. 95lbsx15 to 150x5-2-2-2.
-Incline Smith Bench: 95x15 to 160x5-1-2-1-1.
-Hammer Strength Military press- 40lbsx15 to 95x6-2-2
-Smith Military: 65x17 to 115x5-2-2-1.
-Pulldowns: 8plates x14 to 11x5-3.
-Yates row- 65x9 to 120x7-3
-Angled machine toe press: 8plates x12 to 14x8-4-3.
-Standing calves w/ BB: 145x15 to 225x9-2-3-1.
-Squats: gave me the most trouble. They have always been awkward for me due to my long legs and short torso. I changed my form several time during the cycle which killed my strength gains. 135x12 to 180x9-1-5.
-Static DB Lunges: 45lbs DBs x12 reps with left leg forward then 10 reps with right leg forward to 75lbs DBs x 6/5.
-DB Farmer's Walk 50lbs DBs to 75lbs DBs. I love this EXS, but only did it for about 3 weeks near the end of the cycle then I cut them out.
From the 6s on I did 1 or 2 isolation burn sets and then a loaded stretch after the last working rep of most bodyparts.
Obviously the biggest jumps were made in HSM Military, Yates Row & Static DB Lunges. And as you can see I never even made it to my 5RM on many EXS since I was gaining strength so rapidly.
I tried eccentrics but I really really really did not like them….at all. Maybe if I had a lifting partner I could do them in the future but until then I will have to find something else to do for the ‘Post’ weeks.
DIET: Started with 2000 calories a day which was probably slightly under maintenance even when I wasn’t lifting. Then added ~100 calories every week. At first It appeared I was gaining muscle while loosing fat, but I was not getting big enough, fast enough. Got up to 3100, noticed some fat gain, dropped it to 3000 for the last week or so.
Experimented with apple cider vinegar (if you are not familiar with its uses go to the advantlabs board) I think it helped me control some excess edema issues which I have always struggled with but I think it made me tired and maybe made it difficult for me to gain muscle, so I am still undecided on its usage in the future.
REULTS: On 09-13-05 I was ~150lbs LBM. On 11-12-05 I was ~160. I would say that I gained maybe 1 or 2 lbs of fat, so gaining 8-9lbs of LBM while being hypocaloric for the first 2-3 weeks and being overtrained the last 2-3weeks of the cycle (not to mention genetics) I would say that is pretty dang good.
Took some pictures this morning. Will take more tomorrow. Whichever ones look better ill post.
LEARNED: That doing both the ‘15,12,10,8,6,5, Post’ rep-scheme and the 4x a week training led me to overtrain sooner than I would have liked.
ISOLATION EXS ARE THE SUCK.
I need to sleep more and do less sets, staying further away from failure to avoid overtraining.
SUMMARY: I have reached my best in terms of diet and training strategies and yet I am strongly considering ending my bodybuilding situation. Maybe it’s the overtraining talking but that’s what I am leaning towards right now. I will be SDing for ~3weeks so we shall see how I feel after that. I do know that if I were to lift again I would, without a doubt, be using HST principles.
But dang! ‘A Coming Race’ is a killer song!
heres my bbing.com jounral if anyones interested:
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=577896