Alright... Newbie confused as PH*****

J

Justin.b

New Member
I will be using the spreadsheet to plan my workouts as this is probably the easiest way for a beginner to get started. The biggest thing that I am confused on is the way to find your maxes. Theres no way that we are expected to go in the gym and find 15 rep maxes of each exercise, then 10 rep maxes, then 5 rep maxes. that would take 2 weeks... and would also be a lot of "volume" which HST is against. I tried making sense of the ebook's section on finding these maxes but there is not a calculator that I could find that calculates these maxes based on one or the other.. Help me out? I am converting over from GST training. That's actually a really good program but it requires too much time in the gym (college student here..). Help me out guys.

I get almost everything but how to find your needed maxes.
 
Also, I do not understand the concept behind the whole volume idea.. when you have to warm up with 3-4 sets before you do your actual lift. I might be missing something here but I don't get how the volume is lessened. Is the idea to do no warm up sets and just the sets per exercise? Sorry but this is so much to change over from GST.
 
As directed in the ebook, go to google.com and search for rep max calculator. Or as the book suggested, go to exrx.net and use the one there. Or take a week or two and test them at the gym. Take an sd after testing them.

Why do you think you have to do 4 sets of warm-ups before every lift?
 
I understand the rep max calculator as I have used them before but those are for 1 rep maxes. Ive never seen one for calculating 10 rep maxes or anything like that..

Also, the spreadsheet as well as the ebook stressed warm up sets although the ebook didn't mention extensive warm up sets.. The spreadsheet shows warm up sets. My question is how many is usually done before progressing to your 2x15 or 2x10 progression?
 
I thought I covered it in my book, possibly not. 15s typically don't require any warmup aside from possibly light squats or benching just to get in the groove. 10s you only really need one relatively light warmup set the first week, perhaps two on the last couple days of 10s. 5s you'll need three, maybe four on heavier stuff like squats and deads. Key here is not to make the warmup a workout. You only should be doing 3-5 reps on warmup sets.
 
I don't warm-up with more than the minimal amount (the bar or no weight if it is a machine) on the 15s. For the 10s I add one 5-7 rep set at 70% of weight I will lift for my 10 set. For 5s I do minimal, 50%, 70% at 5-7 reps each. I also do a light jog for 5 minutes before I start lifting. I'm not lifting crazy heavy but I have found this is adequate for my joints and muscles to get fired up.
 
Warming up for hypertrophy-type lifting is highly over rated. Doing 5-10 reps of body weight chins, push ups, squats is all I need. Done continuosly, it takes about 3 minutes. Warming up for strength training is a different animal.
 
Yeah that definitely clears things up. How did you guys go about getting your rep maxes? Did you literally go to the gym and do each exercise three different times?
 
No, usually we know where our maxes are from previous cycles but if we don't, we take a week and we test for them before starting SD and it usually takes no more than 2 sets to find our RM. Do it for each rep you plan on doing in your cycle. For example, test for 15's on Monday, 10's on Wednesday and 5's on Friday and then SD. Your problem is likely too many different exercises to begin with. It is generally more efficient to have fewer exercises with more sets than a lot of exercises with only one set.
 
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Alright guys I'm switching over from GST training. I like the fact that I workout my whole body every day i lift rather than their principles. I did experience some gains on GST which i was happy with, but I found it to easy to become asymmetrical. You should see my legs compared to my upper body... oh my. I'm about 190 pounds at 6 foot even and my legs are a small portion of that weight hahaha I think HST will help me refocus and do everything instead of just the lady muscles. Thank you guys for the information. I needed it. So the journey begins..
 
My legs used to be string beans, and now they arguably better than my upper body. Just good old fashioned progressive overload. Pushed my strength up to leg pressing 600+ pounds full rom, deadlifting 405, etc. just got back to full squatting 200+ for reps, now my thighs are 25.5". HST is good old science based progressive overload, always has worked, always will.
 
Sci said:
My legs used to be string beans, and now they arguably better than my upper body. Just good old fashioned progressive overload. Pushed my strength up to leg pressing 600+ pounds full rom, deadlifting 405, etc. just got back to full squatting 200+ for reps, now my thighs are 25.5". HST is good old science based progressive overload, always has worked, always will.
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Sci, Just curious on ur rep count with those 3 exercises you listed.
 
HDLou said:
Sci, Just curious on ur rep count with those 3 exercises you listed.
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Recent lifts: Leg Press 600x5, Deadlift 405x1, Squat 235x8 Nothing special, but enough to drive leg growth. Been training a little over a year, after a long layoff.

Edit: had leg press number off...,
 
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AlexAustralia said:
Deadlift 405x1 is special in my book. 185kg that isn't moving itself.
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Thanks Bro, I just need to match my legs now with my upper back! I have been envious of your rowing power for awhile now. Next bulking cycle I am going crazy on rows, I am going to ROW, ROW, ROW until my back swells up like a tick! ;)
 
Sci said:
Recent lifts: Leg Press 600x5, Deadlift 405x1, Squat 235x8 Nothing special, but enough to drive leg growth. Been training a little over a year, after a long layoff.

Edit: had leg press number off...,
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Im about right with u on the Leg Press getting 620x6 my last workout. Currently not doing the other 2 lifts at the moment. How much weight did u start with on Leg Presses?
 
Sci said:
Thanks Bro, I just need to match my legs now with my upper back! I have been envious of your rowing power for awhile now. Next bulking cycle I am going crazy on rows, I am going to ROW, ROW, ROW until my back swells up like a tick! ;)
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There's a secret to rowing. It goes like something like "don't make excuses like a sissy b1tch" ... but it's a technical expression from a long-lost Australian dialect, so I hope it holds through the translation ;) ... I'm sure you'll be able to figure out what I mean from some of the contentious discussions I've had with Rihad on here relating to effort, RPE, load etc.

Lift heavy, lift well, it's a lot more CNS sensitive than the chest, glutes, legs etc. Probably because we spend all day holding ourselves upright.
 
Justin.b said:
Theres no way that we are expected to go in the gym and find 15 rep maxes of each exercise, then 10 rep maxes, then 5 rep maxes. that would take 2 weeks
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If it takes two weeks than that's what you do.



Justin.b said:
I am converting over from GST training. That's actually a really good program but it requires too much time in the gym (college student here..)
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Body building doesn't happen in a weekend, if you're looking for quick results just use steroids. If your expect to use HST and gain 20 pounds of muscle and 2 inches on your arm in a month it's not going to happen. Pure dense muscle takes time to build no matter which program you're using.
 
To go a long with manimal, finding your maxes takes about a week. Do your 15s on Monday, 10s on Wednesday and 5s on Friday then you have the whole weekend to heal up and organize your workout (unless you're going into an SD, then you have even more time). When finding my maxes I usually load up what I think I can do for a few reps less than the max I am testing and then try and get as many as you can. Sometimes it's surprising and you get a few more reps than you expect or you start seeing your form break down too much and decide you need to work on that before going heavy. (For instance if my expected DL 5 RM is 315 I might load 330 which I would expect to get about 4, but if I hit 5 that's my new max and if I can do 6 then I adjust accordingly)

Now you can be a slacker/newbie like me and not measure each of them. If you do that expect your estimates to be a little off, that means during your workouts you may have to do some adjustments; up if you're killing your sets too easily or down if you are missing your numbers. Personally I found my newbie gains over reached my current maxes during the cycle substantially enough that I had to adjust. So if I would have spent the time measuring each of them at the beginning, it would have been a waste. Granted my strength won't continue to increase so dynamically but until that stops the precision isn't as important (IMO).
 
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