Alternating certain exercises

K

kc0716

New Member
Hey guys. When one alternates certain exercises in the routine, how do you deal with
1) reaching failure twice on the same muscle group, on the 2nd week of each block
2) weight progression?

For example, I plan to alternate squat and leg press.
Taking the 10rep block for example,

During the 10 rep block week, I would be hitting failure on leg press on workout 5 on leg press, and failure on squat on workout 6 on squat, which means hitting failure more than once every 2 weeks, which seems to go against HST's principles?

Also, as far as the weight progression goes, I would just subtract weight 2 times for each exercise rather than subtracting 5 times for 1 exercise?

For squats it will be 195 -> 205 -> 215 (215 is my 10 rep max), and leg press 250 -> 260 -> 270 (270 is my 10 rep max) ?
 
I think you should extract weight 5 times for each exercise and alternate, by skipping one progression step/each.
This means you'll have to test your 10RM for both, but only actually reaching your 10RM for one. In the next rep range the "max RM excersise" would be switched.

But why would you want to alternate Squat and Leg Press? ..What is it, Leg Press can give you, that Squats cannot?
I do not consider alternating optimal and think it only useful with essential exercises, that you cannot find room for, in every session. A good example would be Squat and Deadlift.
 
i always supposed it was best to hit your max for both exercises. i've read many threads advocating this. i suppose you could go either way though. i'd like to hear more opinions on this...
 
I think people sometimes get far too hung up on attempting to avoid failure. While it is true that reaching muscular failure is not necessary for growth, it isn't like reaching it twice in 2 weeks will bring your progress to a complete halt. Don't worry ... Go as heavy as you can in both exercises. You might find that you aren't really hitting complete failure anyway in getting your reps.
 
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