The cycle I proposed is basically going to stay the same with a few changes. After talking with mikey in the "number of sets" thread, I've become more certain that my plan is a good one. Apparently the two of us have been thinking along similar lines about where the research is taking us in the future. I also think what we were discussing in that thread could become the updated version of HST. HST 2.0 if you will. Obviously any good training method that is scientifically based must evolve over time in order to keep up with the current understandings based on the available research.
So after bouncing ideas back on forth on that thread, I've refined my proposed cycle. I'm going to go ahead and still include the negatives but the volume will change slightly. I was originally planning to do standard 15/10/5 and try to keep volume relatively constant with a slight decrease over the cycle. I started thinking about trying something a little different and after reading mikey's input on that thread, I am now definitely doing it a little different. I'll be doing 12s and 8s instead of 15s and 10s, and I will keep volume right around 25-30 reps for upper body and 25-30 reps per lift for lower body. I will allow volume to sort of autoregulate itself depending on how I feel that day. I won't use actual sets of course, just rep targets. Each block will be three weeks long and after the 8s, I will do a mix of negatives using 3 RM loads and max-stim for the other lifts using 5 RM loads, as I originally proposed. If the negatives don't work out for me or prove to be too difficult to manage, then for the second cycle, I will switch to a 5 RM range strength-focused block of 2-4 weeks. Hopefully each cycle will end up around 8-12 weeks in length.
I also am going to test out mikey's idea of a single low volume, heavy lifting session in the middle of SD after my first cycle. I plan to run at least three total cycles, making whatever adjustments I need to between each cycle. Hopefully by the time that February or March of 2014 comes around, I'll have a finalized, well tested cycle plan. Of course I will keep up to date on here about how it is going and etc, and input all along the way will be welcome.
Ideally, the end result will be that I will have enough material at the end that I can write up another book that will be for intermediate lifters and above, with the newer version of HST. I have basically decided against a simple revision of the other book I wrote, that one can remain as a basic HST primer. This new one will be more of an updated version of HST and hopefully with more expansion on the scientific side of things, rather than keeping it as dumbed down as I could like I did with the first ebook. Obviously a certain forum member here is going to get some credit on the whole thing, since he really helped with solidifying my plan and it was great to see that I wasn't the only one thinking about this kind of overhaul to HST. However, talking is all well and good, but now I have to test it out. We will see if the results are what I hope they will be. Given that I am fairly close to my genetic limits already, I think that should be an even greater validation of the cycle if I do make some great gains over the course of all three cycles.
The only downside is that I will become a fat **** again by the time winter here is over... I'm guessing I'll end up hitting 260 - 270 lbs if I really push the calories.
So after bouncing ideas back on forth on that thread, I've refined my proposed cycle. I'm going to go ahead and still include the negatives but the volume will change slightly. I was originally planning to do standard 15/10/5 and try to keep volume relatively constant with a slight decrease over the cycle. I started thinking about trying something a little different and after reading mikey's input on that thread, I am now definitely doing it a little different. I'll be doing 12s and 8s instead of 15s and 10s, and I will keep volume right around 25-30 reps for upper body and 25-30 reps per lift for lower body. I will allow volume to sort of autoregulate itself depending on how I feel that day. I won't use actual sets of course, just rep targets. Each block will be three weeks long and after the 8s, I will do a mix of negatives using 3 RM loads and max-stim for the other lifts using 5 RM loads, as I originally proposed. If the negatives don't work out for me or prove to be too difficult to manage, then for the second cycle, I will switch to a 5 RM range strength-focused block of 2-4 weeks. Hopefully each cycle will end up around 8-12 weeks in length.
I also am going to test out mikey's idea of a single low volume, heavy lifting session in the middle of SD after my first cycle. I plan to run at least three total cycles, making whatever adjustments I need to between each cycle. Hopefully by the time that February or March of 2014 comes around, I'll have a finalized, well tested cycle plan. Of course I will keep up to date on here about how it is going and etc, and input all along the way will be welcome.
Ideally, the end result will be that I will have enough material at the end that I can write up another book that will be for intermediate lifters and above, with the newer version of HST. I have basically decided against a simple revision of the other book I wrote, that one can remain as a basic HST primer. This new one will be more of an updated version of HST and hopefully with more expansion on the scientific side of things, rather than keeping it as dumbed down as I could like I did with the first ebook. Obviously a certain forum member here is going to get some credit on the whole thing, since he really helped with solidifying my plan and it was great to see that I wasn't the only one thinking about this kind of overhaul to HST. However, talking is all well and good, but now I have to test it out. We will see if the results are what I hope they will be. Given that I am fairly close to my genetic limits already, I think that should be an even greater validation of the cycle if I do make some great gains over the course of all three cycles.
The only downside is that I will become a fat **** again by the time winter here is over... I'm guessing I'll end up hitting 260 - 270 lbs if I really push the calories.
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