Bit confused on programming HST

  • Thread starter Thread starter imported_get456
  • Start date Start date
I

imported_get456

Guest
I just finished up an 8 week cycle of madcow's 5x5. Great program and i added great poundages (IMO) to all my big lifts (less so my bench, but still progress)

I now want to bring those gains over to HST, but Im a little confused in the programming aspect of the training.

With madcows program, he provides a spreadsheet that calculates 9 weeks of lifts all you have to do is put in your maxes, pref as close to 1RM as you have.

The beauty of that, is that the lifts are decided for you, and you have some time to begin the program while you are still understanding why the weights are what they are. Also, the lifts are done by percentages and calculated by tonnage over the entire workout. I really liked that program because I had a specific goal each workout and there was a specific reason i was moving the weight for each rep in each set... it even programs your warm ups.

if anyone is not familiar with it, the spreadsheet URL is

http://www.geocities.com/elitema....ownload

Now.... like i said i loved the program, but the obvious limitation is that it is really specifically strength based and uses low reps. I feel like doing ONLY low reps seriously handicaps your aerobic capacity and is not best for growth when we are talking about BB type growth for the long term. that is what brings me to HST.

So can anyone help me with a more calculated approach to the HST system. The idea of just increasing say 5lbs or some random "increment" doesnt appeal to me... if there is a way to add some calculation to that, i would much prefer to do that...

any input??

Also, madcow talks about "microloading" which it occurs to me is an important concept.
 
I still can't see what you're wanting, exactly, but I'm in about week 6 of the Madcow and I agree that you can lose some aerobic ability if you're not doing cardio!
When I get to my next HST cycle, the 1rms are figured out from doing the 5x5 by extrapolating backwards. I mean, I like to do my HST in a linear fashion (there is a thread by me on this) so all I have to do is use my normal increments and figure all the way back to the first set of 15's. IF that weight is too light to be of any use, I can add what I want and proceed from there.
If you do a linear system, you may find it more challenging, and it's not for beginners because they will hit their limits too early. It's basically HST with no zigzag.
 
what are your "normal increments"?

lets take squats for example... my current 5RM, ATF squat is 300lbs (actually a bit more but that is a good number to start with)

how would i figure that back to my first set of 15?

at least that will give me a flavor to start with.
 
5 lbs. for tri's, delts and bi's, 10 lbs. for lats, traps, calves, 10-20 lbs. for legs is what works for me. So for a linear progression of vanilla HST for your 300x5rm, you subtract 20x18 workouts, or 360 lbs. which is obviously not going to work.
    So, we then can use half that (meaning you do a weight twice in a row or you do 10lb increments) which gives us 180lbs to take from 300, leaving us with 120x15 for your first workout.
    You do this and judge for yourself if it's just too light or not at 15 reps. It should feel pretty light, but not like nothing. Or you can try the 180x15 rm if you're totally lost and see if it's possible for you.
120x15     180x10     240x5     300x5
130x15     190x10     250x5     310x5 and so forth
140x15     200x10     260x5
150x15     210x10     270x5
160x15     220x10     280x5
170x15     230x10     290x5
    If you do the original HST, with the zigzags, you'll back up the fives to the 250 you'd start them with, and assume your 10rm at 10% over that, or 275 and back that down to 225 and figure your 15rm at 10% over that, or about 240-250, making your first workout 190 lbs.
190x15     215x10     240x5     300x5
200x15     225x10     250x5      and so on
210x15     235x10     260x5
220x15     245x10     270x5
230x15     255x10     280x5
240x15     265x10     290x5
I prefer linear myself, but have more headroom to advance in, going up to 550+ in my lever machine. As you can see, it's going to depend a lot on you, your strengths and conditioning. And a good deload, or you won't make any gains at all. I'm sure some of the fellas here will have some other options for you. This is an intelligent bunch of iron monkeys.
 
Interestingly enough. I came with the same question. I'm going to ride 5x5 for as far as it'll take me with the 3x3 deload then back to 5x5. I'm doing an older Bill Starr version myself. Its going to be a while for me though if the strength keeps going up the way it is.

I was wondering how to set up my DC and get back into HST again when it's time to return to it (yeah, I like to plan way ahead).

Now my question has already been thoroughly answered. Thanks to the original poster for the question and to quadancer for the answer.

Now, for my thoughts about how I'm going to do it. Maybe it will help you organize how you will do it.

I will test my 1RM and plan 24 workouts with my HST increments (the way quadancer described). Then I'll just take 2 weeks off and do 2x15, 3x10, 5x5 (for a month) then 3x3 as far as I can to get to a new 1RM before DC time again.

My lifts are going to be simple. Squat, Dead, Bench, Row, Overhead Press, Cable Crunch, Curl, Skull Crusher - on the same format as my 5x5 routine is. The only thing I haven't solved is my deadlift progression since I only deadlift once a week.

I'm thinking about adding good mornings back into my 5x5 and keep them in my HST because I miss doing them. I'm not sure where they'll fit in though.
 
Hey, those are exactly the exersizes I'm doing for my 5x5!!! The intermediate program allows arms on the 3rd or friday's workout, and any other supplementary stuff on the 2nd, or wednesday. The bad thing there for you is you're doing the deads on Wed., so that's probably way too much on the hams...but why add more ham work in when you're doing them 3x /week anyway? You could use them for your dead warmup if you want, but the squats do that for me. Maybe you could do 1/2 of your squat set and the other half with the good mornings, since the squats don't max out on that day anyway.
 
Why more hams? Because they are small and make my legs look funny. I've learned how to make every part of my body bigger and better...except my hamstrings.
 
<div>
(quadancer @ Feb. 04 2007,18:31)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">You do this and judge for yourself if it's just too light or not at 15 reps. It should feel pretty light, but not like nothing. Or you can try the 180x15 rm if you're totally lost and see if it's possible for you.
120x15 180x10 240x5 300x5
130x15 190x10 250x5 310x5 and so forth
140x15 200x10 260x5
150x15 210x10 270x5
160x15 220x10 280x5
170x15 230x10 290x5</div>
I see what you are saying with those numbers... my issue is that for the first well, 5+ weeks i would be severly below my &quot;max&quot; and i dont see how that would work for me.

My current 15RM for squat is right at 225, so i would be so far away from that workload, i dont see how that would be giving me any benefit.

in fact, i would not even hit my current 5RM until the 6th week of the program

is that the way its supposed to be?

it just seems like my total workload is VERY low and pretty far away from my max... as explained by madcow and in the book practical programming.... they talk about intensity as a percentage of your 1RM and number of reps, and it just seems like i am so far away from my capacity that the intensity by default, has to be very low.

I really hope i dont seem like a complete dunce, i just really dont understand the philosophy i guess.

i just know if i dont understand it, im not going to stick to it... and if i dont understand WHY im doing what im doing, then i feel like im cheating myself.
 
In the tab with the big HST at the top of the page there is a couple of pages of reading material that explains why HST works. It's more about frequency and progressive loading than the actual load to make the muscles grow. I didn't believe in it at first either but was forced into it by injury that kept me from being able to lift heavy. I did it as a recovery program specifically because I would be still lifting and in the gym 3x a week with HST instead of lying in a bed wishing I could lift. I honestly did not believe that I would get any bigger, let alone stronger with it. I ended up being very pleasantly suprised.

Think about it, when you set up your 5x5 program, you didn't start on day 1 working at your 5RM and trying to add to it. You probably started out much lighter than 5RM and did roughly 24 workouts, working up gradually until your 1RM became your new 5RM. Increasing weight by approximately 2.5% each week. There are a few different ways of doing a 5x5 program, but that's approximately how they all work.

Working at submaximal weights allows you to get the frequency in, get all your reps in for a workout, and lets you keep growing without trashing your joints and overtraining.

Yeah, the first week of any HST microcycle (I think that's what they are called...or maybe it's minicycle...or two week block...whatever) may seem ridiculously light. But this is to keep you from overtraining, while stimulating the muscle to grow from frequent loading and frequent use. How is this any different from &quot;light day&quot; in 5x5 where you are just doing the first 3 sets from heavy day - then repeating the 3rd set to get number 4 and stopping? With 5x5 you go light and get heavier &quot;zig zagging&quot; the progression by going &quot;heavy, light, medium&quot;...with HST you just start light and keep moving the progression forward. Similar principals, different method to get there.

My second HST cycle should have been a total bust. I dropped the volume in half to &quot;vanilla&quot; HST. My training was interrupted by an injury, a severe MS attack with new damage, testicular and pituitary issues that gave me some BAD testosterone problems, a change in TRT regimen. The end result would have been similar to a normal person doing a very successful steroid cycle then forgetting to do PCT and taking a month off while test levels are rock bottom. I should have lost everything I gained. However, even doing only 1/2 of my original HST workout with less sets, less volume, and WAY less weight I only lost 10 of my 30lbs and have gained some of that back already. My best was 203lbs, now I'm at 197 as of today. Half of the time since all that happened was with HST, the other half was with 5x5.

I think both programs are great and both work wonders if you let them.

Here's an Idea, post up your chosen lifts. Probably should be the same you used with 5x5 (because the 5x5 lifts are the most effective) and your 5RM for each of them. We can do some calculations and find the numbers to do for HST. Much like 5x5 did at first, HST can seem rather confusing and complicated. However, once you've done it it just makes perfect sense.
 
i unfortunately do need a bit of hand holding (god i hate that! lol)


i do understand the similarity as far as building up to maximum, vs starting at max... it just seems so far away...

also the 5x5 program is nice because warm ups are also programmed as part of the workout and considered in the tonnage calculation, vs just saying &quot;WU&quot; ....

i would like my HST program to look very similar to the example given on the first page:
Squat
SLDL
OHP
Lateral Raise
Bench
Weighted dip
Pull Up
Pendlay Row
calf raise
curl
tricep extension
(abs)

I dont want to add deadlifts because 1, i dont feel like they are well peformed at high reps, 2, they are so exhaustive that they really would not fit, unless i subbed say, SLDL AND Rows, and lowered the squat weight (like in the 5x5 program) on say a wednesday.

my current 5RM:
squat 300
bench 250
row 235
OHP 160


other possibly pertinent numbers:
curl- 115 strict 5rm
tricep ext- usually performed with 100lb cambered bar for 8 (not 8RM)
dip- 110lb dumbell, 8 reps (not 8RM)
SLDL- 225 x8 (not 8RM)
seated calf raise/donkey raise- 360lbs x 8 (close to max)
 
Get- did you not see the second chart, using stock HST sets? The weights there are pretty high, considering your 5rm. It puts you at 240x15 for a max, if you make it there, if not, you just come up as you can. I'd be reluctant to program legs at 5lb increments myself, so ten was sort of a minimum. You can always repeat a weight 2 or 3 times if needed, until you nail it in good form.
It seems odd that you can do 225x15 and only 300x5, but perhaps you are more endurance-oriented right now. Nothing wrong with that.
As Vagrant said, the articles at the homepage are a must-read. It will save you a lot of questions, mistakes, lost time and progress if you spend a couple hours studying these. It gets simple once you understand it and the differences between HST and failure training. (which I like to call 'joint failure training') There is also a calculator that will print out your program from your rep maxes...just put them in, tell it what increase you want for a given exersize and hit &quot;calculate&quot;. It does the rest.
 
I'm pretty sure the 5 to 10lbs is just an estimate to make life easier. If you like percentages you could just do the following:


Workout 1 2 3 4 5 6
Percentage 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% 100% of RM

Just do that for each mesocycle
 
<div>
(Franko @ Feb. 05 2007,17:57)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I'm pretty sure the 5 to 10lbs is just an estimate to make life easier. If you like percentages you could just do the following:


Workout 1 2 3 4 5 6
Percentage 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% 100% of RM

Just do that for each mesocycle</div>
ooo i like that one
smile.gif



also, quad... yah i think it is ... interesting at least, that i can get 225 for 15, but in all honesty i did that AFTER (about a week) i had done my 5RM... so maybe i would have nailed a better 5rm if i would have tried....?
 
<div>
(quadancer @ Feb. 05 2007,18:29)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">You're gonna get all kinds of surprises with this program; just try it! Don't forget ta EAT!</div>
And the biggest surprise of all is that IT WORKS!!!

Or at least it was for me. I honestly didn't believe not working to almost failure EVERY WORKOUT would do a thing for anyone.
 
So i decided that instead of being a complete leach... I would actually go to the gym this week to do my 15 and 10RM's

Did 15's tonight and here are the results:

(in order of appearance)
Squat- 225 (could have done another 2 or 3 pretty easily)
Calf Raise- 320
Bench- 185
SLDL- 225
OHP- 115
Row- got 205 for 10, so im guessing 15RM around 190
Curl- 80
Tri Ext- 90
Shrug- 305
Dip (w/belt)- BW + 80dumbell

That was a TON of work for me compared to what im used to... or it seemed it at least... i was thinking of dropping one excercise, maybe SLDL.... any input?

wednesday will be 10RM's
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top