Building Size

C

charr

Member
Hello.

I am on my second cycle of HST. However I have been mostly in a deficit on calories as I have been trying to lose fat. I still thought I would have some positive results due to how effective HST is supposed to be. It hasn't been any different to other routines so far. I will eventually try a cycle in a calorie surplus to see what happens there.

Is this really the most effective way to cause hypertrophy? Why is it that the most muscular guys in the gym all do the 1 body part a week splits? Using slow reps. Most of the time I am told that to build size you have to perform reps slow. Like 1 sec on the positive 4 sec on the negative.

Thanks

Chris
 
HST cannot violate the laws of physics, unfortunately. So you cannot gain mass while losing mass. It won't happen.

There are large, muscular guys who do lots of different routines. Ever look at DC training? Some huge guys do that too. Just because huge guys do it doesn't mean it is the best way. There are huge guys doing every routine, just as there are tiny guys doing every routine. But if size of the people using a routine is what matters to you, I've gotten to where I'm at today using HST almost exclusively and I'm just about maxed out. Also, all the guys at my gym doing one bodypart a day are tiny.

When you are told to build size, you must do reps slow, do they show you any studies to back that up? Because Bryan cites studies to support every point he makes in the HST articles. That means there is science behind it.
 
Hello Totentaz. Thanks for your reply.

I will give this a proper go soon. Just need to lose a little more fat. I'm an endomorph and unfortunately store fat on my ass. It's a curse and I want to get rid of that before I go on a gain.

So is speed not important? I've found when performing reps that the first week of each phase I can perform the reps somewhat slower this is especially true on the very first day of each phase. However on week 2 the reps are usually going pretty explosively as I'm nearing my max. Is this ok? Do you keep any pictures on this forum so I can see your results?

Thanks

Chris
 
Speed isn't terribly important. It's covered in one of the threads in the FAQ section of this site. As long as you are in control of the bar at all times, that is what is most important.

Yes, I have pictures in my training log.
 
I do like to lower the weight under somewhat slow control to maximize time under tension, but not 4 seconds, I don't even count, I just lower it under control, and not just let it drop. Hypertrophy training is all about putting tension on the tissue, so there is some merit to the "slow negatives" philosophy, but like Tot said, it's not important to go super slow or anything.

I tried low frequency once/ week stuff before finding HST, and while I did see some results, the results were very inferior to the higher frequency training I do now.
 
Sci said:
I do like to lower the weight under somewhat slow control to maximize time under tension, but not 4 seconds, I don't even count, I just lower it under control, and not just let it drop. Hypertrophy training is all about putting tension on the tissue, so there is some merit to the "slow negatives" philosophy, but like Tot said, it's not important to go super slow or anything.

I tried low frequency once/ week stuff before finding HST, and while I did see some results, the results were very inferior to the higher frequency training I do now.
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Thanks Sci.

What about when your building towards your max? Thats a bit confusing. Obviously our maxes will be different depending on how fast the reps are performed.

Chris
 
charr said:
Thanks Sci.

What about when your building towards your max? Thats a bit confusing. Obviously our maxes will be different depending on how fast the reps are performed.

Chris
Click to expand...

When I was doing regular HST type cycles, I'd always perform concentrics as explosively as possible while keeping the eccentric part of each rep under control. That worked well for me.

As the load on the bar increases it will inevitably make the concentric slower, however much you might want to maintain rep speed. When you test for your maxes before a cycle just try to be consistent in what you do. It makes no sense taking 30 seconds to perform a set of 5 reps (2 secs up, 4 secs down for each rep) when you test for your 5RM and then hammer through your reps in 15 seconds when you get to your 5RM workout. Of course, in reality it might not matter much if you did do this because you would probably then be able to continue to increment the loads more than you otherwise would have if you'd continued doing slower reps.

It's good to remember that time-under-tension is an important factor in hypertrophy training. If you do 10 fast reps or 5 slow ones in the same amount of time, the TUT is similar. However, not everything will be equal because there are other factors at work too: 10 fast reps may well create more hypoxic stress in the muscle tissue; and there may be a decrease in MU recruitment during slow/longer eccentrics in slower cadence reps.

By being consistent you have a way to compare your lifts over time. Progress will be harder to measure if you constantly change your rep cadence.
 
Totentanz said:
Speed isn't terribly important. It's covered in one of the threads in the FAQ section of this site. As long as you are in control of the bar at all times, that is what is most important.

Yes, I have pictures in my training log.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys.

Can you give me a link to your log totentanz? I've tried to find it with no luck.

Cheers

Chris
 
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