First of all, I'm new here and wanted to say hi to everyone. Hopefully I'm able to learn a lot about HST from ya'll.
I have been lifting for about 5 or 6 years off and on. I've done a few cycles of steroids in the past. I pretty much stuck to a traditional 1 muscle/day, 6x/wk workout. My brother recently introduced me to HST and I thought I'd give it a try. I am currently monitoring my caloric intake and pretty much have that covered, so my questions will be concerning the actual training. I haven't worked out consistently in over a year, so I figure this is a good time to start HST. Right now I'm doing 1 set per muscle 6x/wk. The weight is obviously a LOT lower than what I'm used to, because I've always tried killing my muscles in the gym. I'm used to doing at least 4 different exercises per muscle on a given day. HST is completely different. I have a few questions about this:
1. Should I expect to gain good size off of an HST cycle since in the past I always worked with much higher weights?
2. Would it be wiser to do 2 sets per muscle instead of 1 since I'm used to doing many more sets per muscle? (I just don't get the feeling I used to after a workout with just 1 set. Obviously this is because I trained close to failure a lot in the past, but I still want to make sure I am training the muscle sufficiently.)
3. Having not trained consistently in over a year, I have decreased dramatically in size and strength. I have heard the term "muscle memory" before but I am not sure if there is any truth to it. Will it be easier for me to gain size/strength because I have been there before or is it the same as if I had never had that size/strength before?
4. If I can gain size/strength more quickly since I've been there before, should I still start an HST cycle at 70% of my current 15/10/5 rep max?
My main concern in all of this is doing "too little" in the gym and not growing to my potential. I just want to make sure I'm doing the right things to maximize my overall growth. Thanks for any help ya'll can provide me with!
I have been lifting for about 5 or 6 years off and on. I've done a few cycles of steroids in the past. I pretty much stuck to a traditional 1 muscle/day, 6x/wk workout. My brother recently introduced me to HST and I thought I'd give it a try. I am currently monitoring my caloric intake and pretty much have that covered, so my questions will be concerning the actual training. I haven't worked out consistently in over a year, so I figure this is a good time to start HST. Right now I'm doing 1 set per muscle 6x/wk. The weight is obviously a LOT lower than what I'm used to, because I've always tried killing my muscles in the gym. I'm used to doing at least 4 different exercises per muscle on a given day. HST is completely different. I have a few questions about this:
1. Should I expect to gain good size off of an HST cycle since in the past I always worked with much higher weights?
2. Would it be wiser to do 2 sets per muscle instead of 1 since I'm used to doing many more sets per muscle? (I just don't get the feeling I used to after a workout with just 1 set. Obviously this is because I trained close to failure a lot in the past, but I still want to make sure I am training the muscle sufficiently.)
3. Having not trained consistently in over a year, I have decreased dramatically in size and strength. I have heard the term "muscle memory" before but I am not sure if there is any truth to it. Will it be easier for me to gain size/strength because I have been there before or is it the same as if I had never had that size/strength before?
4. If I can gain size/strength more quickly since I've been there before, should I still start an HST cycle at 70% of my current 15/10/5 rep max?
My main concern in all of this is doing "too little" in the gym and not growing to my potential. I just want to make sure I'm doing the right things to maximize my overall growth. Thanks for any help ya'll can provide me with!