Customised HST

[ratty]

I have made some gains whilst using hst but i feel the SD and maybe the light weights reverse the gains i made a little!

So i am planning to still increase the weights hst style but only with heavy weights and a deload where i reduce the load and volume...

Week 1-2
3 sets 8-10 reps

week 3-4
4 sets 6-8 reps

week 4-6
5 sets 4-6 reps

week 7 (deload)
1 set 12-15 reps

Then start over with week 1 again. Has anyone experimented similar to this? what do you guys think?

 

[omega99]

<div>
(ratty @ Jan. 05 2009,2:48)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I have made some gains whilst using hst but i feel the SD and maybe the light weights reverse the gains i made a little!

So i am planning to still increase the weights hst style but only with heavy weights and a deload where i reduce the load and volume...</div>
Can you be more specific?  By &quot;gains&quot;, do you mean size gains have reversed (i.e. you've actually shrunk in size during SD and 15's)? Have you kept actual records of your gains/losses per each cycle and mesocycle? Are you tracking caloric intake/output? My first thought is that any size losses would be related to a negative caloric balance.  If you are cutting this could be occurring, wherein the hearvier weights from your new routine would probably reduce total energy expenditure.

Personally, I've seen my best size gains in the 8-15 rep range as long as I was eating to size (10 total HST cycles).  The heavier weights have primarily helped to increase my strength.

As for deloading with 15's, I've never tried this, but would be interested to hear others' results. Taking a week or two off from the gym is not always good for my high stress lifestlye!  

 

[Fausto]

I mostly agree with Omega as I have never heard of someone loosing size during either SD or the 15's, unless of course you are cutting, then...by all means...size will have to go at least a little!

Lets see some more detail ratty!

 

[ratty]

I mean size gains primarily but strength also!

Perhaps it is my diet then..i dont keep a count of calories that would would be too intense for me!

I probably dont get enough protein..i am about 140lbs with 11-12% bf. I reckon i consume about 70-80 grams of protein perday. Do you think this is slowing my progress? also any tips/ easy to eat protein foods that can bump up my protein intake between meals.

I was thinking about getting some protein bars but i reckon they are expensive and not worth the money. What you guys think?

 

[Fausto]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I probably dont get enough protein..i am about 140lbs with 11-12% bf. I reckon i consume about 70-80 grams of protein perday. Do you think this is slowing my progress? also any tips/ easy to eat protein foods that can bump up my protein intake between meals.</div>

ratty...yeah, that is the problem, calories too might be the issue, protein consumption should be in the range of 1g protein per pound bodyweight, so roughly you should be taking in about 140 g p/day.

Here's some tips:

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">1 - Calculate your BMR (Basal metabolic Rate)

This equation will be very accurate in all but the extremely muscular (will underestimate caloric needs) and the extremely overfat (will overestimate caloric needs).

Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) - (6.8 X age in years)

Note: 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters
1 kilogram = 2.2 lbs.

2 - Add your activity level

Activity factor
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. Active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports &amp; physical job or
2 X day training, marathon, football camp,
contest, etc.)

This will give your TDEE which is total daily energy expenditure.

Typical calorie averages for men and women:

For maintaining weight (TDEE):
Men (average): 2700-2900
Women (average): 2000-2100

For losing weight:
Men (average): 2200-2700
Women (average): 1400-1800

For gaining weight:
Men (average): 3200-4000+
Women (average): 2200-2500+

3 - some futher tips

Calculate your calories first, then split them up into the proper ratios of protein,
carbohydrate and fat

The first rule of macronutrient ratios: Always eat proteins and carbohydrates
together

Here are three examples of the &quot;Ultimate meal combination&quot;
Example 1:
Brown Rice (complex carb)
Mixed green salad (complex fibrous carb)
Salmon (lean protein)
Example 2:
Sweet potato (complex carb)
Broccoli (complex fibrous carb)
Chicken breast cutlet (lean protein)
Example 3:
Oatmeal (complex carbohydrate)
Egg white omelet with one yolk (lean protein)
Grapefruit (natural simple carb – optional)

If fat loss is your number one goal and you want to achieve it the healthy way
without losing muscle or energy, then you can't go wrong with 50-55% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 15-20% fat as your starting point.

These numbers are not intended as a rigid prescription; for fast metabolism types,
55% carbohydrates or the classic 60% carbohydrates works well. For others, 45%
carbohydrates is a better place to start. Your ratios might need to be adjusted slightly
depending on your body type. But before you can make any adjustments for your body type and goals, you must first establish a starting point or &quot;baseline.&quot;

The starting point for an effective fat-burning and muscle-building diet, often called a
&quot;baseline diet&quot; is 50-55% carbs, 30% protein, and 15-20% fat.

1 gram of carbohydrate = 4 calories
1 gram of protein = 4 calories
1 gram of fat = 9 calories</div>

Hope this helps

 

[Lol]

If you are serious about keeping your gains then, like Fausto said, when on SD you should be eating at maintenance levels. For protein, that means 1g/lb lean body weight. So you should be taking in about 125g protein daily. Don't fret over it though. You'll get your strength and size back pretty quickly once you get back to lifting and your eating is back on track.

After SD, 15s shouldn't be easy if you have set your loads up correctly. By the second week they should be getting pretty hard. (Personally, a 15RM workout with deads is the hardest thing I have done in my life - but I'm a bit mad.) Don't forget that 15s have many beneficial effects and they are only for two weeks of a cycle. By all means skip them if it makes you happier, but I would suggest adding them back in again every few cycles. This is particularly true if you are a natural lifter and/or if you are in your 30s or 40s.

As an aside, gains can be missed during 5s because glycogen levels within muscle tissue can drop off a bit with lower reps (along with the 'tightness' that is experienced during 15s and 10s) giving the impression that size is not increasing. However, muscle hypertrophy is more likely to occur under heavy loading when there's enough volume &amp; frequency to drive a regular PS response.

The most important thing is that the load on the bar is going up over time, cycle on cycle, year on year. Basically, if it isn't, you aren't gaining.

 

[omega99]

<div>
(Lol @ Jan. 06 2009,6:04)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">As an aside, gains can be missed during 5s because glycogen levels within muscle tissue can drop off a bit with lower reps (along with the 'tightness' that is experienced during 15s and 10s) giving the impression that size is not increasing. However, muscle hypertrophy is more likely to occur under heavy loading when there's enough volume &amp; frequency to drive a regular PS response.</div>
Lol, this makes sense and I've seen this referred to a few times on the board. Each time I go into my 5's, I'm hopeful that I'll see similar gains b/c they last an additional two weeks using clustering or drop sets. However, in almost every HST cycle, I've seen size gains occur mostly during the 15's and 10's. This last cycle (my 10th overall) was met with similar results. I get motivated with the early gains only to stall during the heavier weights. I realize there may be a time lag with the gains, but I can never seem to correlate much increase in size with the heavier weights.

The best conclusion I can draw is that maybe the weights are a bit too heavy to really evoke good stretch. Or maybe my volume during the 5's (usually 15 reps per exercise) is too low thus reducing TUT as the cycle progresses. I would certainly appreciate any thoughts on this.

 

[Fausto]

Omega

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Lol, this makes sense and I've seen this referred to a few times on the board. Each time I go into my 5's, I'm hopeful that I'll see similar gains b/c they last an additional two weeks using clustering or drop sets. However, in almost every HST cycle, I've seen size gains occur mostly during the 15's and 10's. This last cycle (my 10th overall) was met with similar results. I get motivated with the early gains only to stall during the heavier weights. I realize there may be a time lag with the gains, but I can never seem to correlate much increase in size with the heavier weights.</div>

If one goes back to the history of HST and how it was put together, we shall see that the 5's range is actually a purely strength based approach, and that the 10's range is the actual hypertrophy range, can't remember where the research to prove this comes from but it is there somewhere!

So...we should not expect too much growth response at that stage, however we can expect some growth overall because essentially HST is a mixture of 3 diffrent ranges, in other words the best of 3 worlds (to cahnge the old saying just a little

).

Cheers

 

[Lol]

omega99: I think Blade sums it up pretty well in the FAQs:

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Please remember that the stimulus for growth has nothing to do with any specific rep count or rep range, but has everything to do with the frequency, progression, and effective SD as per the HST principles. So in theory you should be growing at a constant rate throughout the cycle, but this doesn't always happen due to the way people eat and implement the HST program.</div>

Dan has some research showing that rep range for hypertrophy is not the important thing - you could use any rep range you like (within reason) just so long as there is load progression over the cycle. Specifically, the 15s give you a bit more time to heal any niggling injuries still hanging around after SD; they help increase blood flow to the joints and the 'lactic acid effect' seems to help with connective tissue healing.

Over the course of the cycle you are increasing loads in order to create a tension overload and to stay ahead of RBE/conditioning to the load. The 5s are just a logical place to wind up a cycle as the loads are heavy enough to get all the muscle fibres (in the involved muscles) firing from the start of a set which should trigger a useful PS response if TUT is adequate.

It is possible that changes in your form can alter the effectiveness of an exercise; if form breaks down because the loads are heavy you are going to alter the loading on the muscles being used. Eg. When heavy squatting, you may throw more load onto your spinal erectors if you dip forward coming out of the hole, robbing your quads from some of their effective TUT. Of course, you just increased the loading on your spinal erectors so, as long as you don't get injured, you just increased their TUT! That's not really what you want though.

I also think that it is quite possible that any growth during the 5s might not be that apparent until you get to your next cycle where increases in glycogen storage during the 15s will be added to the hypertrophy effects from the previous cycle's 5s. In other words, you might not really see the effects of the 5s until the following cycle. I'm pretty sure that's how things go for me. By the end of the 5s I'm getting weaker due to the build up of fatigue. If I took a week off, ate well, and then picked up the 5s again, I'd probably be stronger after a few workouts.

Aside from glycogen depletion/storage and the associated changes in water uptake in the muscles, the actual fibre growth in a seasoned trainer is not going to be particularly obvious at any point in the cycle - unlike a new trainee when gains are coming thick and fast. If you think that you might gain a pound of muscle in a month (ie. twelve pounds a year - which would be pretty great) along with a similar amount of fat gain then that's going to be pretty difficult to 'see' if it's spread over your entire body.

As long as you can consistently add more weight to the bar each cycle, particularly for your 5RM loads (or 1RMs  - if you take the risk to test these), I think there is a good chance that you are growing. If you focussed on failure training for a while you might well improve your lifts without much growth but if you can add weight to the bar and keep your style of training consistent then improvements in lifts pretty much have to correlate with growth.

You could try increasing your TUT during 5s and see how you cope with the extra fatigue. Maybe drop to 3s when you get to your 5RM loads and increase the sets to 6 for a total of 18 reps. That has to be a pretty potent stimulus.

Oh, how is your nutrition? You need to ensure that you are eating enough to gain over the whole cycle. I'd try pushing cals up a bit toward the end of the cycle to make sure you are getting the most from the 5s.

 

[Fausto]

Thanks for the enlightment Lol!

I was off track then?

 

[omega99]

Lol, thanks for the help. You make some great points that probably apply to my situation. Regarding nutrition, I did notice the scale taking a slight dip during 5's of the last cycle. And I have to admit that I haven't found the time to begin counting each calorie. Being in sales, this is certainly difficult for me to do.

Now onto the form issue. Yes and no...I do think at times my form suffers somewhat into the heavies, especially the compounds. But on some exercises (i.e. preacher curl, declines) it is almost difficult to have a breakdown in form. What I notice is that sometimes I wake up the next day with more pain in the tendons than the muscles themselves. This tells me that maybe I've reached a threshold wherby the amount of weight is shifting more tension to the joints and tendons. Therefore, I can't help thinking that there might be some reduced muscular tension as the weight gets to a certain point.  

The timing effect is probable. As long as I keep eating well, I have noticed instances where I've come off an SD...or earlier into the 15's...with size gains.  I'd certainly appreciate a labcoat's perspective on the time response of weight stimulas to hypertrophy.

Anyway, I didn't mean to steal ratty's thread.  Maybe once he runs through his cycle of heavy weights, he can shed some more insight.

 

[ratty]

yeah back off omega!! just kidding dude..

Thanks for the replies everyone..

No one has commented on my scheduled deload rather than SD..any thoughts on this? whether it would be more beneficial than SD in any way?

 

[Fausto]

ratty

Deload can work rather than SD, the problem will be that you will be &quot;sailing very close to the wind&quot; this my opinion off corse, others may disagree.

Omega just mentioned feeling his tendons rather than his muscles, you might want to keep this in mind so that when it hits you you will know to back off.

That said, you can use the technique to your advantage, just...be careful...that's all!

 

[omega99]

<div>
(ratty @ Jan. 08 2009,4:12)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">No one has commented on my scheduled deload rather than SD..any thoughts on this? whether it would be more beneficial than SD in any way?</div>
ratty, there have been previous discussions that SD would require significantly more time than 1-2 weeks to really affect RBE from a physiological standpoint. I'm sure Dan has provided some research on this (searchable).

With that said, I don't think a deload vs. a complete layoff would really result in much difference. What I find though, is that after a few weeks of really heavy weights and drop sets, my body, and especially my CNS, is ready for a short break. You're younger so probably more like the energizer bunny.  

As the FAQ says, &quot;it depends&quot;. The best thing is to experiment, monitor results, to determine how your body best responds. Good luck and let us know how the heavy weights are treating you.

 

[bgates1654]

Its hard to keep up with the calories in the 5rep range. For most people they need to pound as much food as they can during those 2 (or more) weeks.

Rippetoe's program is primarily for strength and recommends only 5rep sets, but it makes people big right along with it. With GOMAD its hard to undereat.

&quot;What I notice is that sometimes I wake up the next day with more pain in the tendons than the muscles themselves. This tells me that maybe I've reached a threshold wherby the amount of weight is shifting more tension to the joints and tendons. Therefore, I can't help thinking that there might be some reduced muscular tension as the weight gets to a certain point.&quot;
Unless your form goes to complete ****, load cant be shifted from muscle to tendons/joints. Muscles and tendons are attached and act like ropes (tendons) and rubber bands (muscles). The load on the muscle is the same as the load on the attached tendon. The only thing you can do is shift load to other muscles like when quad dominant people shift forward when they squat at near limit strength, which shifts tension off of the hamstrings and other muscles of the posterior chain. The load on the knee is the same unless they start sitting on their calves or are otherwise supported. The distribution of the load on the knee has changed however since more tension is put on the quads. Bottom line is if its too heavy to lift with decent form then its too heavy to lift for training purposes.

Also what a lot of people think is tendon or join pain is really just tight muscles. Remember that muscles are attached to tendons and tendons wrap around joints. Tight muscles put tension on the tendons and joints and can elicit pain in those areas. In the example above, the forward shifted squat, the quad is clearly overloaded. Typically this eventually results in pain in the front just below the knee (possibly jsut under the kneecap as well) or what most people call patellar tendonitis. This is usually just a tight rectus femoris and can usually be treated sucessfully with proper massage. If it developes into a severe enough trigger point, tightness/pain can last months even years.

 

[Fausto]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Bottom line is if its too heavy to lift with decent form then its too heavy to lift for training purposes.</div>

Couldn't agree more!

Something many guys cannot &quot;wrap&quot; around their brains because their egos are too big.

FORM IS EVERYTHING!