Extending 5s instead of negatives

S

SweetDaddyPatty

New Member
For my next cycle I am going to do 4 weeks of 5s instead of 2 weeks of 5s and 2 weeks of negatives.
Do I build up to use my 5RM at the end of the 2nd week like in the other cycles, then keep using that same weight for the next 2 weeks, or do I space out my increments so I hit my 5RM at the end of the 4th week?
The second option seems like I'd be using too light of a weight for most of the 5s, but the first option means going very very close to failure at every workout for 2 weeks...
 
Only increment once a week or at the very most, twice a week. I would greatly prefer once a week incremenatation during the 5s. Start at about 80% of your 5 RM and ramp up over a few weeks until you hit your 5 RMs. The next week, add weight where you can and keep pushing your RMs up. You should be able to increase them for a few weeks at least. Stop doing this when you can no longer add weight on to your RMs.
Record new 5 RMs and use these to build your next cycle.

For what it is worth, I would recommend going for a couple weeks at your new 5 RMs and pushing some of the lifts beyond into negative territory. Movements such as chins, dips, military press are all easy to do negative fashion on your own and can stimulate serious growth in the chest, lats and delts.
 
maybe I'm missing an obvious solution, but how do you do military press negatives without a spotter? Just lift it off the pins and lower, put it down, strip some weight, put back on pins, put weight back on, wash, rinse, repeat? Or is there an easier way?
 
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(SweetDaddyPatty @ Oct. 07 2006,13:17)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">maybe I'm missing an obvious solution, but how do you do military press negatives without a spotter?  Just lift it off the pins and lower, put it down, strip some weight, put back on pins, put weight back on, wash, rinse, repeat?  Or is there an easier way?</div>
Cheat the weight up using your legs.  

I.e. once the weight is down, bend your legs and thrust the weight back up.
 
Here's an idea for extending the 5's.  I've not actually tried it since starting HST, but since you are working at or near failure - and it's only for two weeks - why not give this a shot.  I know it works for Max OT training - I made excellent strength gains and some pretty good size gains doing this before.

After you reach the end of the 5's you've gotten to your 5RM, but since you've gotten stronger during your training cycle - it's not really your 5RM anymore, so next workout go for 6 reps.  If you can get 6, it's time to increase the weight.

Here's the next 2 weeks following that training philosophy.

Workout #
1.....add the smallest amount of weight you can say 5lbs or so.  Then do 4 reps today
2.....do 5 reps today
3.....do 6 reps today
4.....add weight and do 4 reps
5.....do 5 reps
6.....do 6 reps.

You are now stronger than you were two weeks ago and ready for your SD - then you can hit &quot;HST done right&quot; with more strength to work with - that means you are lifting heavier and building even more muscle by following the HST progression - stronger pushing more weight during each phase of the progression is going to make more muscle than weaker pushing less weight can - that can't be denied.
 
How do you know how long to extend the 5's?  I just finished my 4th week of 5's and feel pretty good.  Should I keep going or SD?  Obviously this is a personal thing that is different for everyone.  But what are some of you guys doing?  I'm not sure if I should SD now or wait a little longer.
 
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(Totentanz @ Oct. 07 2006,12:50)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Only increment once a week or at the very most, twice a week.  I would greatly prefer once a week incremenatation during the 5s.  Start at about 80% of your 5 RM and ramp up over a few weeks until you hit your 5 RMs.  The next week, add weight where you can and keep pushing your RMs up.  You should be able to increase them for a few weeks at least.  Stop doing this when you can no longer add weight on to your RMs.
Record new 5 RMs and use these to build your next cycle.

For what it is worth, I would recommend going for a couple weeks at your new 5 RMs and pushing some of the lifts beyond into negative territory.  Movements such as chins, dips, military press are all easy to do negative fashion on your own and can stimulate serious growth in the chest, lats and delts.</div>
Thanks Tote, I've just started the 5's in my first serious bulking cycle and was unsure how to play it towards the end. Now I know.
Cheers,
J  
smile.gif
 
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(Bulldog @ Oct. 07 2006,17:18)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">How do you know how long to extend the 5's? I just finished my 4th week of 5's and feel pretty good. Should I keep going or SD? Obviously this is a personal thing that is different for everyone. But what are some of you guys doing? I'm not sure if I should SD now or wait a little longer.</div>
Keep going until you can no longer add weight to the bar i.e. your strength is no longer increasing.
 
What about if you are going to do the 2 RM negatives instead of extend the 5's. How many reps and sets of the negatives do you do? I'm assuming if you do the negatives that you only do them for two weeks because of how stressful they are?
 
I would say that it depends on your routine, but for negatives I prefer to stick to one set, maybe two. Negatives can be taxing. Personally, I would prefer to extend the 5s anyway and progress to negatives once you can't push your 5 RM up any further.
 
thanks, this is all helpful, interesting advice. I just finished my 8th week of my first HST cycle and I was going to find my new RMs and then SD (LETTERS~!) but I'm still getting stronger so maybe I'll keep it up a few more weeks.
 
Yeah. Seriously, if you are still making gains in strength or size, then why SD? I don't think you should SD every 8 weeks regardless, but only when you can't make anymore gains due to stagnation or injury/joint pain. Almost every SD I have ever taken, except for my first few when I was a total noob, were due to joint pain, sickness or life getting in the way. I think that SDs should be infrequent.
 
Agreed I'm still going and still growing, aiming for 12 weeks, as long as the weights (zigzag) up progressively I figure I'll keep growing and gaining strength until I either reach my limit or just get too sore.

I figure you should have compulsory SD at the end of 12 weeks though to keep with the principles of HST as set out by Bryan, who's a big believer in SD. Of course he's been training for like 25 years he needs it.
 
What's your experience adding dropsett instead of doing negatives for the compund exercises (such as dips, squats, deads, chins, military press etc)?
I'm currently at my 9th week, and I'm not able to keep pushing the maxes further up (went up 12 kg in inclinebech (wohoo ;-)).
Could adding droppsett keep the progress further for a couple of weeks? Or should I go into negatives instead of regular sets?
 
Id go into negative or partials, or maybe max stim style reps. Id even keep the load the same and just keep going. The whole point is to work with a heavy load until I wasnt getting any more growth out of it.

I wouldnt do drop sets, because I dont believe they are effective.
 
Dropsets are less effective than doing additional sets with the same (higher) load. Dropsets are a fatigue technique. It will &quot;feel&quot; like they are heavy still, but the muscle doesn't perceive tension based on how it feels. No matter how tired you are, 120 lbs is not going to be as effective as 200 lbs.
Dropsets are good if you want to get some metabolic work done, but for stimulating growth, you would be better off doing negatives or doing additional sets with your +5RM, or doing max-stim style reps with loads at and higher than your 5 RM.
 
I've seen a sports physiology report that deferred to that very thing. Yet they still said drop sets had a few advantages for both strength and hypertrophy, but you should only do them once in a week.
 
Ok.
How do you usually include negatives in the post 5s? Do you do additional sets or do you replace the regular sets with negatives?
 
Replace some of the reps in a regular set with eccentric only reps. So say you are using your 2 RM. Do 2 full reps, then 3 more eccentric only reps.



Re dropsets: Yes, they have their place, but for hypertrophy in my reading and experience, they are less effective than simply adding in more work at your current load. 2 set of 5 with 200 lbs is 2000 lbs. 1 x 5 with 200 followed by 80% of that i.e. 1 x 5 with 160 lbs is only 1800 lbs. You've just worn yourself out just as much as the first example but you mvoed 200 lbs less. A third dropset versus third full load set brings the disparity up even further to almost 600 lbs difference of total weight moved.
Does that matter? With regards to maximizing gains, in my opinion and my experience it does.
 
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