First HST cycle. Trying to bulk (could also use some help)

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burton7

New Member
Hey everyone this is my first HST cycle and i am very excited as ive seen lots of great things about it. Im pretty new to bodybuilding and am a smaller guy, about 5'10 and 150lbs. hopefully i can gain some mass while on this program!

First off, this is the workout I've decided on, does anyone see any problems with it? I tested my 15 Rep maxes today so if i need to change something, please help me out soon.

Workout A
Squats (15x95lbs)
Bench (15x70lbs)
Arnold Press (15x17.5lbs)
Chin ups (8xbodyweight)
Skull Crushers (15x ez bar + 20lbs)
EZ Curls (15x bar + 25)


Workout B
Deadlift (15x135)
Dips (15x Bodyweight)
DB Flys (15x15)
Leg Press (15x190)
Smith machine upright row (15x50)
Ab work

how should i go about upping the weight each workout?
Thanks for the help, i cant wait to start this log
 
your workout is pretty similar to mine. check out my log it should give you an idea how to figure out what weight to do and how to increment. start at about 70%max. for example you would do bench mon, fri, wed over two weeks right? if your max is 70 i would do something like mon:50, fri:60, wed:70. make sense?
 
burton7 said:
Hey everyone this is my first HST cycle and i am very excited as ive seen lots of great things about it. Im pretty new to bodybuilding and am a smaller guy, about 5'10 and 150lbs. hopefully i can gain some mass while on this program!

First off, this is the workout I've decided on, does anyone see any problems with it? I tested my 15 Rep maxes today so if i need to change something, please help me out soon.

Workout A
Squats (15x95lbs)
Bench (15x70lbs)
Arnold Press (15x17.5lbs)
Chin ups (8xbodyweight)
Skull Crushers (15x ez bar + 20lbs)
EZ Curls (15x bar + 25)


Workout B
Deadlift (15x135)
Dips (15x Bodyweight)
DB Flys (15x15)
Leg Press (15x190)
Smith machine upright row (15x50)
Ab work

how should i go about upping the weight each workout?
Thanks for the help, i cant wait to start this log
Click to expand...

Looks good man! I might drop the leg press though, since you are already hitting squats for the A sessions. I might do calf raises instead, unless your calves are already where you want them.

Here's a little breakdown I gave someone else on the main forum yesterday:

The first 2 weeks you do 15 reps for every lift
Weeks 3 & 4, you do 10 reps for every lift
Weeks 5 & 6, you do 5 reps for every lift
Weeks 7 & 8, your choice: a) keep doing 5 reps and try to push for new, higher rep maxes on your lifts; b) do negatives or drop sets; or c) drop to even lower rep scheme like 3 reps and work up to a 3RM

The default set selection is 1 set for 15s, 2 sets for 10s, 3 sets for 5s

There are 6 sessions for each 2 week rep scheme. Here are the loads for the 2 week series:

Session 1 - 75% of RM
Session 2 - 80% of RM
Session 3 - 85% of RM
Session 4 - 90% of RM
Session 5 - 95% of RM
Session 6 - 100% of RM

If you have a lift, like the skull crushers where breaking the increments down that small is not practical, you can double up and just go 80% - 80% - 90% - 90% - 100% - 100%

And you need to plan to eat big. How much do you want to weigh? If you want to gain 25 lbs, you should find the caloric needs of a 175lb man, your age, your height and then start eating that much, maybe a little more. This is the most important element to gaining mass. HST will help make what you gain look good, but you have to feed your body and get plenty of rest to grow.

My best to you, brother - let us know if you have any more questions!
 
whistledixie said:
Looks good man! I might drop the leg press though, since you are already hitting squats for the A sessions. I might do calf raises instead, unless your calves are already where you want them.
Click to expand...

actually leg press and deads on the same day works well for me. i do leg press 1st and deads last; and squats alternating days. when you go really heavy you can limit squats and deads to once a week, i havent had to yet but i am toying with the idea, especially in the last two weeks before SD; but i suggest you keep leg press and see how you go.
 
I’ll jump in to add some confusion to the already excellent suggestions. I think you have an great routine planned but I would consider two things.

Unless you are already comfortable with your compound lifts, in that you can move heavy weights and have progresses to or close to the intermediate stage then I would drop the arm isolation work for your first cycle and stick to compound exercises. In the “A” routine I would substitute Leg Curls or SLDL for the arm isos since your Quads are getting a lot of work with Squats, Leg Extensions and even Dead Lifts if you use standard style while your Hams are only getting some work with these exercises. Even if you are doing Sumo Dead Lifts which will hit your Hams a little more I would still consider changing routine “A” as I think you will see more total mass gains by working your Hams than your arms right now.

If you really must keep the arm isos in routine “A” then consider swapping out the Leg Extensions in routine “B” for Leg Curls or SLDLs for the same reason of balancing out your Quad and Ham work more.
 
Hey thanks for the help everyone. I think im going to stick with the leg presses right now and see how I like it.

Im a little confused though, Grunt11 you pointed out theres 6 sessions for each 2 week scheme. are you talking about all together or Im supposed to do 6 sessions of workout A, AND 6 sessions of workout B?

For example:
Tuesday: A
Thursday: B
Saturday: A

Tuesday: B
Thursday: A
Saturday B

This is only 3 sessions of each workout?
are you suggesting that i increase weight like this?
A - 75% of RM
B - 80% of RM
A - 85% of RM

B - 90% of RM
A - 95% of RM
B - 100% of RM??

so basically 10% added to each A/B workout from the previous?
 
It was actually Dix who made that statement and he is talking about 6 total sessions in a two week micro cycle of 15s, 10s 5s etc . . . . When doing a split routine and if you want to stick with 3 workout days/week you would just alternate routines like A B A, B A B so that you do each routine 3 times over the two weeks. No reason you can’t extend the cycle another week or two to add more sessions of each routine but be careful you don’t make your overall cycle to long or you might burn out when the weight gets heavy.

If I were doing only 3 sessions of each routine I would probably increment 80%, 90% 100% of each rep max.

One problem with doing a split routine using different exercises if finding a balance between the number of session per micro cycle and how long you want each micro cycle to be. There are no hard fast rules on this.

A couple of other ways to do split routines and still get 6 sessions of each routine into two weeks are to do a 6 day split ABABAB Off ABABAB Off. Or and AM/PM split A/B off A/B off A/B off off and repeat. However, both take a lot more time and will require a lot of good food to keep you growing.
 
burton7 said:
This is only 3 sessions of each workout?
are you suggesting that i increase weight like this?
A - 75% of RM
B - 80% of RM
A - 85% of RM

B - 90% of RM
A - 95% of RM
B - 100% of RM??

so basically 10% added to each A/B workout from the previous?
Click to expand...

That's the way I'd do it. That's the caveat to pretty much any advice I give.

You could go about it different ways if you wish, just increase the load each session starting at 75% of RM and ending at 100% (or greater, if you dare - but this isn't necessary).
 
alright cool that makes sense now. how does this look for my first 2 weeks?

Workout A
Squats - 70 - 80 - 95
Bench - 55 - 65 - 70
Arnold Press 10 - 15 - 17.5
Chin ups Bodyweight until failure
Skull Crushers 10 - 15 - 20
EZ Curls 15 - 20 - 25


Workout B
Deadlift 110 - 120 - 135
Dips (15x Bodyweight)
DB Flys 10 - 12.5 - 15
Leg Press 150 - 170 - 190
Smith machine upright row 40 - 45 - 50
Ab work
 
I woud move the chins to the same day as deadlifts and add in bentover rows to replace the chins on Workout A.

Also, make sure you do your ab work HST style too, using weight and increasing it each session. It is important to build core strength that you progress with those muscles as well.
 
hey everyone sorry about the delay, here are my 10RM

Workout A
Squats (10x110lbs)
Bench (10x85lbs)
Arnold Press (10x22.5lbs)
Chin ups (8xbodyweight)
Skull Crushers (10x ez bar + 25lbs)
EZ Curls (10x bar + 30)


Workout B
Deadlift (10x145)
Dips (10x Bodyweight)
DB Flys (10x20)
Leg Press (10x230)
Smith machine upright row (10x60)
Ab work
 
and my 5 RM
Workout A
Squats (5x130lbs)
Bench (5x95lbs)
Arnold Press (5x30lbs)
Chin ups (8xbodyweight)
Skull Crushers (5x ez bar + 30lbs)
EZ Curls (5x bar + 35)


Workout B
Deadlift (5x170)
Dips (5x20)
DB Flys (5x25)
Leg Press (5x275)
Smith machine upright row (5x65)
Ab work
 
hey everyone i just finished my de conditioning and did my first workout yesterday. seemed pretty easy but im sure it will get harder as the weight and reps increases. so far so good! i weighed in at 151.4 lbs
 
My weight is 87kg and my 15 rep maxes are

Squat 70kg
Stiff leg Dead lifts- 77.5kg
Deadlift- 75kg
Bent over two arm long bar row- 47.5kg
Barbell bench press- 52.5kg
Incline Bench- 45kg
Military Press- 32.5kg
Cable curls- 6 weight plates on my home gym
Cable Push downs- 7 weight plates on my home gym
seated calf raisers- 8 weight plates on my home gym
Cable crunches- 7 weight plates on my home gym

I have to do cable curls instead of barbell or dumbbell curls cos my forearm tendons got injured a long time ago and they are basically healed but barbell and dumbbell curls aggravates them.
 
lets legit man let me know how your doing! Sorry i havent been posting in here a lot guys, been really busy. I just finished my 2 weeks of 15s though and im feelin great. I Weighed in at 153 the last time so I am putting on at least some mass, though i think i could clean up my diet and eat a little bit more so Im gonna try to work on that. I start my 10s tomorrow with workout A, Im ready!
 
Alright here are my lifts for the 10s starting today.

WORKOUT A
Squats – 85 – 95 - 110
Bench – 65 – 75 – 85
Arnold Press – 17.5 – 20 – 22.5
Skull Crushers – 15 – 20 – 25
EZ curls – 20 – 25 – 30
AB Work

WORKOUT B
Deadlift – 115 – 130 – 145
Dips – 10 - 12.5 – 15
DB Flys – 15 – 17.5 – 20
Leg Press – 185 – 210 – 230
Smith Upright row – 40 – 45 – 50
Chin Ups - Bodyweight
 
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