has anyone tried it this way?

T

trash

New Member
In a normal HST cycle, the reps stay the same for a two week period ( until you max out in 5s ) and the weight constantly progresses in each rep range.

Has anyone tried reversing that? Keeping the weight the same for a two week period and constantly add a rep. Figure out your 15 and 10 rep maxes. Start with your 15 rep max wieght but only 10 reps. Then 11 reps, then 12, then 13, then 14, then 15. That's two weeks. Now put your 10 rep max weight on the bars and start at 5 reps and do the same thing. Lower rep ranges would be kind of impractical using this, but I'm sure something could be worked out.

I'm trying a cycle similar to that right now for two reasons. The most important reason is that maxing out in the 5s bothers a couple joints of mine. The way I'm doing it now, I'll be maxing out in a higher rep range than 5s and it is easier on my joints. The second reason is that it can be a pain in the rear to add weight to all the bars the I use every workout.

It seems to follow all the HST principles, just wondering if anyone has done something similar.
 
One HST principle states that the muscle responds to a change in load both up and down from the previous load. It is from that principle that we progress the load from one workout to the next. As you maintain the same load from one workout to the next over a two weeks period, you do not adhere to this principle. Only do you progress the load at the end of that period with a change in RM load.

Certainly, there must be some benefit to progress the volume but it seems that it would not be for the same purpose as progressing the load. Perhaps it would be fine for improving one's fatigue potential. On the other hand, with sufficiently heavy loads, you can use the same load over multiple workouts and continue to stimulate growth for longer than if you used lighter loads.
 
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(Martin Levac @ May 26 2007,04:05)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">One HST principle states that the muscle responds to a change in load both up and down from the previous load.</div>
Practically we can only use the UP part during the cycle. Only after the SD we can start from DOWN, the decreased load again. Right?
 
bobpit, my understanding about that is that the muscle will respond to any load above a certain threshold but it will respond better or more if the load is heavier instead of lighter. So, during a cycle, you can lift lighter than last on the next workout and progress back up if at some point you can't lift the weight, for example. You may call this zigzag or seesaw.

The purpose of strategic deconditioning is to resensitize the muscle to the lighter loads of the beginning of a cycle. It's a method to avoid the repeat bout effect (RBE).
 
I'm pretty sure that the higher reps at the end of the cycle would be beneficial for mitochondrial growth, but that is a small factor when looking at the tape or in the mirror. And your Vo2 max may increase, along with your endurance.
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">The most important reason is that maxing out in the 5s bothers a couple joints of mine. The way I'm doing it now, I'll be maxing out in a higher rep range than 5s and it is easier on my joints. The second reason is that it can be a pain in the rear to add weight to all the bars the I use every workout. </div>
It occurs to me that you may be near MY age, or simply don't have enough fat in your diet to &quot;lube&quot; the joints. Or you may be progressing so fast in strength that your joints haven't had time to catch up with tendon insertion points and such. It happens. And what week of the fives are you referring to? Weeks 4 to 8 can be your time for SD. Some guys have lasted up to 12 weeks, but I don't know how they do it.
Switching or adding weights counts as your rest time. Just look at it differently.
 
Martin,
I agree and disagree at the same time. The load principle in HST is a progressive load. Meaning that the load gets greater every workout with the exception of zigzagging. Now if you define progressive load only as the weight on the bar, then I agree. But if you define progressive load as an increased demand on the muscles with every workout, then I disagree.

Quadancer,
I just turned 40. I've had a bad left knee since my teenage years due to a dirt bike accident. My left elbow also bothers me on bench presses if I go too heavy. And you just made me feel as smart as my dumbells LOL. The way I've always done it is to add weight to all the bars right after or right before a workout. It never occured to me do it when I finished with a particular bar during a rest. DUH!!!
 
I define load as the weight on the bar and progressive load as a progression of this weight from one workout to the next.

There are two principles at work, here. Mechanical load and mechanical load progression. Mechanical load is how muscle growth is stimulated. Lift the weight, lower the weight. Mechanical load progression is how muscles can continue to grow. Lift heavier than last.

Statement. Muscle growth can be stimulated without voluntary contraction. In fact, muscle growth is independent of voluntary contraction. It's a function of the nature of muscle cells and how they respond to mechanical load. The mechanism is called transduction. It's the transformation of one form of energy into another form of evergy or information. In this case, it's mechano-transduction. Think of it as squeezing a lemon.

But since we are alive and our muscles are still attached to our bodies, we must contract them to transfer the mechanical load from the joints to the muscles. In fact, it's much easier to stimulate growth using heavy weights than using lighter weights in part because of greater motor unit recruitment.
 
Ok. I understand your definition of mechanical load and mechanical load progression.

How would you define lifting the same weight for one more rep than the previous workout and what effect would it have on muscle cells?
 
I would treat adding reps as training to increase stamina or fatigue potential. I think growth is not one effect of such training. Instead, I think it would stimulate other systems such as energy, vascular and nervous systems. All good anyway.
 
Martin, you're probably right. But since work is also a factor, I believe that in a certain part of this plan (probably the beginning of each mesocycle) there would be some growth possible due to increased tonnage. Beyond that, you get into what I'd call the &quot;labor&quot; factor. Laborors don't get huge muscles beyond the point necessary to dig, pull, push, lift their daily loads, but they do get some 'tone'. Like your girlfriend?
But that's not the point of this website: we're here for hypertrophy and strength and the shortest, easiest (relatively) way to do it. HST. 5x5. Max Stim.

Trash: you may be smarter than I: I have maybe TEN sore spots from dirt bike wrecks over two years...crashed nearly every time I went out. But we used to say, if you're not crashing, you're not going fast enough
laugh.gif
 
I'm not going to go into the biology in any depth as that's outside my technical knowledge.

However, Ian King has stated that Intensity is more important than Volume. From my personal experience this holds true. HST does this with it's increasing loads.

If your joints hurt from certain excercises, then look for alternatives. You state your shoulder hurts from Bench, what about doing Dumbbell Bench instead?
 
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(trash @ May 26 2007,23:01)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Martin,
I agree and disagree at the same time. The load principle in HST is a progressive load. Meaning that the load gets greater every workout with the exception of zigzagging. Now if you define progressive load only as the weight on the bar, then I agree. But if you define progressive load as an increased demand on the muscles with every workout, then I disagree.</div>
If you define progressive load as an increased demand on the muscles with every workout, then you are wrong.

&quot;Load&quot; refers to how much weight you are using.

What you are thinking of is called &quot;volume&quot; and is the load x reps x sets. Increasing the volume works for a while but eventually will stall out. Read the FAQs, Bryan has discussed this extensively in the past and it is in the FAQs.
 
For instance, quoted from Bryan:

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">
You are pushing the limits of your strength-endurance by trying to increase the number of reps with a fixed load within a given amount of time. The %1RM relative to your level of conditioning at the time will dertermine how effective those sets will be for growth.

Once the muscle adapts to using (lifting &amp; lowering) your 12 RM, you will stop growing. However, if you continue to stress its metabolic/oxidative capacity, it should increase its ability to resist fatigue with the 12RM load. In other words, once you have stopped growing, you might continue to get better at lifting your 12Rm while exhausted as long as you make lifting your 12RM more exhausting over time by reducing the rest periods.

So the method will work as long as you can continue to increase the weight.
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i cant see the point in the 15s 10s but if you cant do negs after 5s then using your 5rm and trying to do more reps might give you more TUT also RBE seems to last longer in the heavy weights.
 
Totentanz,
I understand what you are saying and I agree with reps being defined better as volume rather than load. I'm not exactly sure about the rest of what you said though. I don't know if I'm understranding it correctly. It seems to imply that my volume stays constant. It doesn't, it increases for two weeks. Then load is increased and volume drops down accordingly and increases progressively once again.

Bryan said &quot; So the method will work as long as you can continue to increase the weight.&quot;

That's exactly what I am doing after I've taken the volume ( reps ) to its max with the previous weight.
 
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