HST for advanced Trainees

[myostatinus]

I've played around with HST a few years ago, but I've decided to five it a serious whirl. I've been lifting for almost 20 years now, ever since I was 15.

In the FAQ section Bryan mentions that advanced trainees should not necessarily use the basic 3/week fullbody schedule
http://thinkmuscle.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-12717.html

For someone who isn’t conditioned, 1 - 2 sets per exercise (~3-6 sets/week) is sufficient to cause muscle growth. If you have been training for many years (5+) consistently then it might take more time under tension. This person will either need to take more time training in order to accommodate more sets per exercise, or split up their workout into two sessions and train either twice per day, or 6 days per week. This is how guys like myself, Blade, Boris, and others train. I have been training for over 25 years, and it takes a bit more strain and time to overcome years of RBE.

I've tried to search the forum for "official" guidelines for scheduling unsuccessfully. Am I reading this right when I understand to increase total volume during the week, but keeping the frequency the same.

So Mon-Wed-Fri would be a lower-body workout and Tue-Thu-Sat an upper-body, but each with the same volume as the basic HST template, effectively doubling total volume and keeping the frequency high at 3/week.

I am getting it right?

Thanks!

 

[tdawg_33]

There is good information from Bryan and Blade in the HST FAQ under optimizing HST I believe. It mentions recommendations for am/pm splits and how to run them.

If you are new to HST, it may even benefit you to run a vanilla 3 x wk cycle just to assess whether or not more TUT is necessary. I have lifted for 15 years and still benefited from the regular setup. JUst something to consider. Good Luck

 

[Totentanz]

Honestly, that isn't the way I would implement an advanced version of HST. It is one possibility but it is not what I would do. It is my opinion that a natural trainee probably won't be able to handle too much volume that frequently if they have a higher strength level. I guess this depends somewhat on what your maxes are though. For me, deadlifting or squatting three times a week is difficult. The way I implement an advanced setup is to use rep targets instead of sets/reps. So you work toward 30 total reps or whatever number you decide upon for each bodypart and you reach that count through clustering, myo-reps, rest-pause, max-stim, whatever you choose. I also feel that a three way split works better than a two-way split. I tested this sort of a split pretty extensively over most of this year and had good results from it. I'll dig up the link to my description of it if you are interested.