Each HST macrocycle has the potential to elapse 10 consecutive weeks, when performed in common and convenient scheduling.
For those of us who have a relative convenience that allows elimination of some dead-time, the potential exists to decrease the elapsed time of the macrocycle.
In it's most common form, the HST macrocycle assumes the profile of 6 consecutive 7-day weeks of 3 workouts/week at varying rep ranges, followed by 2 additional weeks of either negative work or repeated usage of weeks 5 and 6; and finally followed by a convenient period of 14 days/two weeks of strategic deconditioning, for a total of 10 weeks elapsed time.
While some may not be wholly interested in reducing the length of the macrocycle, some inevitably are, to include myself. Personal reasons aside, there is some good discussion and theory involved in this that will be interesting for those who wish to use the common macrocycle anyway.
The purist reasoning behind the monday-wednesday-friday workout scheduling relies on the exploitation of bodily biochemistry and the time factors behind stress-induced accelerations in metabolism; specifically, the hyperacceleration of muscle protein synthesis for roughly 48 hours following significant strength training.
While this philosophy explains the alternating fashion of the chosen workout days, it does not include Sunday, the only period in the week that that follows a 72 hour period between workouts. It is very obvious that while multiple reasons for this could be fabricated, the most important one is that of convenience; that is, it allows one to have static workout weekdays, and allows true 'off time' on the weekends.
If one were not so inconvenienced by a rotating weekday workout schedule, then it would be very possible to eliminate this extra day off and follow a true 48 hour rest period day to day.
One might argue that this is unnecessary; that the extra day off once a week does little to no detriment, and perhaps could be beneficial to the nervous system even. I would agree with this, but I would also say that if performed correctly and suitably, an HST macrocycle could easily be completed without undue nervous system stress while following a 48 hour recovery period. My point is that while the extra day likely doesn't hurt anything, neither will it's absence. It is a matter of preference.
Eliminating this one day a week over the 8 working weeks obviously removes 8 days from the macrocycle; one entire week shorter.
The next area one can reduce elapsed time, providing that personal convenience is not impaired, is with strategic deconditioning. While 14 days is commonly used, again for both convenience of workout day repeatability, and also as a 'too much is better than too little' philosophy, the actual citation for optimal SD is 9-12 consecutive days. Taking the larger portion in order to err on the side of safety, 12 days SD yields an additional 2 less days in the macrocycle.
So far we have shaved off 10 down days off of the macrocyle without detracting from any workout volume. That is exactly 1/7th less elapsed time than a conventional HST macrocycle.
This is likely to be the end of 'widerange compatibility' so to speak, as any further modifications, specifically to the working portion of the program, are likely to become too applicant-specific, and not readily applicable to a large audience. What I really mean is, what I am about to say next, is not intended to 'improve upon' HST in any way, nor is it meant to apply in general to a large portion of HST-ers; it is highly tailored to my own personal applications.
Modification of the working portion of the program:
While I understand that HST is a socalled hypertrophy or mass program, and not per se a strength program, I feel this terminology is highly affixed to marketing and distribution, and wholly uninvolved with the actual underlying principles of 'becoming more fit' as a person. So while people can debate all day and night whether or not HST will add more pounds to your bench than another program philosophy, or argue the difference between a 'program' and a 'philosophy', I honestly am not concerned with these issues here.
I will stick to facts. HST will build muscle. HST will increase strength. The proportioning of these two factors relative to one another vary as greatly as individual fitness programs vary.
For my personal taste, I can tolerate moderate zig-zagging, such as that encountered during microcycle changes that involve changing rep range and weight simultaneously. I would agree with those that say minor zig-zagging of this fashion still allows promotion of muscle growth while giving the sometimes much needed additional recovery for the nervous system.
On a tangent for a moment (it is relevant), I mysself, and I suspect many other home-gym and basement-barbell users, find it sometimes difficult, and always inconvenient, to perform negatives. Spotters are far more than simply 'a good idea' for these exercises, and quite honestly, the details of arranging for a chronic spotter for two weeks, are the very epitome of workout inconvenience for me.
So no negs for me.
So this brings us to our two other HST options: truncate the macrocycle and enter SD; or repeat weeks 5 and 6 and then enter SD. Well, personally I think truncating the macrocycle is extremely inefficient in terms of time usage. You leave a large portion of acute hypertrophy on the table, as you are quitting just after the threshold of the strongest biochemical stimuli. Not the smartest or most efficient move in my opinion.
I am not a fan of the extreme zig-zag option either, to repeat weeks 5 and 6. Doing this, week 7 uses an identical rep range to week 6, but a rather large and abrubt decrease in load, which I strongly disagree with. While progressive loading is maintained, absolute loading for all of weeks 7 and 8 fall below that of the trained level, and results will be less than maximal/optimal because of this.
What I have been considering for myself (not as a general philosophy applicable to HST in general), for the purpose of maximizing time invested and going farther on my personal convenience-dollar, is to eliminate the 8th week entirely from the program, and to use the 7th week with 5reps and above-6th week weights, to continue the progressive loading.
An equally small zig-zag to that encountered in earlier cycles would be employed, reducing the load from that of the final 6th week workout. This combined with the small but inevitable strength increases during the macrocycle will allow for increased loading stimulus without having to work to muscle failure in the same rep range. Note that this philosophy would not be able to be maintained for an 8th week in the same rep range, as muscle failure would undoubtedly be encountered soon after the 3rd workout (at the end of the first week).
Cutting week 8 eliminates a further 6 days off the macrocycle, now totalling 16 less days, or two weeks and two days less than conventional.
In place of week 8 I am planning on employing 2 consecutive day workouts of split-group type, worked in the 4-6 rep range, to failure. Most will recognize this as nothing new, nothing different. This is mostly Max-OT, the program I used with great success before I discovered HST and it's abilities to shape one's physique.
So why is it mostly Max-OT, and not just Max-OT? Because it wouldn't be following all the principles outlined in that program. Quite a few of the Max-OT principles directly conflict with HST, and would drastically inhibit HST's mechanisms. The largest difference is in terms of volume and grouping. Instead of 6-9 working sets and only 1-2 muscle groups per workout, as with Max-OT, I will be using fully half of all muscle groups, with only HST's volume unchanged.
This is actually far closer to HST than Max-OT. The only reason it really isn't HST is because the one change is a big one: training to failure, which HST does not do, because it cannot be maintained for more than just a few whole-body microcycles without excessively large recovery periods. Recovery periods of say.........12 days.
While training to failure repeatedly often requires in excess of 5-7 days rest, it does work wonderfully well for both strength and hypertrophy, until the slow but inevitable mounting of overall fatigue slows your progress and steals your mental drive to continue.
You will notice that the 8th 'week' (really only 2 days) allows for increased load over the 7th week, and directly preceeds a long recovery phase (SD). This is intentional, not coincidental. The bottom line is this: everyone has their favorite flavor of ice cream, and in any given group, you will have a large variety of opinions, with no correllation between clearly overall superiority. I am not saying that no training method can be proven superior to another. Some methods are outright vastly inferior to others. But there are many with varying philosophies and high degrees of competitive thought, that are also very competitively effective.
What almost all training methods have in common is that their effectiveness both ramps up over time, crests, and then begins to decline, at which time the method must be changed, or a break must be taken. I am of the opinion that 2 days of failure training in the 4-6 rep range will:
Be more effective for hypertrophy than repeating weeks 5 and 6,
Will not interfere whatsoever with the following macrocycle after the required SD period,
Will not lengthen the required SD period due to neural recovery.
***
I was able to complete 3 Max-OT macrocycles (8 microcycles each followed by 14 days recovery between macrocycles) without significant overtraining until the last 3 microcycles of my last macrocycle, during which time my sleep periods were forcibly shortened and my diet suffered immensely. I, unlike some, am not worried about 2 days of failure training 'stunting' my gains from HST.
I feel that this is an extremely effective and efficient use of my time; maximizes my personal convenience and minimizes my personal inconvenience; and both improves upon HST's weakpoint in my program, as well as maintains my desired routine increases in strength; while all the while shortening the required duration of each macrocycle, making it more readily fit for a regimented 6 month global cycle.
The purpose of this thread was to both share some thoughts as they relate to both general ideas on HST, as well as relating to personal tailoring to one's needs (using myself as an example for logical alterations in specific areas), and to stimulate discussion about various topics in muscle hypertrophy.
While not wholly relevant to the core topic of this thread, I do want to leave readers with one thought considering competing training methods: While sometimes philosophies may compete for superiority relative to one another, it is usually commonplace for both to be equally effective when compared at their own peak efficiencies. It is nearly always possible to use competing ideaologies at near-peak efficiencies, with some thoughtful integration planning.
Sometimes it can be more beneficial to achieve a higher average output rather than the utmost peak output for a short duration.
For those of us who have a relative convenience that allows elimination of some dead-time, the potential exists to decrease the elapsed time of the macrocycle.
In it's most common form, the HST macrocycle assumes the profile of 6 consecutive 7-day weeks of 3 workouts/week at varying rep ranges, followed by 2 additional weeks of either negative work or repeated usage of weeks 5 and 6; and finally followed by a convenient period of 14 days/two weeks of strategic deconditioning, for a total of 10 weeks elapsed time.
While some may not be wholly interested in reducing the length of the macrocycle, some inevitably are, to include myself. Personal reasons aside, there is some good discussion and theory involved in this that will be interesting for those who wish to use the common macrocycle anyway.
The purist reasoning behind the monday-wednesday-friday workout scheduling relies on the exploitation of bodily biochemistry and the time factors behind stress-induced accelerations in metabolism; specifically, the hyperacceleration of muscle protein synthesis for roughly 48 hours following significant strength training.
While this philosophy explains the alternating fashion of the chosen workout days, it does not include Sunday, the only period in the week that that follows a 72 hour period between workouts. It is very obvious that while multiple reasons for this could be fabricated, the most important one is that of convenience; that is, it allows one to have static workout weekdays, and allows true 'off time' on the weekends.
If one were not so inconvenienced by a rotating weekday workout schedule, then it would be very possible to eliminate this extra day off and follow a true 48 hour rest period day to day.
One might argue that this is unnecessary; that the extra day off once a week does little to no detriment, and perhaps could be beneficial to the nervous system even. I would agree with this, but I would also say that if performed correctly and suitably, an HST macrocycle could easily be completed without undue nervous system stress while following a 48 hour recovery period. My point is that while the extra day likely doesn't hurt anything, neither will it's absence. It is a matter of preference.
Eliminating this one day a week over the 8 working weeks obviously removes 8 days from the macrocycle; one entire week shorter.
The next area one can reduce elapsed time, providing that personal convenience is not impaired, is with strategic deconditioning. While 14 days is commonly used, again for both convenience of workout day repeatability, and also as a 'too much is better than too little' philosophy, the actual citation for optimal SD is 9-12 consecutive days. Taking the larger portion in order to err on the side of safety, 12 days SD yields an additional 2 less days in the macrocycle.
So far we have shaved off 10 down days off of the macrocyle without detracting from any workout volume. That is exactly 1/7th less elapsed time than a conventional HST macrocycle.
This is likely to be the end of 'widerange compatibility' so to speak, as any further modifications, specifically to the working portion of the program, are likely to become too applicant-specific, and not readily applicable to a large audience. What I really mean is, what I am about to say next, is not intended to 'improve upon' HST in any way, nor is it meant to apply in general to a large portion of HST-ers; it is highly tailored to my own personal applications.
Modification of the working portion of the program:
While I understand that HST is a socalled hypertrophy or mass program, and not per se a strength program, I feel this terminology is highly affixed to marketing and distribution, and wholly uninvolved with the actual underlying principles of 'becoming more fit' as a person. So while people can debate all day and night whether or not HST will add more pounds to your bench than another program philosophy, or argue the difference between a 'program' and a 'philosophy', I honestly am not concerned with these issues here.
I will stick to facts. HST will build muscle. HST will increase strength. The proportioning of these two factors relative to one another vary as greatly as individual fitness programs vary.
For my personal taste, I can tolerate moderate zig-zagging, such as that encountered during microcycle changes that involve changing rep range and weight simultaneously. I would agree with those that say minor zig-zagging of this fashion still allows promotion of muscle growth while giving the sometimes much needed additional recovery for the nervous system.
On a tangent for a moment (it is relevant), I mysself, and I suspect many other home-gym and basement-barbell users, find it sometimes difficult, and always inconvenient, to perform negatives. Spotters are far more than simply 'a good idea' for these exercises, and quite honestly, the details of arranging for a chronic spotter for two weeks, are the very epitome of workout inconvenience for me.
So no negs for me.
So this brings us to our two other HST options: truncate the macrocycle and enter SD; or repeat weeks 5 and 6 and then enter SD. Well, personally I think truncating the macrocycle is extremely inefficient in terms of time usage. You leave a large portion of acute hypertrophy on the table, as you are quitting just after the threshold of the strongest biochemical stimuli. Not the smartest or most efficient move in my opinion.
I am not a fan of the extreme zig-zag option either, to repeat weeks 5 and 6. Doing this, week 7 uses an identical rep range to week 6, but a rather large and abrubt decrease in load, which I strongly disagree with. While progressive loading is maintained, absolute loading for all of weeks 7 and 8 fall below that of the trained level, and results will be less than maximal/optimal because of this.
What I have been considering for myself (not as a general philosophy applicable to HST in general), for the purpose of maximizing time invested and going farther on my personal convenience-dollar, is to eliminate the 8th week entirely from the program, and to use the 7th week with 5reps and above-6th week weights, to continue the progressive loading.
An equally small zig-zag to that encountered in earlier cycles would be employed, reducing the load from that of the final 6th week workout. This combined with the small but inevitable strength increases during the macrocycle will allow for increased loading stimulus without having to work to muscle failure in the same rep range. Note that this philosophy would not be able to be maintained for an 8th week in the same rep range, as muscle failure would undoubtedly be encountered soon after the 3rd workout (at the end of the first week).
Cutting week 8 eliminates a further 6 days off the macrocycle, now totalling 16 less days, or two weeks and two days less than conventional.
In place of week 8 I am planning on employing 2 consecutive day workouts of split-group type, worked in the 4-6 rep range, to failure. Most will recognize this as nothing new, nothing different. This is mostly Max-OT, the program I used with great success before I discovered HST and it's abilities to shape one's physique.
So why is it mostly Max-OT, and not just Max-OT? Because it wouldn't be following all the principles outlined in that program. Quite a few of the Max-OT principles directly conflict with HST, and would drastically inhibit HST's mechanisms. The largest difference is in terms of volume and grouping. Instead of 6-9 working sets and only 1-2 muscle groups per workout, as with Max-OT, I will be using fully half of all muscle groups, with only HST's volume unchanged.
This is actually far closer to HST than Max-OT. The only reason it really isn't HST is because the one change is a big one: training to failure, which HST does not do, because it cannot be maintained for more than just a few whole-body microcycles without excessively large recovery periods. Recovery periods of say.........12 days.
While training to failure repeatedly often requires in excess of 5-7 days rest, it does work wonderfully well for both strength and hypertrophy, until the slow but inevitable mounting of overall fatigue slows your progress and steals your mental drive to continue.
You will notice that the 8th 'week' (really only 2 days) allows for increased load over the 7th week, and directly preceeds a long recovery phase (SD). This is intentional, not coincidental. The bottom line is this: everyone has their favorite flavor of ice cream, and in any given group, you will have a large variety of opinions, with no correllation between clearly overall superiority. I am not saying that no training method can be proven superior to another. Some methods are outright vastly inferior to others. But there are many with varying philosophies and high degrees of competitive thought, that are also very competitively effective.
What almost all training methods have in common is that their effectiveness both ramps up over time, crests, and then begins to decline, at which time the method must be changed, or a break must be taken. I am of the opinion that 2 days of failure training in the 4-6 rep range will:
Be more effective for hypertrophy than repeating weeks 5 and 6,
Will not interfere whatsoever with the following macrocycle after the required SD period,
Will not lengthen the required SD period due to neural recovery.
***
I was able to complete 3 Max-OT macrocycles (8 microcycles each followed by 14 days recovery between macrocycles) without significant overtraining until the last 3 microcycles of my last macrocycle, during which time my sleep periods were forcibly shortened and my diet suffered immensely. I, unlike some, am not worried about 2 days of failure training 'stunting' my gains from HST.
I feel that this is an extremely effective and efficient use of my time; maximizes my personal convenience and minimizes my personal inconvenience; and both improves upon HST's weakpoint in my program, as well as maintains my desired routine increases in strength; while all the while shortening the required duration of each macrocycle, making it more readily fit for a regimented 6 month global cycle.
The purpose of this thread was to both share some thoughts as they relate to both general ideas on HST, as well as relating to personal tailoring to one's needs (using myself as an example for logical alterations in specific areas), and to stimulate discussion about various topics in muscle hypertrophy.
While not wholly relevant to the core topic of this thread, I do want to leave readers with one thought considering competing training methods: While sometimes philosophies may compete for superiority relative to one another, it is usually commonplace for both to be equally effective when compared at their own peak efficiencies. It is nearly always possible to use competing ideaologies at near-peak efficiencies, with some thoughtful integration planning.
Sometimes it can be more beneficial to achieve a higher average output rather than the utmost peak output for a short duration.