hst routine variations for advanced trainees

C

cov

New Member
earlier totentaz wrote this, my response i figure deserves a new thread:

Totentanz said:
HST has whatever you want it to have, provided you follow the four principles. The example routine does not include variations because it was meant to be simple so that the majority of people could just plug in their loads to use and use it without having to do too much thinking.
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for those of you that have been lifting for a long time and have already gained a lot of muscle, what sort of routine variations do you do besides full body 3x a week? i find full body can be a time/exhaustion challenge when the weight goes up and say you're doing deadlifts + squats, but on the flip side, it's nice to have that whole day off for recovery. just curious what others have implemented


6'0, 210lbs (started at 135lbs a long time a ago)
bests:
d/l: 585 1rm
squat: 605 4rm
bench: 315 1rm
 
Here is a link to Jules' (aka Viscious) Pimp My HST E-Book:

Vicious' Pimp My HST E-Book (pdf)

This book came out of early discussions on the original HST forum and was compiled/written by Jules, an HST Expert from way back when. :)

Don't rush to apply all the techniques at once. Be selective and be careful; some of the techniques described can cause injury if not used sensibly. You have been warned!

Enjoy!
 
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I use a two day double split routine for bodybuilding since I am retired and work out at home. I do a workout in the early AM and another in the late afternoon. I complete my full body in two days. That way there is very little exhaustion factor. I work out 6 days per week. Each workout is roughly 20 minutes.

I split my body into 4 sections to accomplish this:

Chest
Back
Shoulders
Legs

I realize not many have the luxury of working out this way but if you do, give it a try.

I also get in about 30 minutes of cardio per day whenever I can.
 
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Old and Grey said:
I use a two day double split routine for bodybuilding since I am retired and work out at home. I do a workout in the early AM and another in the late afternoon. I complete my full body in two days. That way there is very little exhaustion factor. I work out 6 days per week. Each workout is roughly 20 minutes.

I split my body into 4 sections to accomplish this:

Chest
Back
Shoulders
Legs

I realize not many have the luxury of working out this way but if you do, give it a try.

I also get in about 30 minutes of cardio per day whenever I can.
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I'm liking this split. For my 3-day full body, I do M+T, W+Th and everything on Sat. when I have more time to work out. Before when doing Sa, M, W I felt guilty on the off days since all I was doing was recovering. Mon-Thur are no more than 30 min. and Sat. is 60. Same amount of time working out, but mentally satisfying since I'm working out 5 out of 7 days.
 
Lol said:
Here is a link to Jules' (aka Viscious) Pimp My HST E-Book:

Vicious' Pimp My HST E-Book (pdf)

This book came out of early discussions on the original HST forum and was compiled/written by Jules, an HST Expert from way back when. :)

Don't rush to apply all the techniques at once. Be selective and be careful; some of the techniques described can cause injury if not used sensibly. You have been warned!

Enjoy!
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wow, thanks for the link, much appreciated!
 
The most common advanced technique is alternating routines. You have two different full body routines and alternate between them. This one works well for those who are too strong to do squats and deads in the same workout without risking death, but still want to include them both in a routine. An example would be:

Workout A

Squats
Romanian Deads
Bench
Row
Military Press
Close grip bench


Workout B

Deadlift
Leg curl
Dips
Chins
Military Press
Curls

Other options, of course, are splits. The important thing is to maintain enough frequency. You need to be hitting the entire body at least twice a week at the very least, or there is no point in doing HST. I've had success in the past with a split along these lines, lifting four to five days a week so I still get a minimum of two days off a week and still hit the entire body an average of five times every two week block. This allows for higher volume than a standard HST setup typically would and the workouts can still remain fairly short depending on how you do the setup.
 
I think the logical next step for an HST routine is higher acute stimulus per "muscle group," and the easiest way to facilitate this is probably an upper/lower split, as others have mentioned. I believe Bryan himself trains 6x per week upper/lower. That would probably be optimal.

For those a bit limited on time (or perhaps recovery), I think a good, default intermediate/advanced HST split would be a 4x per week upper/lower split such that all "groups" get hit twice per week. I would personally suggest a split something like this:

Upper
------
Chest (Horizontal Push)
Mid/Upper Back (Horizontal Pull)
Shoulders (Vertical Push)
Lats (Vertical Pull)
Biceps
Triceps

Lower
------
Squat Variation
Deadlift Variation or Back Extension
Low back sparing leg movement (something unilateral like a bulgarian split squat, or a leg press)
Leg Isos (e.g. leg extensions, leg curls, or specific adductor/abductor work)
Calves

Example exercises:

Upper Body
-------------
Dumbbell Bench Press
Cable or Chest Supported T-Bar Rows
Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press (with low back support)
Weighted Chins/Pullups (or pulldowns)
Lying Triceps Extensions or Dips
EZ Bar Curls

Lower Body
--------------
High Bar Squat
RDL
1-Leg Leg Press
Leg Curls
Calf Raises (seated and standing)

With an upper/lower split performed 4x per week, with each lift only being hit twice a week, you'd basically choose your two "best" repetition ranges for growth and perform ~2, 3 week blocks for a total of a 6 week routine. This would mean 6 sessions per repetition range, just like default HST, just spread out over 3 weeks instead of 2 (due to the slight reduction in frequency to accommodate the potentially higher volume per group/lift). As a rule, people seem to find slightly higher reps more valuable for legs, and slightly lower for upper body. Lower body, then, could be 15's and 10's, and upper body could be something like 12's and 8's or 10's and 5's. I'd probably do ~2 sets for the higher repetition range per exercise, and ~3 sets for the lower repetition range. First set would be the prescribed number of reps, 2nd/3rd sets would be fewer reps, probably no higher than an RPE of ~8 (stop when movement speed starts to slow down, well away from failure).

The nice thing about 15's and 10's for lower body and 12's and 8's for upper body is that you could extend the base routine by doing 5's in everything. E.g. after the first 6 weeks of more traditional "bodybuilding" range repetitions, you could do 5's for another few/several weeks to the limit of your strength. It probably goes without saying, but this template is what I have experimented with and am going to be doing again starting in a week and a half or so.
 
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I agree with Mikeynov. Once you get to a very advanced stage, I believe it is wise to increase volume and decrease frequency a bit. So the 2x/week upper/lower split is probably ideal for people who can squat 600 lb/s and are needing more recovery between workouts, as well as needing more volume to stimulate growth.

I have never been to this territory of 'advanced', but I would think this would be the logical next step to training with very heavy loads.
 
Sci said:
I agree with Mikeynov. Once you get to a very advanced stage, I believe it is wise to increase volume and decrease frequency a bit. So the 2x/week upper/lower split is probably ideal for people who can squat 600 lb/s and are needing more recovery between workouts, as well as needing more volume to stimulate growth.

I have never been to this territory of 'advanced', but I would think this would be the logical next step to training with very heavy loads.
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I sometimes feel that way, but then I run into army mates you train every day and are ripped as $hit, weighing in @ 110kg etc ... I agree that extremely heavy loads typically require longer rest periods (which obviously reduces frequency), there's only so much frequency your joints can take.
 
Lol said:
Here is a link to Jules' (aka Viscious) Pimp My HST E-Book:

Vicious' Pimp My HST E-Book (pdf)

This book came out of early discussions on the original HST forum and was compiled/written by Jules, an HST Expert from way back when. :)

Don't rush to apply all the techniques at once. Be selective and be careful; some of the techniques described can cause injury if not used sensibly. You have been warned!

Enjoy!
Click to expand...

I have read this to. Were is this vicious currently? Is he still around somewhere?
 
Ah and regarding advanced HST stuff. IME this can be seen the advanced HST template:

MAX MUSCLE PLAN BY BRAD SCHOENFELD

I am collecting this stuff so this book has already arrived in my mail.

Its really similar to HST. The main difference is, that brad is not clustering and devoting each "aspect" (strength, metabolic work, hypertrophy) its own cycle. In each of these cycles he applies progressive ovleroad by lowering the rep ranges but still within the goal of the cycle and rises the efford. Each cycle ends in a overreaching phase and a deload. After this each cycle is repeated once before moving to the next main goal. (the strength macro for example.)

check it out:
http://www.amazon.com/MAX-Muscle-Plan-Brad-Schoenfeld/dp/1450423876
 
Umm, you can't devote a cycle to hypertrophy separate to strength and metabolic work ... they all come hand in hand. He probably knows about 70% of whatever he's saying, but the body doesn't remember what it was doing two months ago ... not to mention, you don't need any 'advanced' techniques yet.
 
AlexAustralia said:
Umm, you can't devote a cycle to hypertrophy separate to strength and metabolic work ... they all come hand in hand. He probably knows about 70% of whatever he's saying, but the body doesn't remember what it was doing two months ago ... not to mention, you don't need any 'advanced' techniques yet.
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Hi Alex. Reading and collectiong training books is my hobby and passion but I don´t intend to integrate his ideas yet.

I think what he wants to try to accomplish is to choose "sweet spot" parameters for each cycle (Like 3x20 30 sec rest for metabolic work, 3x6-12 reps with 90 sec rest for hypertrophy and 3x1-5 reps with 3 min rest for strength) to get a main adaption beside others which are goin to be much smaller.( like the build up of metabolites in a strength cycle and the efficiency of the CNS in metabolic cycles).

I also criticize the long linear model he propose (about 2 months per "quality" which is too long and will diminish others IME).
 
There aren't 'sweet spots' for building muscle. If you train with lighter weights (relative to your condition and development) then you will not continue to build muscle. If yout rain with heavier weights (again, relative) but don't include some element of aerobic work (/metabolic - making your muscles store more glycogen and water) then you will not achieve optimal hypertrophy. Heavy weights, relative to your abilities, builds strength and muscle. Higher rep work improves this process. These should all be done within your training and not separately. Playing sport that uses the muscles (e.g. swimming, footy, tennis, basketball, running, whatever) will replicate (essentially) the 'metabolic' processes than high-rep, low-load exercise provides.

This notion that you can separately train and improve each component of the skeletal musculature is archaic, to be blunt. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't read his book, rather that you shouldn't buy into something you read just because it's from a printed book.
 
AlexAustralia said:
There aren't 'sweet spots' for building muscle. If you train with lighter weights (relative to your condition and development) then you will not continue to build muscle. If yout rain with heavier weights (again, relative) but don't include some element of aerobic work (/metabolic - making your muscles store more glycogen and water) then you will not achieve optimal hypertrophy. Heavy weights, relative to your abilities, builds strength and muscle. Higher rep work improves this process. These should all be done within your training and not separately. Playing sport that uses the muscles (e.g. swimming, footy, tennis, basketball, running, whatever) will replicate (essentially) the 'metabolic' processes than high-rep, low-load exercise provides.

This notion that you can separately train and improve each component of the skeletal musculature is archaic, to be blunt. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't read his book, rather that you shouldn't buy into something you read just because it's from a printed book.
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I understand what you mean. But I also think that working in different rep ranges the same time (like also layne norton does or to a lesser extend the generic bulk by lyle mc donald) has its benefits.
 
For sure, I absolutely recommend doing 'metabolic' or high-rep sets in addition to high-load work. Lyle couldn't be more accurate about that, IMO.
 
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