HST Tweak?

J

jonsmith

New Member
i'm just wondering if this would be a more effective way to use HST.
If you were to start with your 8 rep max for your excercises, and then each workout you do at least one more rep at that weight, building up from 8 until you can do 10 reps, then when you do 10 reps you increase the weight and go back to 8 reps.

would this be a more effective way to use HST (still training the whole body 3x/ week)?
because you would continue to progress each workout, but you would also be using your heaviest weight.

(the rep range, 8-10, was just an example, but you could put in any other range you like)

thanks for your input.
 
Progression will be very slow in that example. A better alternative would be to lay out your cycle like normal, however when you are working with submaximal weights, just push out as many reps as you can instead of stopping at 5, 10 or 15. Obviously you will want to keep a rep or two away from failure still.
 
He's basically trying to avoid ziz-zagging. The 8-10 rep range was an example. If you completely avoid zig-zagging, then like Tot said, the progression will be slower and the cycle will be shorter.

Keep in mind, it's about progressive load, not volume.
 
Jon: like the guys say, the progression aspect would be very slow and not conducive to continued hypertrophy for very long as RBE would catch up. This is one of the things that causes you to hit a wall with HIT style training.

Say your 1RM for a particular exercise was 100lbs then for 8 reps you might start with 79lbs (~100/1.27). By the time you can do 10 reps your 1 RM has now increased to 105lbs (~79 x 1.33). Then you drop back to 8 reps but now you use 83lbs (~105/1.27). Again, once you can do 10 reps with this weight, your 1RM will have risen to 110lbs.

So, after a lot of workouts you will only have increased the weight over and above the starting weight by 10 pounds or so. This just won't be enough to give your muscle tissue and support systems enough to worry about for long. HST would have you increasing the loads on the tissue by 5% or so every workout so there's always more to deal with over the whole cycle thus keeping RBE at bay.

As Tot says, submaximal weights are not a problem as long as they don't get too light. Starting with around 60% of your max for each rep range usually produces a pretty good progression each workout.
 
I think he meant something like this:
-Start at 150, the 8 rep max
- Do 8 reps per workout, don't increase load until you gain strength so that you can do 10 rep.
-When you finally reach 10 reps for your 8RM, increase the load so that you can only do 8 reps max - for example, let's say that is 160.
-So now use 160, and do the max of 8 reps.
-Again, workout with 160 until you can do 10 reps
-When 10 reps is reached, increase weight again...
(I hope I got it right)

Repeat this forever and ever since, by this reasoning, you'll never plateau because you keep on gaining strength enough to make your 8RM your 10RM.

This is actually a good idea, but the deal-breaker in that example is that you have to rely on strength increases, which doesn't necessarily go together with the hypertrophy soon enough to make you be able to do an additional rep or two of your max for whatever rep scheme. If that was possible, we won't need HST, since all bodybuilders will then only need to plug away at a certain max weight (say 350) until they can do one or two more reps, then increase the weight again... but in reality, you hit a plateau. Strength increases just won't play fair with hypertrophy, which is why designing a hypertrophy cycle relying on strength increases often won't work as expected.
 
Nemesis is busy doing this very thing he may be able to shed more light!
biggrin.gif
 
also if you can do 10 reps then its not your 8 rep max
if you start with your 8 rep max and try and add weight then you are training to faliure ecery session your cns will soon give up.
 
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