Idea...and opinion needed

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imported_daxie

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I was thinking, if the main issue is the progressive load, wouldn't it be possible to keep that as the main factor for the training too?

I had the following idea.
Let us say for a certain exercise your 15RM is 100.

After the SD you could start with:
75 80 85 90 95 100

That would be your max for the 15s. You then jump to the 10s

going 105 110 115 ... up until you reach failure with the 10s, regardless of what it was before, regardless whether it would be the 4th, 6th or 8th workout of the 10s...

Then when you reach failure with the 10s, go to 5 reps and keep increasing the weight until you reach failure for the 5s.
After which you start using negatives, drop sets, while still increasing weight.

During this you would aim for a certain amount of reps, while slightly decreasing the volume throughout the cycle.
For example 2x15 / 2x10 / 1x 10 / 3x5 / 2x5 ...

Wouldn't this be "better" regarding hypertrophy?

- The load is always increasing, workout after workout... So it eliminates zigzagging/weight repeating
- It automatically incorporates any strength increases you would have during the cycle, because it doesn't really use your RMs you measured before the cycle (it only uses the 15RM as a guideline to start, in the example it could be that you only reach failure at 105, instead of the measured 100, so you would continue until that 105)

Problem is that it might be difficult to foresee how long the cycle would take... But knowing that you had all the load progression you could, would that be such a problem?

Thank you for your comments!

daxie
 
Sounds pretty logical to me, I believe it could work well for some people. However, if somenone's maxes are very close to each other, this method would lead to a very short cycle, so I would not recommend this to everyone.

Repeating weights (1 or 2 times) is not so bad, either, especially when you use heavy loads, because the same (heavy) load can still induce some hypertrophy.

In the end, it's all a question of how long you want your cycle to be. I'm sure there are people out there who actually practice your idea with success because they are able to extend their cycle for long enough. Others might not be able to do this and so they choose to repeat weights or zig-zag.
 
A possibility to extend the cycle would be to use different rep schemes, instead of the 15-10-5? You could do 15-12-10-8-5-3 or something, together with some clustering to extend... But it would make things a bit more vague, and easy to loose track? Or not?
 
Hello :)

A routine is HST as long as you never deviate from HST principles.

The given rep schemes 15-10-5 are Bryan's simplifications to make people better understand basic HST prinicples like load progression (and due to the inverse relationship of load and volume, volume progressively decreases as well) and frequent training.

There is nothing hypertrophic about 15 10 and 5 rep schemes by themselves. They are effective only as long as they are used following HST prinicples. You can do whatever you want with the rep schemes as long as you never stray away from HST principles.

Regards :)
-JV
 
I'm in agreement with jvroig on this one. Just stick to the principles. Train each bodypart 3-4x a week, progress the load every or every other workout, drop the reps significantly enough when you're near your limits to allow the load to increase, and decondition or deload in order to reduce the effect of RBE.

The routine I follow is almost the same, except rather than SDing, I deload from 5x5 to a 3x3 scheme, which allows me for plenty more load progression.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Chthonian @ Aug. 09 2005,6:04)]Just stick to the principles. Train each bodypart 3-4x a week, progress the load every or every other workout, drop the reps significantly enough when you're near your limits to allow the load to increase, and decondition or deload in order to reduce the effect of RBE.
Click to expand...
they are all in there...

But I guess I'll just try it out next cycle
 
This is exactly how I perform all my cycles and if I am not mistaken how DKM performs most of his cycles as well. I progressively load from the first day of 15's right through the end of my 5's, never repeating the same weight even once. I have no problem getting two week micro-cycles in. I did not like the zig zag idea when I started and find that this really works well for me although maybe it is not for everyone.
 
I honestly doubt there's much of a benefit in way of hypertrophy. Some, but very little. It may feel more satisfying to increase the weight every workout, though. If that's the case, then go for it. However, a bit of zig-zag shouldn't hinder one's growth.
 
I think your plan sounds good. Like jv said, the 15-10-5 rep scheme is simply there to make it easier for the majority of people to understand and implement.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (daxie @ Aug. 09 2005,3:34)]A possibility to extend the cycle would be to use different rep schemes, instead of the 15-10-5? You could do 15-12-10-8-5-3 or something, together with some clustering to extend... But it would make things a bit more vague, and easy to loose track? Or not?
Click to expand...
If you went on with this idea, I would definitely recommend adding in more rep-blocks such as 15-12-10-8-5-3. This would further eliminate zig-zagging (which isn't so bad) and make sure the cycle isn't too short. I wouldn't try to hit failure, but I think I know what you're saying - stop your set before your muscles hit failure, and then cluster or drop set the rest of the reps. It's a good idea.


[b said:
Quote[/b] ]The given rep schemes 15-10-5 are Bryan's simplifications to make people better understand basic HST prinicples like load progression (and due to the inverse relationship of load and volume, volume progressively decreases as well) and frequent training.
Click to expand...

Yeah as JV said those easy 15-10-5 rep schemes were to make it simple and easy are are obviously no golden rules to the HST scheme. I actually like the idea that you're putting out there Daxie, except that it isn't something you can't preplan as much since it's a go with the flow and how you feel cycle.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I honestly doubt there's much of a benefit in way of hypertrophy. Some, but very little. It may feel more satisfying to increase the weight every workout, though. If that's the case, then go for it. However, a bit of zig-zag shouldn't hinder one's growth.
Click to expand...

why not chthonian? the cycle has ALL the HST principles intact, so long as Daxie actually isn't lifting to failure. As long as he makes sure his volume is pretty consistent, then I don't forsee a problem with the progress as you feel method. It's sorta like those pay as you go phones.
tounge.gif


-Colby
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (colby2152 @ Aug. 09 2005,9:52)]I wouldn't try to hit failure, but I think I know what you're saying - stop your set before your muscles hit failure, and then cluster or drop set the rest of the reps. It's a good idea.
Click to expand...
well, my original idea was to increase the weight until you would get failure... (as is the fact when using the normal rep scheme, where you would get failure theoretically after 6 workouts)

But maybe it would be better to stop a rep or two before that, and do clustering, as you say, and the next workout increase weight but drop reps...

Will keep that in mind!

thnx for the comment
 
I would probably be inclined to avoid failure but I don't think it is a big deal. If you hit failure once every couple weeks, it shouldn't hurt you very much. Now if you went to failure on every single set on that particular workout, I guess that would be different. But I go to failure occasionally, especially on metabolic work, and I never have had a problem with it.
 
i would have thought that the only problem with doing say sets of 15,12,10,8,6,4, so on. is that your maxes would be very close, so your increments would be close which is better for strenght not hypertrophy..imo
 
well, the idea would be perhaps that progression is the main factor, so increasing the weight every time... reps are adjusted in order to keep the increase possible. If a drop from 15 to 10 is needed, than maybe it should be done like that, if you can cope it with 15 to 12, than that may lengthen your cycle a bit which should make you able to progress even further?
 
What if, instead of progressing each workout, you progress every other workout and use a larger increment? After all, each weight should be effective for a couple weeks probably before they are ineffective, so using them for a two workouts instead of one shouldn't matter. Then the larger increment should spark more hypertrophy than the smaller increment.
I would keep a cycle like this going until you eventually progressed into negatives. Heck, if you did it right, you could keep this cycle going for 12 weeks or more. If you eat big while on this cycle, you could make some crazy size gains.
 
daxie,

how would you start the weights... 70% of your rep range max.. and would you still test the maxes before hand to know what weight you wanted to start at? just wondering because this go with the flow idea sounds very interesting

-colby
 
I tried this method and it works ok,
I like it better than normal HST and i will continu using it, but the only problem i have is that when going from 10 reps to 5 reps my maxes are very close, i can go pretty heavy with 10s but when i get to 5s there is no room to increase every workout so i increase 5lbs every 2 workout for ~ 2 weeks then i do drop sets.

Throughout the cycle depending on how i eat / sleep sometimes i have to repeat weights.

Now the only thing im wondering is if Totentanz is right ? instead of increasing every workout 5lbs, repeat once and increase every 2 workout 10 lbs...
 
Well, the 70% of 15RM would be a guideline to start...

As I know some are skipping the 15s, but I wouldn't do that personally...although the weights are low, the load progression is still there

As for measuring you maxes...You could do it, just to know them, and to have a hint on where to "watch out" for failure... Or they could serve as a motivational factor, if you see your maxes have risen during the cycle, you're happy, right :-) . So strictly when you would go with the flow (nice name) you wouldn't need them, but they could serve their purpose as "milestones".

daxie
 
And about the increasing of the weights..

Hypertrophy wise it would indeed be better to increase weight every other workout, perhaps.

so 100 - 100 - 110 - 110 - 120 - 120

But the danger in this lies in the fact that you might step over your real max... (for example 115 could have been your max).

This is countered by instead of doing the wanted reps (eg 10), drop the reps (to for eg 8 or even less if needed), as the "go with the flow" thing says. So it wouldn't be a problem at all.

Strength wise the ever increasing load would be better. But I really know too little of the science to make that a fact.
 
maybe smaller increase every workout would be a little more better for strenght ( but still good for hypertrophy)
and bigger increase every 2 workout would be better for hypertrophy but less better for strenght... ?
 
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