Keeping Environment Primed & Super Abbreviated

[bnk89]

Hi everyone,

I've been reading the board for a while and absorbing lots of good information from you all.  Thanks.

Since I have a family (4 kids!) and decided to go back to school, I don't have much time for anything besides family and homework, so it's hard to fit in time for a workout. I thought about how I was going to maximally benefit from a super abbreviated workout using HST principles, so here's my experiment.

Since I wanted super abbreviated, I only do 3 exercises: Weighted Dips, Weighted Chins and Squats.

It appears the most important HST principles are frequency and progressive load for keeping the body primed for growth and strength.  To keep things simple, I don't modify my rep range, plus I don't have the tendons to handle the 5's (tried before).  I don't have anytime that I set aside for a workout since that's hard for me.  So what I do is 1 set of each whenever I could sneak it in during the day.   i.e. 1 set of each in the morning, one set in the afternoon and one set at night, or two sets in the morning one at night or vice versa.   I don't have planned off days so if I can't get it in I don't, and if I can I will.  Like on Monday I got in 2 sets of each, yesterday I got in 1 set of each, today I'll probably will get in 2 sets of each, and tomorrow I probably won't get in any since I'm cramming for exams.

I never work to failure.  I do 10 reps weighted and increase the weights whenever I feel like I could squeeze out 12-15 reps.  I've been doing this for a month and have had some gains, especially on my arms (bis and tris).  I don't watch my diet or anything either.   I'd like to know what everyone thinks from a HST scientific point of view since I'm not sure if the strength and gains are only because of a change up (i.e. Whole Workout 3 times a week vs. spreading the sets sporadically through out the day and week), or whether the strength and gains are from keeping the body primed for growth with more frequent loading.  Also, since I only do 1 set of each at a time, I'm never tired from a workout and thus probably don't even come close to taxing my nervous system (probably don't need SD).

I would love to hear any opinions on this type of workout - super abbreviated, super frequent, progressive load and never over exhausting the muscle.  Also, is there anything you would add or substitute.  I figured if I could only pick 3 exercises, those were the best to stay with for a full body workout.  I look forward to hearing your opinions and advice.  If there's anything you feel should be added, I could probably add 1 set of something else once a day 5 times a week - something like that.

Thanks,
Ben

PS I read the thread for the person who only wanted bicep growth.  Very interesting.  Some of you are hilarious.  Maybe keeping the bicep primed would work for him.  i.e. Whenever he has a chance, he could just grab a dbell, crank out 10 reps then walk away.  This way he never kills the muscle but keeps the environment primed for growth.

 

[Lol]

Welcome bnk89,

First off, all the best with your studies  and hope your exams go well.

Right, down to the nitty gritty:

Good choices for exercises. It might be a good idea to put deads in there once a week in place of squats. That way you will be doing a bit more loading on the rest of your back and hams but still loading your quads. You might get to like them too!  

If you can't/won't do deads then how about some bent-over rows alternated with chins? Deads would be best though. I'd also add in some shoulder presses if you get the chance.

One of the main points of HST is that loading a muscle rather than fatiguing it is what contributes mostly to growth stimulation. Whilst you will make good gains sticking to your plan for a while yet there will come a point when you will need to increment the loads more frequently in order to sustain progress. You say that you don't have the tendons to handle the 5s by which I take it you mean that you don't think they are up to it? Well, that may be the case right now but they will get stronger too, albeit at a slower rate than your muscle tissue. It certainly makes sense to up the loads though. If you are worried about going as heavy as 5s demand right now then go for 7s or 8s instead. That way you will be able to keep incrementing the loads for longer before your muscles stop responding. I really think that after a couple of cycles doing this you will be confident to go a bit further still and before you know it you'll be handling 5s with the rest of us.

Being tired (or not) from a workout is not what SD is meant to alleviate. It is primarily to allow some time for well-conditioned muscle tissue to decondition a bit so that sub-max loads can once again have a growth stimulating effect. Your level of fatigue may be quite low but your muscle tissue will still get conditioned to the loads you are using, which is one reaon why you will eventually stop being able to add weight to the bar and your progress will stop. The more you can increase the load during a cycle the longer the load will have a growth stimulating effect (assuming that you can get enough work done with that load).

Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Martin Levac]

Read this:

http://www.hypertrophy-specific.info/cgi-bin....t=10493

Progressive load is not a suggestion, it's a prescription. But you may still make gains using the same load on subsequent workouts if the load is sufficiently heavy and/or if the muscles are sufficiently sensitive to the load. In other words, gains happen until full adaptation has happened.

The terms "primed for growth" is not appropriate. Instead, think of stimuli. The muscles are not primed, instead they are stimulated. The stimulus in this case is the mechanical load, the actual weight on the bar. So, growth is stimulated by load. But actual growth happens between workouts during rest.

The terms "environment primed" is also not appropriate. Instead, think of chronic state of growth. Here frequency takes all its meaning. Working out with sufficient frequency will induce a chronic state of growth. As opposed to an accute state of growth less frequently such as with split programs training one body part per week.

SD, strategic deconditioning is not intended to alleviate any fatigue or to allow the CNS to recover or anything like that. Instead it is intended to re-sensitise the muscles to the lighter loads at the beginning of another megacycle of 8 weeks. It's intended to make those lighter loads effective at stimulating growth.

I do only three exercises, the deadlift, the bench press and the squat. I do them all on the same workout, every workout. Those three are, in my opinion, much better than any other combination of 3 exercises at working the whole body in one workout.

I just began a cycle last week. I do 20 reps each (60 total) with M-time istead of other rep scheme under continuous load. I complete a workout in about 55 minutes.

I'm not an expert.

 

[the_dark_master]

I'd stick with the three you've chosen - keepin' it simple. With four kids you aint got time to recover from a deadlift sore back/aching bench press pecs etc. Stick to chins & dips for real world power , clustering to 20 reps each (forget M-time, just crank 'em out) incl. the squats.
Planning is key to everything; so dial in a bit of "free time" for the wife, a little for the kids and you may get some back for an every-other day workout...