Max OT to HST - Some Advice please

R

Renky

Member
Hi,

I am not new to bodybuilding. I have done bodybuilding on and off for about 20 years. For the most part, I was subscribing to the Max OT or heavy overload principles. About 4 weeks ago, I asked my sister inlaw (who is a Physiotherapist) about hypertrophy and she explained that muscled needed to be trained 3 times a week. I was SO shocked after being so entrenched in the one muscle group per week thinking. Anyway, after her advice I came across HST. This program pretty well lined up with what my sister inlaw advised.

To cut a long story short... I am now on week three of the program. I am loving it and feel it is working. I am following the outline, except am using a 12, 9 and 5 rep scheme and am using 3 sets per body part (may drop this down when I get onto the 5's). I workout alone and in my home gym with basic free weights.

My arms though really lag the rest of my physique. They always have and seem to have been stuck on the 14.5" - 15" measurement for ever. I am keen to know peoples thoughts on how to bring these up in size? As of this morning, my right arm is measuring 15.25" and my left is measuring 14.75". My goal is to have them up to 16".

My diet is very good and I am not overweight. I can see an outline of my abs if that helps to gauge body fat? I eat yoghurt and almonds for breakfast, cottage cheese and almonds for morning tea, chicken breast/steak and eggs for lunch, cottage cheese and almonds for afternoon tea and then something like a stir fry for dinner. I also supplement with glutamine, l-leucine, beta-alanine, cissus and aminos. I also drink whey 3-4 times a day.

Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks.
 
There was a metastudy done that showed a strong correlation between reps and hypertrophy. The ideal range is 40 - 60. Don't get carried away with that result. Obviously you would need to be very advanced to pull 60 reps of deadlifts.

Verkoshansky writes that higher levels of hypertrophy require higher volume-load. Volume-load is volume times load. So you can add weight, add volume, or add both as a way to progress in size. This is the formula. The tricky part is finding the right lifting dosage that results in a predictable response. For me it is limited back work with 2 sets of barbell curls. Right now I am adding 5 lbs per workout twice weeky. The first set is always 15 reps.

Check out fatgripz. They increase the thickness of the bar and seem to improve forearm and biceps growth. I've had good results with chins and curls.
 
Thanks for the reply.

So is it just a matter of increasing sets for the arms (within the HST guidelines)?

I forgot to say in my original post that I am 6ft tall and weigh around 208lbs. My chest is my best body part and I feel that I do not want much more size on my chest. My shoulders are growing ok and I want just a little more size there. My arms are definitely lagging. I feel that another inch on my arms would balance things out and I would be happy, very happy.

Thanks!
 
You said you are on week 3, right? I understand the urgency all of us feel about growth, but how about giving your current program at least 3-6 months to see how it is working? You've just made a pretty major change ... You might want to see how your body responds before attempting more changes.
 
Are you eating enough to gain weight? If you aren't gaining 1-2 lbs of net weight each week, then you aren't eating enough. As leegee said, you will need longer than one cycle to properly access your routine. However... we can tweak your routine a bit. Are you doing Bryan's example routine from the HST article? List exactly which exercises you are doing. For the most part, yes with HST you will just increase volume for the bodyparts you want to emphasis (and consequently, possibly decrease for those you are not...) but exercise selection will effect this as well to some extent.

You mentioned you feel that your chest is satisfactory in development. I feel you about the arms, always been a lagging point for me as well. For contrast, I am about 6 feet as well (maybe 6'1) and weigh around 240 lbs but my arms aren't much larger than 16 inches. Might not be something you can improve a lot on. In my case, because I have a good shape to my biceps, people often mistakenly think my arms are closer to 18 even though they aren't. So... that leads me to my next question. How are your arms? Are your biceps good but triceps need work? Or vice versa? If you have a good chest, it would seem likely that you have strong triceps, but maybe not? Depending on what you need to focus on, either bis or tris, that will effect what lifts you might want to add (or subtract) and where you might want to adjust volume.
 
oRenky,

I am 6 foot 4 230lbs. My chest also responds very well. Just a set or two of flat bench and it grows
Reliably. The thrust of training by volume load is that your size has directly measurable proxy in your
Training. If the volume load for a body part is increasing, be it with weight or reps or both, no matter how
Slowly, growth is happening. Since hst proscribes load the only guesswork left is lift selection and sets.
With lift selection there are two philosophies. The first is to use arms in a variety of compound lifts and do
Little isolation type work like curls or pushdowns. The second is to keep compound arm work modest and
Train isolation style for arms. Tnation trainers prefer the second method for taller lifters like us. In my own
Experience I have found the second method to work better. I used to do chins regularly but found that when
I added curls both the curls and the chins stopped completely. What I am doing now are croc rows and then
Strict barbell curls. No other rowing or chinning work. Both lifts are increasing in load or reps regularly for
Now. I have asked lifters with good arm development what their biceps training is like. Many prefer 15-20 reps
For working biceps. I have found it to work for me as well. Not that I am saying this is how others
Should train, only that you might wanna experiment with it. Also, I use fatgripz on my barbell curls.
I also use very strict curling m which is afforded by using 15rm weight. Lastly, I focus my attention
On my biceps during each rep. Research suggests this improves recruitment. I can report that I am getting
Consistent gains. Youve got to experiment methodically to find the solution.
 
Thanks for your replies.

With my triceps, I see the horse shoe muscle, but I would not say it is overly big. My biceps do not have a large peak to them yet. When I flex my biceps, you can notice them, but they do not stand out dramatically.

I agree about the isolations for arms. I think that works best for me. I tried chins with weights a few years ago and not much success. My arms are slow growers it seems, but even when I was doing upwards of 130lbs barbell curls (on Max OT) at 4-5 reps, they hardly grew. They have been stuck around the 14.75" - 15" for about 1 and a half years now I guess. That is what started me on the journey of finding another routine and looking into more research. And that is how I discovered HST.

My chest is closing in on 46". I look pretty top heavy, so arms need to come up to balance.

My routine is as follows;

Legs - Hack Squats 3 sets
Back - 1-arm rows 2 sets
Biceps - EZ curls 3 sets
Chest - Bench press 2 sets
Shoulders - Upright rows 2 sets and Military Press 2 sets
Triceps - Kickbacks 3 sets (was using skull crushers, but tennis elbow)
Calves - Calf Raises 2 sets

Exercise selections are based on the equipment I have, what seems to work best for me and training alone.

I was considering working biceps and triceps in the evening on the same day, but unsure.

With eating enough, I am not sure... I am trying to have decent meals and I eat 6 times a day.

Thanks.
 
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It is looking like the arms have started growing afterall. I will see how they go and if the gains keep coming.
At the moment, my workout is as follows
Hack Squats
1-arm rows
Bicep Curls
Military Press
Bench Press
Triceps Kickbacks
Calf Raises

Everything is two sets, except biceps and triceps. These are three sets.

Thanks
 
My arms are a shade over 16" but don't look it at all (I don't have much of a peak, more rounded).

For aiming at the biceps arms I like underhand-grip BB rows, doing a weighted stretch in underhand chins position instead of any form of curl as well. If you have an incline bench, I recommend doing seated curls. I like the range of motion more than standing curls.

As far as triceps go there's skullcrushers using the EZ bar ofc, but I've never found it necessary to go beyond a press and//or normal dip. Shoulder/military presses are also immensely helpful IMO (or an Olympic lift if that's ever a part of your routine).
 
Yeah I'm leery of any tricep exercises that put a lot of stress on the elbow. I've known literally dozens of people who had problems with that. Although if you don't go too heavy then it should not be an issue. I like close grip bench or tricep dips for the heavy work on that muscle group.
 
Exactly. For whatever reason, the compound exercises that incorporate limb movement rather than solely muscle contraction-extension appear to produce better results. Maybe it's that somewhat observed effect of higher growth-related hormone levels when using compounds compared to iso's?
 
For curiosity's sake... Is there a limit to how many sets one should do in a work out? For biceps one day this week, I did 4 sets of curls. My arms were worked hard after that, but in the evening, I felt I could do too more sets for my biceps.

Is this too much?

Also, is it really possible to develop your bicep peak? For years I heard no to this question, but am now wondering again.

Still trying to get my head around the HST program.

Thanks!
 
OK, my chest is now at 47-1/2" and I am starting to find it hard to fit in certain shirts (please know that I am not in anyway bragging here), so I have decided that I do not want my chest to grow anymore.

My shoulders and arms need to grow a bit more, so what do I do about chest? Do I only train once or twice a week with just one set?

Thanks
 
While your chest may be impressive I’ll wager that you’re not fitting into your shirts because your back has gotten bigger. I have a pathetic chest (genetics) but since starting HST my shirt size has gone from medium to extra-large, 80% of which I attribute to building a bigger back mostly from deadlifting.
Trust me when I say that the muscles of your back will add much more to your upper body thickness than your chest ever can so you might consider cutting back on some of the upper back work too.
 
Thanks for the feedback. For my back, I have only been doing 1-arm rows with dumbbells. I have also only been doing hack squats for legs. I will ease up on back a bit too then, thanks for that tip. My chest though is quite large. My Pecs really stand out a lot and I feel that after trimming back some body fat (after muscling up) they will be quite well defined. I am already starting to see the classic Pec shape to them.

I am currently weighing about 212lbs, so I feel that I have some decent size to me now. I just had a friend comment at how much muscle I had put on. It is funny when I hear this, because I just don't see it like others do. Maybe I am a very harsh self critic?

Anyway, I am thinking that I need to prioritize deltoids and biceps just to balance things out. My arms are now at 15-3/4", so I think another 3/4" there will about do.

With my size mostly established, I am wondering if I should start focusing more on isolation exercises? I am about finished this cycle and next week is my "SD". I workout alone at home and have done compound, basic weightlifting movements for a number of years (with Max OT). So I am just wondering if it is now time to detail some lagging parts?

Thanks.
 
I would say you probably are a good candidate for specialization exercises to bring up lagging body parts.

One thing you might consider is rather than dumping compound movements for isolation exercises would be to focus on some high weight low rep strength development on your compound exercises and do additional isolation exercises in a higher rep range for your lagging muscles. That way you will maintain or even increase the strength you’ve gained while bringing up your lagging muscles.

Presently I’m planning to do something similar where I work out my legs (which are already big) doing low rep max effort lifts and speed work while doing a fairly standard HST cycle for my lagging chest and arms.
 
Renky said:
Thanks for the feedback. For my back, I have only been doing 1-arm rows with dumbbells. I have also only been doing hack squats for legs. I will ease up on back a bit too then, thanks for that tip. My chest though is quite large. My Pecs really stand out a lot and I feel that after trimming back some body fat (after muscling up) they will be quite well defined. I am already starting to see the classic Pec shape to them.

I am currently weighing about 212lbs, so I feel that I have some decent size to me now. I just had a friend comment at how much muscle I had put on. It is funny when I hear this, because I just don't see it like others do. Maybe I am a very harsh self critic?

Anyway, I am thinking that I need to prioritize deltoids and biceps just to balance things out. My arms are now at 15-3/4", so I think another 3/4" there will about do.

With my size mostly established, I am wondering if I should start focusing more on isolation exercises? I am about finished this cycle and next week is my "SD". I workout alone at home and have done compound, basic weightlifting movements for a number of years (with Max OT). So I am just wondering if it is now time to detail some lagging parts?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

My personal experience is that isolation exercises are very poor at 'bringing up' lagging body parts in non-beginner trainees. Compounds still put on the most mass for non-torso muscles, it's just a matter of choosing which ones. Chins with supinated palms are much better for bi's than curling, as are Rows with the same grip (underhand). Triceps grow more from a different dips positioning/CG bench press or shoulder press (military, DB, seated, Arnolds etc) than from skullcrushers or rope-pull extensions.

Isolations are good for inducing the metabolic stress & responses but as for building mass, my personal experiences (and those of many I know) is that they don't do much at all.


Also, I'll double up on grunt11's comment re: back development. 'Chest' measurements take your mid-traps and upper-lats into account more than the actual pectoral muscles, it's just that because people are accustomed to seeing what's in front of them rather than behind that we call it a 'chest' measurement and not a 'back' measurement.
 
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