My HST Program [Did I misunderstand?]

Z

ZartoK

New Member
Hello everyone in HST community!

Since it's my first post, I'll keep it short since most people TL;DR. My questions is highlited in red.

My HST program consist of 2 weeks of 1x15, 2 weeks of 2x10, and 2 weeks of 3x5. After these 6 weeks, should I do 2 weeks of Negatives (I do not have a partnet)? If not, what should I do? And then do the 1 week of rest. Do I need 2 weeks of rest?

This is the exercises I do, and I do them in this order (the #number, represent when it's done, so exercises with the same number is dont 1 set each):
1# Squat
2# Stiff Legged Deadlift
3#Slight Incline Bench
3#Chins (Narrow grip)
4#Decline db
4#Bent Over Row
5#Shoulder Press
6#Straigth Bar Curl
7#Triceps Extension
5#Standing Calf Raises
6#Crunches
I am unsure about the 5#, 6# and 7#. Got any better sugestions?
And would this list of exercises impossible at negatives?

I'm at my last week of 5rm now, and I ran into great soreness for the first time (this cycle).
Should I just do a good warm-up and go for it? Even tho it is heavier than last time?

This is my questions for now, thanks! :)
 
Hey Zartok good to see you posting, Now im not exactly what you would call a HST expert but I will try to answer your questions to the best of my own knowledge which I have tested.

I too did not have a partner after my 5's so with help from the forums I decided it would be best to repeat my 5's for another 2 weeks. I would use the 5 maxes for the first week then on the second week I would try to increase them and push myself almost to the limit, especially on the last workout as you go into your sd phase straight after.

2 weeks of rest is too long in my opinon, Hst recommends anywhere from 7 to 11 days I believe. I personally keep it around 9 days as it does not mess up my next cycle date and so I can keep the workouts on the same days as my previous cycle.

with the 5, 6 and 7 exercises they seem ok. I find by doing those I am still using to a degree compound movements, You can always change the exercise during a routine if it doesn't fit your needs, but if you were to do more isolation exercises instead I would recommend doing it on a muscle group that is 'lacking'. I use all 3 of those exercises and find they all work great so I would say keep them unless you can think of a better similar exercise to replace them or if you find that you are using too many exercises and in turn causing too much strain on your CNS or your workouts are just taking too long like over an hour.

with the warm up you should always do it prior to an activity involving weights even if its for your 15's. When you warm up before the 5's if you find that maybe you lifted too much for it just wait a few minutes and start, It only takes roughly a few minutes before you can lift heavy again without any stress.

Hope this helps in some small way.
 
Thanks a lot!

For not beeing an expert, you are really well informed, I love your reply, it answered a lot of the questions asked, but I got some follow-up questions you might have though about :)

foggers said:
I would use the 5 maxes for the first week then on the second week I would try to increase them and push myself almost to the limit, especially on the last workout as you go into your sd phase straight after.
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Ok, lets say you do 5s for another 2 weeks with maxes and above (week two). I'm sure your strength did increase, woulden't this make the next 15rm and 10rm cycles too easy, not beeing able to hit your maxes at the end of 15 and 10s? Maybe I'm overestimating the body? :p

foggers said:
2 weeks of rest is too long in my opinon, Hst recommends anywhere from 7 to 11 days I believe. I personally keep it around 9 days as it does not mess up my next cycle date and so I can keep the workouts on the same days as my previous cycle.
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I do agree, 9 days is perfect. Would hate to wait 2 weeks before I could work out again.

foggers said:
if you find that you are using too many exercises and in turn causing too much strain on your CNS or your workouts are just taking too long like over an hour.
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Hehehe, ooohhh.. Well, I do spend around 70-80min on my 5rm day. Maybe too much? But I really don't want to remove any of my exercises, cause they do cover everything IMO.

zartok said:
I'm at my last week of 5rm now, and I ran into great soreness for the first time (this cycle).
Should I just do a good warm-up and go for it? Even tho it is heavier than last time?
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I did the workout, and it was no problem even tho I was a bit sore. But I think I'll wait until saturday before hitting my max again, since I'm pretty sore allready :)
 
Glad I could help :) to answer your following up questions; strength does increase especially if you are doing your 5rm for 2 weeks and even pushing yourself further. So when you start your second cycle there are two ways which I prefer. The first is you can take the advice that some would give you here and add 5-10 lb to your maxes which is a fair statement but I don't believe it makes that much difference in a squat or deadlift exercise as it would to a curl for example. The other option you can do to gain a more accurate guide too how much your strength has increased is to do the maxes for the 3 rms again like you may have done in the beginning. If you do use this method you will be adding another week to your cycle (eg. Max week, 2 week 15s, 2 weeks 10, 2 weeks 5 and 2 weeks 5 rm and beyond) making it a 9 week phase. I did this to start off my second cycle and found it was much more rewarding then just making a new educated guess about your maxes. Remember that the progression is an upward one meaning you will lift heavier and heavier each week and in saying that each workout is different as a result of other factors in everyday life. If you think you can lift more then what you are ment to on the workout then do it as long as your not pushing yourself to failure. If you can't lift a weight you have in the past don't worry about it there's always next time. Anyway I'm going off topic sorry about that :p

If you do find that after your workout with 5 rms that you feel tired and more fatigued the next day as well as maybe sore ( when I say sore I mean out of the ordinary sore ) a reason could be the time you spend per workout. As a guideline they say an hour workout is plenty, if you go over it by 10 minutes or even 20 every once and a while it's ok aswell ( I do it sometimes too) but if you find you are too sore and fatigue the next day or 2 it could be the time that you spend in the gym and how long you workout for, the 5rms are very demanding and require more attention then the other rep ranges you do so you need to be careful and have more rest so your body can handle this stress you body is required to go through during these 2 weeks. The best way to cut down the time and possibly the soreness is to cut the exercises for this period. use compound exercises as they will work your whole body and with this weight you are using it with this will be more then enough for a full body workout. I know people when they do 5 rms they cut like 4 exercises that are of an isolation nature. They do this to avoid overwork on the body aswell as cutting time in the gym as with 5's if you are performing 3 sets it does take it's toll on your body. And you might feel bad for maybe cutting some exercises out for 2 weeks but the alternative could be worse so it's up to you. If you find your workouts are fine and you feel good the next day don't worry about changing it then even if your time still Is over an hour just avoid overtraining that's all :) hope this clears things up.
 
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I’d like to add something to the already great info Flogger has given.

Another suggestion for the post 5s if you can’t do negatives is to a week or two of 3s. Do these the same way you would any other micro-cycle. Zigzagging the weights between the 5s and 3s might also be a good idea if you don’t already have zigzagging built into your cycle. Even if you didn’t test you 3RM you should be able to get pretty close by plugging your 5RM you just did into a rep calculator. I think doing this would be more productive than just repeating your 5RM and trying to increase the number of reps.

Also, just to clarify something. As I understand it the length in time of the workout itself doesn’t really affect CNS fatigue it’s the work and how it’s done like, weight, volume, bar speed that do this. The reason for the time limit, generally given as 40-60 minutes for a workout (many serious Olympic and power lifters won’t go over 40 minutes), is because of how our bodies stress response to lifting heavy weights works. Lifting heavy weights elicits an increase in testosterone (anabolic), however it does the same with cortisol (catabolic). The longer the training session the more your body moves from testosterone being dominant to cortisol being dominant. Thus if you work out to long your go from an anabolic, grow state, to a catabolic, breakdown state.
 
Well put grunt. Now I know the main reason and the scientific reasoning behind training time to be around an hour. Learn something new everyday :)
 
grunt11 said:
The longer the training session the more your body moves from testosterone being dominant to cortisol being dominant. Thus if you work out to long your go from an anabolic, grow state, to a catabolic, breakdown state.
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I might spend up to 90 minutes in the gym on my heavy 5RM days, but I only do 1-2 sets in 7-8 exercises, so much of that time is spent resting. I'm not sure if it would also provoke catabolism?
 
I don’t think that 90 minutes is going to kill you and everyone is going to respond differently so the 40-60 minute guideline is likely low-balling it to be safe.

However, keep in mind that if you primary goal is hypertrophy you want to keep your rest between sets minimal. Shorter rests are better for inducing hypertrophy than longer ones.
 
grunt11 said:
However, keep in mind that if you primary goal is hypertrophy you want to keep your rest between sets minimal. Shorter rests are better for inducing hypertrophy than longer ones.
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Why? Can you qualify that statement? Does it mean that high-rep sets are better for bodybuilders? Because those are roughly same thing. 2 sets x10 with 60 second rest is like 1 set 15 with same weight (albeit lower total volume). Shorter rest periods compromise the ability to use higher weights. If I decide to use a 10PM weight I can do 2 sets 60 seconds apart with, then this isn't really my 10PM. If I did my real 10PM weight, then 60 seconds after I would barely regain my breathing ability and would probably only do 3-4 more reps. Perhaps you meant myo-reps, that's 1 normal set, and on top of that 10-20 seconds rest between a series of mini-sets 2-3 reps each on the "activated" or "hot" muscle. That's not easy to do after a real 10PM or 5PM weight, but probably viable for submaximal weights as an alternative to "normals" sets.
 
Nothing to qualify, studies and experience have shown less rest between sets (up to a point) is generally better for hypertrophy than more rest between sets while more rest between sets (up to a point) is better for strength all other factors being equal.
 
It's all just a structure designed to progressively increase the weight overtime. Your over thinking this. Just rest aslong as you need to and continue on with your set. Chances are, your rest times will work out to be within the recommended ranges anyways (so long as your not being lazy and resting for pro-longed periods of time).
 
HST_Rihad said:
This is the key point. If I decrease rest periods to a mere minute or so, all other factors do not remain equal - working weight unavoidably drops.
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Only if you are using your maxes all the time which means you aren’t following HST principles.

By necessity rest times will increase as weights get heavier however that still doesn’t mean you can’t keep the time to a minimum. Just as an example take a look at the suggested rest times here. Note it’s just a suggestion.

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=4677737

Another thing is to look up M-Time which when the weights not only keep rest to the minimum necessary to make the next single also suggests not going over 30 seconds rest even for heavy 90% and above singles. It can be done since I’ve used M-Time very effectively.

Myo-reps is another protocol that minimizes the time between clusters rather than using full sets. This gets more volume done in the very least time while still maintaining enough time under tension to stimulate growth.
 
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Myo-reps is another issue, they're putting your "hot" muscle to work while it's at 100% fiber activation. In either case, you don't work more than you're able to. What I was asking was, how can I artificially limit rest period to 90-120 seconds (which is suggested by Haycock in the FAQ: "Overall, rest periods should be around 1.5-2 minutes."), if I in no way feel ready to go? If my ATP hasn't replenished, and muscle is still full of lactic acid? After a true 10RM weight of bench press I could probably do no more than 3-4 reps after just 120 seconds of rest - tried that. When the weight is lower I can stay within 90-120 sec. easily, though.
 
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It sounds like you are very interested in this topic. I think you would be better served by doing your own research and deciding for yourself.

Cheers
 
HST_Rihad said:
Myo-reps is another issue, they're putting your "hot" muscle to work while it's at 100% fiber activation. In either case, you don't work more than you're able to. What I was asking was, how can I artificially limit rest period to 90-120 seconds (which is suggested by Haycock in the FAQ: "Overall, rest periods should be around 1.5-2 minutes."), if I in no way feel ready to go? If my ATP hasn't replenished, and muscle is still full of lactic acid? After a true 10RM weight of bench press I could probably do no more than 3-4 reps after just 120 seconds of rest - tried that. When the weight is lower I can stay within 90-120 sec. easily, though.
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The thing is, if you're following the HST program you will only be hitting that 10RM max once in the entire cycle, the previous 5 sessions will be lower weights and you should be able to stick within the two minutes. If you dont hit the required reps for any set, rest again then finish off when you can. Don't go to failure otherwise you'll have to wait too long.
 
You're right, that's exactly what I'm doing: zig-zagging and avoiding going to failure. I haven't yet said a thing about 5RM weights; heavy squats and RDLs might require a 5-7 minute rest. As a side note, I think that the recommendation to continue doing 5RM weights for 2 weeks (when negatives aren't possible) was a mistake, because it puts undue load on the CNS, and I at least can't cope up with the frequency and the load. What I did was extend weight progression to 4 weeks, hitting my 5RM weights only once at the end. When I can do negatives (calf raises etc) I'm doing them as prescribed, though.
 
I do find the two weeks at 5RM is difficult and I maybe I was on the edge of just pushing it too far. In fact I skipped my last session because my muscles were almost at breaking point. However, I never felt run down or tired which would be a sign of CNS failure. I was sore for almost my entire SD but my muscle gains were awesome, including putting 2 inches on my chest and gaining an incredible v-shape.

I will be giving the two weeks at 5RM another shot at the end of this cycle, because although it was I hard I think it was worth it.
 
Your working weights/reps didn't forcibly go down between workouts, were you using limited volume (1 set) per MG like me? Did you do heavy stuff like squats, BP or DL? Can I see the workout you used? Here's mine:
(1) Squats
(2) BB Bench
(3) RDL
(4) DB overhead press
(5) Seated rows
(6) Calf raises
(7) BB Biceps curls

For the heaviest days of 5's, if I were to do 2 sets on most all except calves (which I haven't yet hit my limit on anyway), weights were guaranteed to go down next w/o. Those were my true 5RM weights judging by the effort. Next cycle around I fixed this by limiting volume to just 1 set for weights >95% 5RM, and I no longer experienced run-downs.
 
Yeh all heavy compound lifts.

For 5RM's (sets x reps)

1. Leg Press 5x5 225Kg
2. SLDL 3x5 90Kg
3. Flat Bench Press 5x5 90Kg
4. Weighted Pullups 3x5 BW+25Kg
5. Weighted Dips 3x5 BW+30Kg
6. Bent over row 5x5 100Kg
7. Military Press 3x5 60Kg
8. Shrugs, Calf Raise, Sit ups 5x5 (giant set)

I try to keep rest to 2mins maximum and if needs be cluster my reps, noticeably on last sets of BP, Pullups, and military press. Weights NEVER went down and I would say I was at my 5RM because I felt I could not do another rep without feeling as if it would be to failure.

Keeping this up for two weeks is HARD bearing in mind I workout every other day and don't have two days off for weekend.

You need to make sure your diet is in check and I believe supplements help also.
 
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