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(Lol @ Jul. 08 2008,11:40)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Hi Stefan,
Electric beat me to it but here are some of my thoughts:
HST is mainly about load progression along with a training frequency that will keep the hypertrophic stimulus high.
So, all you have to do to set up an effective cycle is to pick a starting weight (one that allows you to get say 15 or so reps, which is a common place to start following SD) and then work up to a heavier weight over a certain number of workouts. You can repeat loads along the way but bear in mind that the lighter the load, the more quickly your body will adapt to the stimulus; the hypertrophic response will be reduced on each subsequent workout until RBE catches up and you stop growing.
The 15,10,5 set up is recommended because it allows for a decent cycle length, helps with fatigue management (esp. if you have zig-zag between mesocycles) and has an initial two weeks of 15s where lactic acid production can help prep your joints for the heavier workouts to come. Of course, it is perfectly fine to reduce the load range if that's what you want to do.
When you mentioned that you are having to use "such small increments" you made wonder what exercises you were using? Sticking to compounds using a barbell will usually allow you a greater loading range than isos using dumbbells. If you only have access to dumbbells then I understand that it can be more difficult to work out a load progression.
It's perfectly fine to repeat workouts so, as an example, say for squats your 5RM was 120kg, you could easily do something like this:
SD
Week 1: 90, 90, 95
Week 2: 95, 95, 100
Week 3: 100, 100, 105
Week 4: 105, 105, 110
Week 5: 110, 110, 115
Week 6: 115, 115, 120
Week 7: 120, 115, 120*
Week 8: 120, 115, 125*†
SD
That's effectively one mesocycle spread out over 8 weeks. During Week 1 you could probably manage 10 or so reps with 90. As the cycle progressed you would reduce reps according to load. you would just have to be careful not to train too close to failure each time or your strength would drop off as fatigue accumulated.
* For Weeks 7 & 8 you would be working at your previous 5RM loads so they would be hard and heavy sessions. Notice I've reduced the load mid-week to allow for a bit of recovery before a further push on the Friday session. The other way to get around fatigue build up would be to drop to sets of 3 reps with your 5RM loads.
† at the end of a cycle it's always fun to see if you can improve on your previous 5RM and carry that over to next cycle.
Try to keep your rep count about the same over the cycle. So if you started at 2 sets of 10 reps you would want to finish up your cycle with 3 or 4 sets of 5 reps, or perhaps 6 sets of 3 reps. Obviously, if you go to failure on the first set you are unlikely to get all your reps in on the next set, so you would need to cluster reps up to your target.
Hope that helps.</div>
Great post, thanks! What i meant by small increments is that I've noticed that using six increments per rep range causes a lot of zig zagging when you're not that physically strong. This also leads to ridiculous starting weights, which is why I thought of using the same weights for two straight weeks. As mentioned in the post above, one idea I thought of is to do two sets the first week, then three sets the next, thus shifting back and forth to make sure there actually is an increase in volume. To clarify, here's what it would look like:
Week 1: 12RM-10KG (2 sets per exercise)
Week 2: 12RM-10KG (3 sets per exercise)
Week 3: 12RM-5KG (2 sets per exercise)
Week 4: 12RM-5KG (3 sets per exercise)
Week 5: 12RM (2 sets per exercise)
Week 6: 12RM (3 sets per exercise)
Week 7: 5RM-10KG (2 sets per exercise)
Week 8: 5RM-10KG (3 sets per exercise)
Week 9: 5RM-5KG (2 sets per exercise)
Week 10: 5RM-5KG (3 sets per exercise)
Week 11: 5RM (2 sets per exercise)
Week 12: 5RM (3 sets per exercise)
On the other hand, I might just drop the whole thing and go back to the basic HST program
