Need help on HST (CONFUSED) (HELP)

A

armsbrah

New Member
So I need help figuring out how to make HST work as I don't really seem to catch the drift of the technical stuff, but I do understand the principles. Ill sum up what I understand and what I don't.

- You need to know your 15RM, 10RM, 5RM and 2RM;
- You have to use SD;
-Reps will decrease every two weeks;
-You restart the cycle after you are done;

Now, what I need help with :

-How do I find my RM's ? Do I just go to failure ? How many sets should it take me to find them ? Ill take 6-9 days to try and figure them out for the exercises I picked I guess ?
-Once I have my RM's how do I enter them in the calculator ?
-How do you increase the weights in this program ? Is it every week or every day ?
-Once you are done a phase let's say the 15RM phase for two weeks, do you move on immediately to the 10RM phase ? And what weights are you going to use ?
-When you are done the full 8 weeks cycle and you start back on the 15RM or whatever , how do you find the weights you are going to be using this time around ?

Just explain to me really carefully what to do because I'm confused.

Thanks brahs
 
-Go to the gym on three different days (say M,W,F). Find out what your 5RM, 10RM and 15RM are (or 15,10,5, doesn't matter what order throughout the week) for each exercise. Then take ~9-14 days off before starting the program. Alternatively, use this calculator here; http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/OneRepMax.html . It doesn't matter how many sets it takes to find your maxes, but realistically it's going to take 2-3, you'll have a rough idea what it is going in.

-Back track your RM's to plan our your cycle. If your 5RM for bench was 100kg, your 5's for bench press would be 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100 for the 6 workouts. Alternatively it could be 87.5, 90, 92.5, 95, 97.5, 100 - just depends how you want your progression to go.

-Weights are increased from workout to workout

-Yes, once the 15's you do the 10's, then 5's, then either continue the 5's and try and increase your 5RM or do heavier weights such as 3's, and//or negatives.

-At the end of your 8-week cycle, you do an extra workout to test your rep maxes again, note them and then take your 9-14day SD.


http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/hst_notes.html - is a nice example of phase/block progression.
 
Welcome armsbrah!

(Ah! Alex beat me to it! There may be a few things of interest here still.)

Some folks do this:

Take three workouts in a week to find your RMs for all the exercises you have chosen to do: one session find your 15RMs; next session find your 10RMs; third session find your 5RMs. It is not necessary to find your 2RMs.

No need to pop any blood vessels trying to find a true RM. Find a load that allows you to get the required reps (15, 10 or 5) with good form and go to the point where you know you won't manage another rep. Make a note of the load and the rep range.

Once you have your list of exercises and loads for your 15RMs, 10RMs and 5RMs do this:

For each exercise, calculate 75%, 80%, 85%, 90%, 95% of the RM as your working loads for the workouts in each mesocycle; take the respective RM load as the load for your final workout for that mesocycle.

Eg. if your 15RM for squats was 100kg, you can see that the loads for your first two weeks of squats during 15s would be:

75kg, 80kg, 85kg, 90kg, 95kg, 100kg

ie. for your first session during 15s you would do 2 x 15 x 75kg; for your second session: 2 x 15 x 80kg; etc.

NB. if you were only doing squats for your legs, then I would suggest 2 sets during 15s, 2-3 sets during 10s and 3-6 sets during 5s. (The volume that will suit you best will depend on your lifting history. If you are relatively new to lifting then you will require less volume than a well seasoned lifter. There's lots more on this in the FAQ's)

Make the same calculations for each rep range so that you end up with 18 loads for the six weeks of three-times-weekly training sessions.

Each mesocycle immediately follows the next. So, you do 2 weeks of 15s, then two weeks of 10s, then two weeks of 5s, then two weeks of post-5s.

For the final two weeks of post-5s you can either continue to use your 5RM loads for the whole period as they will continue to be heavy enough to elicit a growth response, or you might decide to increment the loads a bit more and find your new 5RMs.

After your first 8-week cycle is done, you can estimate your new 15RMs, 10RMs and use your new 5RMs that you just found during the post-5s. For the 15s and the 10s you could add 5kg/10lb to the bigger lifts (such as squats or deads) and 2.5kg/5lb to smaller lifts (such as curls or and dumbbell lifts).

So, before you start your first cycle, take ~9 days off as SD and do the same at the end of each 8-week cycle.

When you hit the gym and work through your first 15-rep session, it may will be tougher than you might expect it to be.

Do read through the FAQ's a few times as most (if not all) of your questions are already answered there.

All the best!
 
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Hey guys, I'm about to start HST tomorrow and I wanted to know, do I need to up the volume a little during the 15 reps phase or do I keep it the same around 1-2 sets per exercise ? Also, what is the rest time and tempo that should be used ?
 
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