New program- wondering if you guys could critique?

S

speedbacker

New Member
Hey Guys- Been out of the gym for a month or so (personal issues) and am finally getting back in.  For the last 2 years I have trained using Poliquins 5 day split and have made drastic gains in strength, size, and speed, and overall body composition.  Been wanting to try something new and this is it.  Thought the 15s would be perfect since I'm just getting back in the gym.  Was wondering what you guys thought about the program I put together below. Will find out my maxes over the next day or so.

A1. Squat 2X15     tempo: 30X0   Rest: 60 seconds
A2. Lying Leg curl 2X15    tempo: 30X0  Rest: 60 seconds
B1.  Incline Bench   2X15  tempo: 30X0  Rest:60 seconds
B2.  Mid Grip chins  2X15  tempo: 30X0  Rest:60 seconds
C1.  Military press 2X15  tempo: 30X0  Rest:  60 seconds
C2.  Power upright rows (traps) 2X15 tempo: 30X0 Rest:60 seconds
D1.  Incline zottman curls 2X15 tempo: 30X0  Rest: 60 seconds
D2.  Skullcrushers w/ Olympic bar 2X15 tempo: 30X0 Rest: 60 seconds
E.  Standing calf raises 5X 10 reps  tempo: 31X1 Rest 45 seconds

(Calves- Always have had to do a lot of volume for them.)

What do you guys think?  I know this is a boring ass post, but I wanna give HST and honest try.  Thanks guys.
 
I see six isos and 3 compounds. I'd say try to reverse that ratio.
 
Wait, are upright rows a compound? I may be wrong in my numbers, but you might still want more compounds.
 
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(etothepii @ Sep. 29 2006,13:35)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I see six isos and 3 compounds. I'd say try to reverse that ratio.</div>
Eto thanks bro. I edited the post and switched the rear delt work for overhead pressing. Would you switch the leg curls for romanian deadlifts? I would do close-grip benches instead of tricep extensions, but would that be overkill? Thanks, I really appreciate it.
 
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(speedbacker @ Sep. 29 2006,13:55)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(etothepii @ Sep. 29 2006,13:35)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I see six isos and 3 compounds. I'd say try to reverse that ratio.</div>
Eto thanks bro.  I edited the post and switched the rear delt work for overhead pressing.  Would you switch the leg curls for romanian deadlifts?  I would do close-grip benches instead of tricep extensions, but would that be overkill?  Thanks,  I really appreciate it.</div>
Personally, I like tricep stuff. Not sure why... just feels good. I do weighted dips (hits pecs good too) and skull crushers in my program. Lots of guys like the close grip bench press though. Probably a good choice.

About the calves, not sure if it is in something Bryan wrote, or if it is in the pimp my HST book, but you may be better off doing high rep sets throughout the cycle. Something about the constant conditioning of the calves and the fiber type. I cut out calf work this cycle for the sake of time.
 
Alternate olympic squats with conventional deadlifts, not romanian. Drop the iso's, at least as a major part of your routine. Focus on the compounds, squats, deadlifts, bench, row, dips, chins, standing OH press.

I'd also drop the upright row and do power cleans instead.
 
<div>
(etothepii @ Sep. 29 2006,23:08)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(speedbacker @ Sep. 29 2006,13:55)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(etothepii @ Sep. 29 2006,13:35)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I see six isos and 3 compounds. I'd say try to reverse that ratio.</div>
Eto thanks bro. I edited the post and switched the rear delt work for overhead pressing. Would you switch the leg curls for romanian deadlifts? I would do close-grip benches instead of tricep extensions, but would that be overkill? Thanks, I really appreciate it.</div>
Personally, I like tricep stuff. Not sure why... just feels good. I do weighted dips (hits pecs good too) and skull crushers in my program. Lots of guys like the close grip bench press though. Probably a good choice.

About the calves, not sure if it is in something Bryan wrote, or if it is in the pimp my HST book, but you may be better off doing high rep sets throughout the cycle. Something about the constant conditioning of the calves and the fiber type. I cut out calf work this cycle for the sake of time.</div>
About the highreps calf thing...
i have had trouble making my calves grow in my previous progs with low reps.(not HST)

how many reps do you mean? 15 throughout the whole cycle?
 
It will work.

But its hard to beat the good ol:

Squat / Deads
Bench / Dips
Rows / Chins
Shoulder press

With arm and abs iso's.
biggrin.gif
 
Over on bodyrecomp, there's a thread on cluster HST; with an eye to managing fatigue. This is attained by taking the respective weeks rep range and dividing it 2 to give a max cluster rep set.  So in the 15's you'll do 30 reps total, in say 3 sets of 8 &amp; one set of 6 in the early &quot;light&quot; workouts - you need only rest 10-15 secs between sets.
Personally I prefer clustering, 'cos as the poundages go up, you can adjust reps to accomodate not only the load - but available energy (ie long day at work/kids etc)
Psychologically it's also easier as you never fail to complete a set (esp. in the 15's/10's) and you could add in a couple of extra reps if you fancy it
Just one other thing - load. My last cycle was a ten week/24 reps/compounds only/EOD; starting at 70% of my 5rm, hitting my current 5rm at the end of week six - continuing to add weight upto wk10. It was tough, but funnily enough as it was a semi HST/5x5 (Bill Starr) regime - my strength gains kept-up with the weight increments.
One more thing - don't forget to dial in the nutrition
wink.gif
 
<div>
(Owndawg @ Sep. 30 2006,12:53)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(etothepii @ Sep. 29 2006,23:08)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(speedbacker @ Sep. 29 2006,13:55)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(etothepii @ Sep. 29 2006,13:35)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I see six isos and 3 compounds. I'd say try to reverse that ratio.</div>
Eto thanks bro.  I edited the post and switched the rear delt work for overhead pressing.  Would you switch the leg curls for romanian deadlifts?  I would do close-grip benches instead of tricep extensions, but would that be overkill?  Thanks,  I really appreciate it.</div>
Personally, I like tricep stuff. Not sure why... just feels good. I do weighted dips (hits pecs good too) and skull crushers in my program. Lots of guys like the close grip bench press though. Probably a good choice.

About the calves, not sure if it is in something Bryan wrote, or if it is in the pimp my HST book, but you may be better off doing high rep sets throughout the cycle. Something about the constant conditioning of the calves and the fiber type. I cut out calf work this cycle for the sake of time.</div>
About the highreps calf thing...
i have had trouble making my calves grow in my previous progs with low reps.(not HST)

how many reps do you mean? 15 throughout the whole cycle?</div>
From what has been discussed here recently it would seem that rep range is not really the issue. Calf muscle is still muscle whatever its composition. You still need progressive tension overload. How can you stay in a high rep range for the entire cycle unless your loads don't progress significantly? You could start at 30 rep sets and work down to 15 but look at the loads. They will be barely more than you would use walking about (and certainly less than running) where each calf carries your bodyweight! The ROM would be greater but I still don't think this would be the best recipe for progress.

I used to do hi-rep sets and made next to no gains in my calves. Once I read Jules' stuff it became clear that you have to really hammer them and often start a cycle in the 10s, as it is very difficult to lay off using your calves during SD! The trouble with this is that you end up doing lots of heavy, low-rep sets which can take a long time to complete. Also, trying to keep adding weight forever eventually leads to form dropping off and injuries (as happened in my case). I have now learnt never to compromise form for load.

In the case of calf isos, I think that one of the reasons folks don't gain doing low-rep sets is because they don't do enough overall work. One set of 15s is probably not enough to stimulate much calf growth and while 3 sets of 5s would be better due to the increased load and overall work done it still isn't a massive amount for your calves to handle. If you did a cycle where you did 30 reps for calves this would double the work done but it would mean doing 6 sets of 5s at the tail end of the cycle. The way to get this done without waiting around too much would be to superset with another exercise or do single-leg calf raises and just keep alternating. However, 30 reps might be too much work for some folks so it would be wise to experiment with total reps. 20 might be a good place to start (as is used for Max-Stim workouts).

Anyone else got any thoughts?
 
<div>
(the_dark_master @ Sep. 30 2006,15:03)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Over on bodyrecomp, there's a thread on cluster HST; with an eye to managing fatigue. This is attained by taking the respective weeks rep range and dividing it 2 to give a max cluster rep set.  So in the 15's you'll do 30 reps total, in say 3 sets of 8 &amp; one set of 6 in the early &quot;light&quot; workouts - you need only rest 10-15 secs between sets.
Personally I prefer clustering, 'cos as the poundages go up, you can adjust reps to accomodate not only the load - but available energy (ie long day at work/kids etc)
Psychologically it's also easier as you never fail to complete a set (esp. in the 15's/10's) and you could add in a couple of extra reps if you fancy it
Just one other thing - load. My last cycle was a ten week/24 reps/compounds only/EOD; starting at 70% of my 5rm, hitting my current 5rm at the end of week six - continuing to add weight upto wk10. It was tough, but funnily enough as it was a semi HST/5x5 (Bill Starr) regime - my strength gains kept-up with the weight increments.
One more thing - don't forget to dial in the nutrition
wink.gif
</div>
One of the main reasons for the 15s, though, is to get a good burn going. Clustering the reps at this stage would be fine if we are just thinking about load progression and work done but the lactic acid factor would be reduced. I can see the sense in doing what you say from 10s onwards just not for 15s.
 
as a matter of fact speedbacker I find it looks good
smile.gif


if I was being paranoid

b1 Incl Bench
b2 Bent over barbell row
c1 Military press
c2 Mixed grip Chins

but that's just personal preference
smile.gif
looking good Speed
 
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