Newbie beginning HST. Some questions concerning sets vs. clusters and zig-zagging

S

sebbemann

New Member
Hi!My name is Sebastian and I come form Norway. I am starting my 1st cycle of HST tomorrow, and some questions have rose after reading vigorously on the forum pages for 5 hours.I originally drew up an 8 week plan of 15/10/5s and another 5, but with drop sets. The idea was to do 1 set of 15s, 2 sets of 10s and 4 sets og 5s (per excercise, two excercises on major muscle groups). To anyone who is really not any good at math, that means 15, 20, and 20 reps per excercise. After alot of reading on the subject though, I understand that one can also do the target rep as a cluster (from what I understand you lift the desired weight about 2 reps short of failure, take a short rest of about 30 sec, and then repeat until you reavh the target rep). If my assumtions are correct this will solve the issue with the first workouts of a microcycle being too easy and give a more "hypertrophic" effect? I guess my question is: shold i do standard sets like I originally planned, or should I cluster?Another question, this one regarding zig - zagging. I am really struggling to figure this one out, what is the scientific answer? I've read severeal opinions about this, some say zag - zagging is bad, some say it is good, others say it doesn't matter. My concern is how productive zig - zagging is on excercises where load is low (iso excercises) or excercises ehere there is little difference in RM. I.e, my strength, when it comes to low reps is really bad. i.e my 20RM for squats is 95 kg (210 lbs), but my 5RM is only 115 kg (253 lbs). If I follow the principle of increasing lead 5 % every workout of each micro cycle, I will be squatting weight that is lower than my 15RM in 4 out of 6 workouts in the 10 rep cycle! Who can this be productive??I appologies if my concerns seems irrelevant or my questions has been answered in previous posts. Many thanks in advance for replies :)Best regards, Sebastian
 
Last edited:
Hi Sebastian and welcome to the forum.

If you are new to lifting you might want to stick with a simple 15/10/5 routine for your first cycle. However, if you already have some lifting experience the you might want to give the “target reps by clustering” or Myo-reps as they are called a try. If you haven’t already here is the best explanation of them in English:

http://www.clutchfitness.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9363

I believe that Blade is from Norway and has or had a site of his own which probably goes into more detail than the old post I linked to. From my second cycle until I switched to the Westside Powerlifting routine I used Myo-reps all the time and loved them. They worked great for me and were a big time saver. I may go back to using them but for now I’m trying to strictly follow the Westside routine until I see how it works for me before I start tweaking it with things like Myo-reps.

I can’t say if zigzagging is helpful or not but I didn’t like it which is one of the reasons I switched to a number of target reps and started using Myo-reps rather than traditional sets/reps.
 
Thanks alot! I'll be starting my first HST cycle with MR later this evening, as it seems to be more effective than the standard 15/10/5. It also takes car of the zigzagging issue! :DOne quick question, though: with MR, do you follow a complete linear progression in loads and increase the load with 5 % every workout?
 
Yes you should use linear progression but for some lifts it’s not going to be possible to increase the weight 5% every workout for 6-8 weeks. In those cases try to increase 5% every week. Repeated Bout Effect will not be a problem if you only repeat the same weights a few times.

I think Myo-reps are a great choice, just remember you really have to push yourself to within a rep or two of failure every activation set and Myo-rep cluster. It could take a couple weeks to get used to doing them but once you do they are much more efficient IMO than standard sets and reps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top