No of Sets

Thanks again Grunt, now let's see how this goes beyond the paper...

In the 15's microcycle, do you people follow the 2x15 and 1x15 rule, or prefer 2x15 and 2x15? According to calculations of my plan, I would have around 40 minutes workout in 2x15 and 25 minutes in 1x15.

Of course load in bigger, but volume lower. Coming back to the question of keeping volume or not... However, in the case of the 15's, because time allows it and I don't think that at this point I will be too tired, isn't it better to stay on the 2x15 in the second week?
 
Of course load in bigger, but volume lower. Coming back to the question of keeping volume or not... However, in the case of the 15's, because time allows it and I don't think that at this point I will be too tired, isn't it better to stay on the 2x15 in the second week?
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To keep relatively constant volume my preference was to do 1x15, 2x10 and 3x5 for as long as I could dropping to 2x5 and eventually 1x5 when things got really heavy. At the volume most HST workouts use I would prefer to stay at as high a volume as my body can handle and still recover from between workouts. When the weights get very heavy you may have to drop the volume or split your workout into AM/PM. If you do drop the volume I would start cutting isolation exercises first beginning with the ones that have the most overlap with your compound movements and are not a lagging body part.

In the 15's microcycle, do you people follow the 2x15 and 1x15 rule, or prefer 2x15 and 2x15? According to calculations of my plan, I would have around 40 minutes workout in 2x15 and 25 minutes in 1x15.
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As long as you keep the workouts to under an hour your doing good. So it’s really a matter of preference and like I said above my was 1x15, 2x10 and 3x5.
 
I am newer to HST but have been lifting for 5.5 years. I am mostly an ectomorph and traditional workouts net gained me 8lbs in 5years. I am currently starting my 4th cycle of HST and have gained 16lbs in 6 months.

My workout partner and I have augmented the program so that we rep out til failure and only do 1 set of each exercise. We almost always hit failure at 15, 10, 5 when we are on days 6, 12, and 18 the 15RM, 10RM and 5RM days and are increasing the load everyday. Our reps drop by about one every day sometimes they don't drop as we are repping til failure.

HERE IS MY QUESTION: As I have read some of the threads on this sight i have noticed constantly that it is advised to NOT go til failure. Are we severely hampering our gains with our augmentation?
 
Schpook said:
I am newer to HST but have been lifting for 5.5 years. I am mostly an ectomorph and traditional workouts net gained me 8lbs in 5years. I am currently starting my 4th cycle of HST and have gained 16lbs in 6 months.

My workout partner and I have augmented the program so that we rep out til failure and only do 1 set of each exercise. We almost always hit failure at 15, 10, 5 when we are on days 6, 12, and 18 the 15RM, 10RM and 5RM days and are increasing the load everyday. Our reps drop by about one every day sometimes they don't drop as we are repping til failure.

HERE IS MY QUESTION: As I have read some of the threads on this sight i have noticed constantly that it is advised to NOT go til failure. Are we severely hampering our gains with our augmentation?
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Are you really training to absolute failure? I 'rep out' quite a bit, but I always stop when I think I could only do 1 more rep. I consider this 'failure', but I'm not forcing reps, nor am I repping until I actually fail the rep and have to be assisted - so I'm not really going to failure. Training to failure is hard on your CNS. Recovery will suffer. Are you recovering okay?
 
Yes I am repping to failure and pretty much always finish each set with one forced/assisted rep. My spotter and I have been working out together for the whole 5.5 years and we really trust each other. My recovery doesn't seem to be suffering as we are both able to handle the increase in load every workout and only dropping one rep on average. We always hit our RM on the days we are supposed to. I am just wondering if by doing this I am sacrificing some growth? It is absolutely exhausting but we love the system and feel very motivated to continue.
 
Schpook said:
Yes I am repping to failure and pretty much always finish each set with one forced/assisted rep. My spotter and I have been working out together for the whole 5.5 years and we really trust each other. My recovery doesn't seem to be suffering as we are both able to handle the increase in load every workout and only dropping one rep on average. We always hit our RM on the days we are supposed to. I am just wondering if by doing this I am sacrificing some growth? It is absolutely exhausting but we love the system and feel very motivated to continue.
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We are all an experiment of 1, tbh. If it works for you, it work for you, ya know?

I don't know if anyone can answer your question with absolute authority, although many may have opinions about the matter. If it's working and you love it, maybe you want to just keep everything like it is. If for some reason, you'd like to find out if training below failure will give you more growth - try it for yourself and see.

That's the only way to know for sure - but for the experiment to be sound you'll have to keep track of everything and make sure no other variables change. That's the tricky part. If anything else changes (diet, sleep, etc.) or if you don't have a lot of solid data on the growth you've experienced from your current protocol, you will never really know how much of a difference it made.

But with that said, I'll repeat that I wouldn't change my system if I am getting good results and really enjoying my method. I think enjoying what you do in the gym is the most important part. That's what will keep you motivated and weight training is about the long term.
 
Thanks for the input. I have been keeping pretty good records of everything along the way because I'm just that type of person and am glad now to hear that it will pay off. I talked to my workout partner today and next round we are going to try out just doing 15, 10 and 5 reps on those weeks. Maybe two sets on the first week of each microcycle if one set just doesn't feel effective enough. It's good to have a little variety as well to keep motivated so maybe we'll switch each cycle or try some other modifications.

But for me to gain 16lbs in 6 months is HUGE. I'm 6'4" and 218 right now and am getting alot of comments from people that they can see a difference. I've had to buy a few new shirts as well. I'm so glad I stumbled upon this site. It's the best find of my life. What convinced me to try it out was that Bryan was basing it on science and he wasn't selling anything. He was just giving away the program for FREE. Everyone else makes promises BUT you have to buy their product first.
 
Bryan Haycock said:
Because HST is based on the principle that load is the primary determinant of size, I like to keep as many other variables constant and focus on increasing the load over time. With this I prefer keeping the total number of reps as constant as I can while decreasing the number of reps per set. I just increase the number of sets to keep total reps constant.

I voted for increasing the number of sets as reps decrease. As sets increase, I also don't force myself to always complete a specific number of reps. If my strength is dropping yet I want to complete more reps I'll simply do as many as I am able regardless of what rep range I am supposed to hit. I stop just short of failure most of the time but not always.
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Considering the date of this post (mid-2005), which is the more up-to-date recommendation: this, or 1-2 sets per exercise, as I've been doing? Please note that the part marked in bold would suggest doing 2 sets during 15s, 3 sets during 10s, and 5-6 sets during 5s in order to provide a pretty much constant number of reps.
 
In order to use “vanilla” HST most people don’t do 2x15x, 3x10, because as you point out that would mean 6x5s if they want to keep the total reps fairly constant. Usually they do 1x15s, 2x10s and 3x15s which is what I think he meant when saying “I just increase the number of sets to keep the total reps constant. Note that in the bold part in your quote is does say “ I prefer keeping the total number of reps as constant as I can . . .”

Sets in HST are sort of an out-of-date concept to start with. They are just a convenient way to organize reps to get a desired volume or better yet Time-Under-Tension (TUT) to stimulate growth. The key is still progressive loading which when the weights get very heavy may likely cause a drop in total reps just to enable you to keep going. The rule of thumb I’ve seen expressed most often is to try and keep the total number of reps to at least 15-20 to ensure enough TUT. But keeping the number of reps constant is not a requirement just a guideline.

I don’t even use sets anymore. I’ve switch to dong Max-stim and Myo-reps which count doing “quality” (or better said “fully activated”) reps rather than arbitrarily organizing the reps into sets.
 
for me depends of the exercise choosen. With squat and deadlift it's hard to do 2x15; with press and leg curl is more easily . I don't exercise with machine 'cause I work at home gym; so for me the ideal combination is:

every 6 workout of 15 rep 1 set

first 3 workout of 10 rep 2 set
second 3 workout of 10 rep 1 set

first 2 workout of 5 rep 3 set
second 2 workout of 5 rep 2 set
third 2 workout of 5 rep 1 set ( we are at 5rm so 1 set is perfect)
 
I think it is best to listen to your body. This is a fine art and takes time to develop, however having said this it is important to stick to the principals of hypertrophy. I would suggest you try and keep the reps constant as stated in previous posts but when form begins to be compromised it is more important to complete good quality sets over quantity.
 
supermannothing said:
I voted for other. I actually do many sets per bodypart. I stop once I've hit 90-120secs of total tension per muscle. Im glad Bryan chose to increase sets over time because as reps decrease, so does time under pressure.
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Not normally, since reps don't decrease at will, but because of heavier weights. When doing BP I might be able to do 10RM at roughly twice my best speed at 5RM, so time under load stays roughly the same.
 
A simple and very effective way to keep total time under tension, and hence work, constant is by adding a metabolic stimulus with a back-off or dropset during 5s. So 2-3 sets of 5 + 1-2 sets of 10-15 reps with a very short rest. This will enhance the effect of the 5s immensely while still limiting CNS stress sufficient enough to keep burnout at bay with the heavy loads. You could also do 2 workouts with 5s and 1 workout with 10-15s per week, as in a daily undulating periodization setup.
 
How important is rest between sets? Does it matter (size-wise) if you rest 2-5 minutes, 5-10 minutes, 6 hours, 24 hours, or 48 hours?
 
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Yes, it does. The whole premise of Myo-reps is that to maintain a high fiber recruitment you need shorter rest periods. Outside of that, not only Work (as in load*sets*reps) matter but also the time frame so doing the same workout for progressively shorter amount of time brings about its own set of adaptions. Transient adaptions (work capacity), though, so you eventually need to increase loading.
 
Blade said:
Yes, it does. The whole premise of Myo-reps is that to maintain a high fiber recruitment you need shorter rest periods. Outside of that, not only Work (as in load*sets*reps) matter but also the time frame so doing the same workout for progressively shorter amount of time brings about its own set of adaptions. Transient adaptions (work capacity), though, so you eventually need to increase loading.
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But I read somewhere (maybe it was you) that myo-reps are particularly good at relatively higher reps (8-10 up), and there's little use for them at 5 rep loads since all fibers are recruited from the start anyway. So let me rephrase my previous question: considering one is at his 5RM loads, doing 2 sets almost to failure 3 times a week, will he be better off increasing the # of sets to 3, and decreasing frequency to twice per week? Total weekly volume remains the same, it's per-session volume that changes.
 
Blade, in terms of myo-reps: how do these make use of metabolic and mechanic pathways? Mechanic pathways (high load, stretch) provide the most growth stimulus, metabolic a little.
 
Read this: http://borgefagerli.com/myo-reps-in-english/

HST_Rihad said:
But I read somewhere (maybe it was you) that myo-reps are particularly good at relatively higher reps (8-10 up), and there's little use for them at 5 rep loads since all fibers are recruited from the start anyway. So let me rephrase my previous question: considering one is at his 5RM loads, doing 2 sets almost to failure 3 times a week, will he be better off increasing the # of sets to 3, and decreasing frequency to twice per week? Total weekly volume remains the same, it's per-session volume that changes.
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Yes, I meant to do 2 regular sets and a third high-rep Myo-rep set. I could go either way, 2 days of 5s and one day of high rep work, or just 2 days of 5s + high rep work - it would depend on your volume/load tolerance and what you have been doing. Try and see for yourself.
 
Considering a 2-5 minute rest is taken, is the second working set more effective than the first?
If not, why am I getting this strong idea that two sets done 2-5 minutes apart are better than if done on 2 different days?
Is it because their cumulative effect on muscle growth, which has to be attained within a short time frame, is what matters?
 
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