Progressive load

R

ratty

New Member
Hi guys

For the majority of cycles i have increased the weight every week e.g.

week1 - 40kg (3 workouts)
week2 - 45kg (3 workouts) etc..

why? because it is easier to follow and complete for me.

Now i have not had good gains like the ones posted in the 'HST gains section'. I accept untill recently i have not counted calories but now i know roughly how much food i need to eat to put on weight.

My question is this, have any of you completed HST vanilla - as in increasing the weight every workout, and completed another cycle like i have above?

any difference in results?

I would like to know if increasing the weight every workout is better than every 3 workouts and why? since you zig zig anyway...

Anyway if some guys with a good understanding could educate me a little that would be great!
 
Ratty, as long as you are increasing the load from A to B over the course of the cycle, it won't matter a whole lot whether you repeat loads a few times, zig-zag or increment each workout (linear progression). Your start and end points will be the same. What might decide whether or not you manage to get from A to B is how much fatigue you build up along the way. If you get too fatigued along the way you'll need to incorporate some fatigue management techniques like zig-zagging along he way.

Managing nutrition is vital to make good gains. If you aren't gaining weight over the course of a cycle then your cals definitely need to be increased to enable your body to build new muscle tissue. (I'm assuming you are not carrying a high %age of body fat.)

You'll make your best gains over the first year or so and then it's a case of diminishing returns - but returns none the less. Stick at it and get your diet dialled in for gains.

All the best.
 
Thanks for the response lol my diet definately needs "dialling in" however im not too far away!

old and grey - ok you chose to increase the load every workout but there is no explanation..would you care to ellaborate like lol has.
 
OK. If you ain't increasing the load via increased weight, number of reps, tempo, etc. you ain't progressing. While I agree with LOL that you can, on occassion, repeat a workout, if you make a steady habit of it, your ability to grow will top out. If you repeat workout A for 12 weeks and then do one session of workout B, you will not make very much progress as compared to progressively overloading muscles over the 12 week period.

However, as LOL points out, if you don't take your nutrition somewhat seriously, you might as well sit on a bar stool and watch ESPN instead of pumping iron.        
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Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that you could use the same load for almost the entire cycle (I've edited my initial post to make it a bit clearer). But within each mesocycle it's perfectly acceptable to repeat workouts and still get a PS response. With lighter loads the repeated bout effect (RPE) will catch up to you more quickly than at the heavier end of the cycle; so, if you are going to repeat workouts more than a few times, it would be better to do so during 5s.
 
Sorry to say I can't tell you I've done both the vanilla program and your "weekly weight increase" program.

I can tell you though that I used smaller weight increments when I first started on some exercises i.e. 2.5kg and that worked for me. I was a little worried at first that my muscle would not be able to feel the small increase, but they did, it's all relative. If you don't have smaller plates I suggest you buy some and try them out.

One thing that I do believe did make a difference for me was "concentration" during a lift. It's quite easy to fall into a routine and just go through the motions. Once I remebered to really concentrated on each lift, focusing on the target muscle (i still have to remind myself of these every now and then) I'm sure I made better progress. For me it's also important to get the right attitude going throughout a session, i.e. a bit of aggression (towards the weights!!
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) you know be "psyched" or whatever you want to call it. It's just a way to make sure you are pushing yourself each workout. With this in mind you could try increasing the weight every 2nd session (without switching to smaller plates), if you can't do the full number of reps, just take a short rest/pause and knock off the remaining reps (cluster) as this will in effect increase your intensity/focus or whatever you want to call it as you will have to push harder.
(it may mess your routine up a little but you can adjust this eg do 4 sessions of 10's, 4 sessions of 8's and 4sessions of 5's, the main thing is to increase the weight regularly and train each muscle 3x a week)

Of course you need to get your diet right & plenty of sleep also.
 
Also, I'd recommend you use an intra workout supplement, that is one you take during your workout, if you don't use one already. Choose one with creatine (multiple types) though I'd avoid formulas with NO in them personally. My favourite is SizeOn though I've also used IntraVol, I've found them to be really effective (though don't expect miracles!), when I ran out recently I was unable to complete my full workout, though it was probably a mental thing as well.
 
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