Questions regarding HST

Thanks for the responses. I meant to say I do cardio only 3 days a week. I do cardio at around 6am and then I go back at night and workout at 7:30pm. Thats probably enough time for my body to rest during the day...
 
I am currently dieting pretty hard and trying to lose weight, so what will the HST do for me? It will cut me up, correct? I would have to eat more for it to add bulk?
 
HST during a cut will help with retaining the Lean Muscle Mass, the effect of the frequent workouts will help with energy expenditure but the largest part of the negative energy balance will be diet and cardio.
 
Un-Scientific answer:

When I started HST I ran 3 to 7 miles on the off days and the weekends and did vanilla HST m-w-f. I droped about 20 lbs and gained muslce. Sure I would have gained more muscle if I had been bulking. But the running burned alot of callories and the HST burned alot of callories. And the HST still maintained and built muscle.

Robert :D
 
Im back with more questions.  :D
#1 I am thinking about two two sets for compound exercises (squat, bench, bent over rows, dumbbell presses) and only 1 set for isolation movements (biceps, triceps) Is there anything wrong with this?
#2 If I decide to do the dropsets on my last two weeks, what kind of weight do I work with? THe 15rm weight? And how much do I strip down to?

#3 Is it an absolute neccessity that I weight two weeks for SD after I find my maxes? One week is not enough? Im itching to get this thing started.

Thanks
 
# 1 seems fine

# 2 You are going for a burn. So anything that gets a burn works. Vicious has suggested other techniques than drop sets in his customizing HST thread. The trouble with drop sets is it is hard to strip the weight fast enough. Partials are a better way to go. One thing I do is my 15 rep weight untill I get a burn (this may be 20 reps) and if the burn is not good enough. I drop the weight about 10-20% and have at it again --untill the burn is there.

#3 The minimum for SD is 9 to 10 days. Short of that it is just a rest and the muscles are not de conditioned. 14 days is a good number. This may be the most difficult part of HST.

Bob
 
Thanks Bob, but do you think in time I will have to start doing two sets for my isolation movements?
Another thing, earlier in this thread we discussed that you should not workout to failure on your 2nd set unless you are on your max week. Does the same hold true for the first set? Do we always try to lift to failure on your first set no matter what week we are on? Also, how about if we are only doing 1 set for a certain exercise, do keep going until we get that 15th, 10th, or 5th rep?
Thanks for your time.
 
BigL, this is what I did on my 2nd cycle and it worked pretty good. For the 15s, I did 1 set of each compound and did not do my isolations at all. During the 10s, I did 2 sets of compounds, 1 set of each isolation. Then I did the same during the 5s, except I would try to do a third set for each compound if I felt up to it.
It worked really well.
It is true that you do not want to hit failure on the second or third set. What you can do if you get close to failure is just terminate the set then. You could even go to clustering if you really wanted to. Just don't go to failure.

As for SD - yes it is hard, but remember that the purpose is to decondition your muscles so they will respond to the lighter weights. So basically the longer you SD, the better your muscles will respond. Is that incentive enough? It sounds strange, but that extra week of SD that you want to skip can actually make a significant impact on your gains.
 
Thanks again guys, you're great.

More questions
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#1 Is important to choose the proper increments that you will increase you weight with every week? I would like to increase my weight for every exercise by 5 pounds, is that a problem or should I increase my weight more for the compound exercises?

#2 After I finish my first HST cycle I will take 2 weeks off for SD. Then IF I want to start a second cycle I have to find my maxes again then take off another 2 weeks for SD?

#3 Can I do abs after each HST workout?

Thanks
 
The increments could be as low as 2.5 and as high as ??, this depends on the number of increments in each group of RM's plus your strength in each movement. Generally the larger compound movements can handle larger increments.

Find your maxes as the last three workouts before SD, or simply add 5 to 10 lbs to all your ending weights.

Sure, do abs as you wish.
 
I will be increasing my weight each workout. Im worried if I do 10 pound increments on the squat that my first couple workouts will be too light, which is why I was wondering if its ok to use 5 pound increments for every exercise.

Thanks
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (BigL @ May 25 2005,4:54)]I will be increasing my weight each workout. Im worried if I do 10 pound increments on the squat that my first couple workouts will be too light, which is why I was wondering if its ok to use 5 pound increments for every exercise.
Thanks
Click to expand...
5 lb increments will probably work, but in a muscle group like the legs or back, you might be better off going with larger increments and duplicating the workouts.
 
Cool, i guess Ill try 10 pound increments.

Is it OK to try and find you maxes two days in a row? I went yesterday and did my 10 rep maxes and I would like to go back today and do my 5's because I wont be able to workout Friday-Monday.
 
If you've eaten enough and slept/rested well I would think it's ok. If you feel weak from yesterday's workout then I would hold off, you want to be a strong as possible to ID RMs.

If you find during your cycle that due to the back to back RM tests your RM's were a little weak you can always up the weight a bit to compensate, in your final workouts.
 
There is a point where deconditoining becomes more of an atrophy issue, but I have seen evidence that up to 4 weeks can be done with little loss in contractile tissue.

But unless there is a reason to go 4 weeks, 9 to 14 days generally is enough.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (BigL @ May 31 2005,1:23)]I will only SD for about 3 more days, so it be about 18 days in total.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Sorry BigL - I'm confused.  :confused:
If you were finding your rep maxes on May 26th - You should not be starting your 1st day of 15's until something like June 6th at the earliest.  Finding your rep-maxes is not part of SD'ing. Maybe I just mis-read what you are doing?
Good Luck
Firm
 
Firm, I would have no problme starting next Monday on the 6th, but I thought you should try and SD for two weeks? So since my last day of finding my maxes was on May 26th, and I want to start my workout on Monday I figured Id start on the 13th, which is about 18 days of SD. Which is why I wanted to know if it were OK to SD for a little over 14 days.

Thanks.
 
You have it right, I didn't understand. It's been my experience that the longer my SD ( to a point) the better my cycle. I've been doing HST for almost 3 yrs now and I'm finding that I almost need more than 12 days SD to make significant gains. So I would say you are getting off to a great start with a 14-18 day SD.

Good Luck
Firm
 
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