rep range

[big_willy_williams]

Ive done few cycles of hst over the past year. I've always had good gains during the 15's , moderate gains during the 10's and never gain during the 5's. I've taken a high calorie high protein diet during these cycles. I gain weight the whole way through the cycle but after the tens its all just fat. My diet is pretty much the same the whole way through. I don't feel like i'm really doing anything during the 5's

My excercises are pretty standard with one set per excercise. I do two compound excercises for the larger body parts and one excercise for bi's and tri's.

I was just thinking maybe i have a majority of slow twitch muscle fibres and should focus on high reps. Or should i just increse the number of sets per micro cycle.
This is contrary to what i've heard though that you need to train with low reps and low volume

If someone who knows could help me out that would be cool coz it will save me a lot of hassle.

Cheers

 

[jwbond]

how many sets are you doing in the 15s, 10s, 5s?

it is possible that you are seeing a big difference in glycogen when going down to lower reps.

 

[style]

Shoot for 15-20 reps throughout the cycle.

 

[Lol]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> I don't feel like i'm really doing anything during the 5's </div>
Are you really pushing yourself during 5s? If you are only doing one set per exercise for 5s then try increasing the volume during 5s to 2 sets (or, as a lot of us do, 3). After you have done three sets of deads (or 15 reps) with your 5RM load you should be pretty much unable to do anything else for about 10 mins!  

 Seriously, the 5s should be hard. After my 5RM w/o and during the post-5s I feel as if I have been steam-rollered.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> I gain weight the whole way through the cycle but after the tens its all just fat</div>
What do you do to measure this? And how much weight are you gaining during 5s compared to 15s and 10s?

As jw pointed out, it could be that you are making some gains during 5s but that you are losing out on the amount of work that's being done so glycogen storage is dropping off. You're body only starts to store more glycogen again once you start a new cycle and get back to the high reps (and increased work).

Take squats as an example and look at how much work you are doing during 15s compared to 5s.  You can approximate this ratio by ignoring the distance the weight is moved each rep (as this will be constant if your form stays the same) and just multiplying the weight by the number of reps done. Eg. during 15s you might use 100kg so you would shift 1500kg. During 5s you might use 145kg so you would shift 725kg. Ratio approx 2:1. So during 15s with 100kg you would be doing twice as much work as during 5s with 145kg. That's one reason why you might find you get better results if you do more sets during 5s.