Started 15's...a few ?'s and problems

S

sandmanss

New Member
I am at the start of my 2nd week of 15's. I originally was doing 2 sets on all lifts however now I am having trouble. There are some lifts that I can barely get my 1st set of 15. I am almost at failure on the 1st set. The 2nd set I either fall short of 15 reps or reach failure upon 15 reps. My comprehension of HST is that I should only be going to failure ONCE every 2 weeks. I perform 11 exercises per workout. Should I drop a few lifts, or just perform 1 set instead of 2. My lifts are as follows:

Squat
Leg ext
Bench
Rows
Military
Machine Pullovers
Shrugs
Calf Raises
Tri Ext
Bicep Curl
Crunches
 
Hmm sounds like you were a little bit off on your weights. Did you test your 15 rm first? I'm assuming no. Shame :mad: j/k
You can do a few things here. One you can stop and find your true 15 rm now and then (SD) for a week and then start over (I recommend this since it sounds like your 10's and 5's are going to be messed up too). Or you can stop increasing the weight and stay at this 15 rm until you finish this final week. The 15's are really just to strengthen the tendons and get the muscles ready for the heavier weights. You are basically just trying to flush your muscles with lactic acid. The progressive weight increase isn't as important as it is in the 10's and 5's.
It's also ok if you don't finish your 2nd set. The 1st one should be done correctly though. If you can't finish your 2nd set, you can do something I believe is called clustering, where you do say 8 reps (because thats all you can do) then rest and do the remaining 7 reps.
I hope this helps
 
All I can say is that the deconditioning really worked! I did my 15, 10, 5 rep maxes and then took 9 days off. My maxes were accurate...I could have even added a few lbs on some. I was thinking about just doing 1 set? Would this have a negative or positive impact on my progress?
 
I wouldn't worry about not hitting 15 reps on your second set, just keep going until your reps start to slow & stop (thereby avoiding failure).

If you're in the second week of 15s and you're close to failure on the first step then just repeat your weights until the last couple of sessions when you can increase it so the last one or two you're doing 15 pretty much to failure...this may be a weight that's less than your originally planned 15rm but this really doesn't matter. In the 10s I would just progress from the weight you finished the 15s on (so your first 10s workout may be with your originally planned 15rm max) and carry on from there.

The main thing is that generally the weights are going up and you're not training to failure (apart from maybe the last one or two sessions of 15s/10s etc), you don't have to hit your maxes at the end of each microcycle. When I change exercises for a new one I don't establish rep maxes, I just start from a reasonably low weight I think will still stimulate a growth response (i.e. not ridiculously light) and increase the weight every session, if I end up dong 12 reps on the last day of 15s it doesn't matter at all, I might repeat weights for a couple of sessions if the number of reps I can do is going down too quickly just to keep all exercises at the same point in the cycle but it's not a big issue.

Personally I don't see any reason to sd and start again having testing your new maxes, the 15/10/5s is not an essential part of hst, it's just an easy framework to plan your workouts around.

Hope that helps

Cheers

Rob
 
well i feel better now that I am hearing this. Thanks for the help guys. So I will continue my program and once the tempo slows I will stop the set instead of going to failure in pursuit of 15.
 
sandmanss

Purpose of 15's is to build lactic acid into joints and muscles and therefore create the conditioning for later much heavier weights, so the second set aims at getting the volume if needed, most of us keep 15's at one set specially if you don't rest much in between. :D

Then if you do the second set once the rep slows down even if you're only at 10, STOP! the 1st set is teh work set, the 2nd one is more of a metabolic stress inducer!

If you feel that your targets were right, then avoid hitting failure every time as you'll soon burn out!

Keep that for the last day
happy.gif
because even then you might not go to total failure, it often happens that one gets stronger quick if eating properly!

Hope this helps!
 
I'm a great fan of the HST principles, but I think that even though one should be carefull not to "tweak" the principles too much, you don't have to be manic about them: the most important feature is to do an increase in the waights over time (but don't do failure/forced reps), there's nothing "magic" 'bout the number 15 - 14 can do it as well. Hereby not saying that in the first microcycle, you should be doing only 5 reps, just saying: don't worry about the excact number
 
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