Strength progress in HST question

[cookieman9000]

I have a few questions regarding strength progress in HST:

1. Assuming I'm doing HST and growing properly, how soon/often should I see strength gains?

3. Is it likely I'll see all of my strength gains in the low rep weeks, rather than high rep weeks?

2. Is it possible theoretically to keep on growing and growing on HST, but never get any stronger? Because from what I understood, HST is just a cycle of you making micro trauma in your muscles. Then un-adapting to allow additional micro trauma from weights you can already use and repeat
So from that it almost seems like you can grow but never get stronger.

 

[Totentanz]

1. Depends on diet. For most, RMs increase every cycle. If you're underfed, maybe not.

3. Probably.

2. Unlikely

 

[cookieman9000]

1. Depends on diet. For most, RMs increase every cycle. If you're underfed, maybe not.

3. Probably.

2. Unlikely

I just thought of something else. During the cycle block where you use your 5rm for two weeks. Am I likely to experience strength gains within those 2 weeks (not after), because doing 5rm every 2 days will most likely be hard for my CNS.

 

[Old and Grey]

You can get stronger without getting appreciably bigger but you cannot get appreciably bigger without getting stronger.

We do not continually repeat the same weights each cycle. We continually increase our RM's. If we didn't, we would not grow appreciably.

 

[gbglifter]

I just thought of something else. During the cycle block where you use your 5rm for two weeks. Am I likely to experience strength gains within those 2 weeks (not after), because doing 5rm every 2 days will most likely be hard for my CNS.

You should be able to increase your 5rm during that time but you need to play it by ear. If you feel that your taxing your cns too much then you can cut that block short if you want. You just need to judge how you feel.

 

[AderynGlas]

I just thought of something else. During the cycle block where you use your 5rm for two weeks. Am I likely to experience strength gains within those 2 weeks (not after), because doing 5rm every 2 days will most likely be hard for my CNS.

You're not doing your 5RM every 2 days, you'll start at 75-80% RM and work up over the 2 weeks, therefore you shouldn't over tax you CNS until the last 1-2 work outs. Then you'll enter SD and it'll recover.

A the others said, with proper diet you'll increase your RM's every cycle, hopefully.

 

[Old and Grey]

You're not doing your 5RM every 2 days, you'll start at 75-80% RM and work up over the 2 weeks, therefore you shouldn't over tax you CNS until the last 1-2 work outs. Then you'll enter SD and it'll recover.

I suspect he is talking about a period of extended 5 RM's.

And yes, Cookie, you should see strength gains as long as you give it 100% effort and eat correctly to allow for protein synthesis. Unlikely, but still possible for newbies, if you are in a cutting caloric deficit.

 

[HST_Rihad]

1. Assuming I'm doing HST and growing properly, how soon/often should I see strength gains?

Strength gains aren't wholly related to mass gains. You can grow stronger in an exercise while slowly leaning out. I have, lately, in rack pulls, deads, leg presses, BB shrugs.

2. Is it possible theoretically to keep on growing and growing on HST, but never get any stronger? Because from what I understood, HST is just a cycle of you making micro trauma in your muscles. Then un-adapting to allow additional micro trauma from weights you can already use and repeat
So from that it almost seems like you can grow but never get stronger.

Most likely the answer is yes, but you need to eat enough for that (not overeat to gain in body weight daily, but still enough to grow on a month by month basis). Here are my bench press & chest increases:

May'12 87x5 108cm
Mar'12 85x5 107.5cm
Dec'11 82x5 106cm
Oct'11 82x4 105cm
Jul'11 80x5 104cm
Mar'11 77x4 102cm

At first it may seem that there always was a corresponding strength increase for an increase in size, but note in 82x4 -> 82x5 no load increased, but added 1cm in size.