Thought: Evening out Volume by mixing up the Max Weight Days & Exercises

A

afeudale

New Member
Hey Guys,

I did HST training a few years back with good results. Then went back to exercise splitting for a few years. Now back to HST again, currently setup as:

- Mon-Wed-Fri
- 10 Exercises (full body)
- 1 Set Each
- Max weights on Friday
- Different Reps each week (i.e. week 1 - 15s, week 2 - 12s, week 3 - 10s, etc)

If we say that total volume on Friday is say "1.0", then volume on Monday would be say "0.6" and Wednesday "0.8". I'm wondering if it might be better to even out the volumes so each day is "0.8".

One way to do this would be to spread out the "max weight" days throughout the week, for example:

Monday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Max Weight
Exercise 4 - 7 Medium weight
Exercise 8 - 10 Lowest Weight

Wednesday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Lowest Weight
Exercise 4 - 7 Max Weight
Exercise 8 - 10 Medium Weight

Friday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Medium Weight
Exercise 4 - 7 Lowest Weight
Exercise 8 - 10 Max Weight

Total volume for the week remains the same and you don't have to worry about "burning out" on the max day with ALL max sets in one session.

Any thoughts on this?
 
afeudale said:
Hey Guys,

I did HST training a few years back with good results. Then went back to exercise splitting for a few years. Now back to HST again, currently setup as:

- Mon-Wed-Fri
- 10 Exercises (full body)
- 1 Set Each
- Max weights on Friday
- Different Reps each week (i.e. week 1 - 15s, week 2 - 12s, week 3 - 10s, etc)

If we say that total volume on Friday is say "1.0", then volume on Monday would be say "0.6" and Wednesday "0.8". I'm wondering if it might be better to even out the volumes so each day is "0.8".

One way to do this would be to spread out the "max weight" days throughout the week, for example:

Monday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Max Weight
Exercise 4 - 7 Medium weight
Exercise 8 - 10 Lowest Weight

Wednesday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Lowest Weight
Exercise 4 - 7 Max Weight
Exercise 8 - 10 Medium Weight

Friday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Medium Weight
Exercise 4 - 7 Lowest Weight
Exercise 8 - 10 Max Weight

Total volume for the week remains the same and you don't have to worry about "burning out" on the max day with ALL max sets in one session.

Any thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

Let's say exericse 1 is squat. I wouldn't want to do my max weight for 15 reps on Monday, then cut that weight drastically for the next session, then only bring it up a little for Friday. The progressive load trend should be continually climbing. The 1st 3 exercises/muscle groups would suffer the most from this strategy, I would imagine.

You could look at it like zig-zagging, but the zig zag only really occurs in the vanilla HST template twice for maybe 3 - 4 sessions of working with less weight than previously.

In this arrangment, you are zig-zagging every week and dropping weight within the same rep range, if I am reading this correctly.

It might be better to stagger your rep ranges or something so that the trend is continually upward.

Or maybe just do your 1 rep range per week idea for 3 weeks, then do a deload week, then 3 more weeks (how many weeks would this be?) of progressive loading.
 
Hi whistledixie, thanks for the reply :-)

Good point - I didn't think of that....A solution might be to just stagger the days so that you are always going forward in the mesocycle, but each group of 3 exercises is staggered with the others, for example:

Week 1:
Monday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Low weight x 15s
Exercise 4 - 7 Medium weight x 15's
Exercise 8 - 10 Max weight x 15s

Wednesday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Med weight x 15s
Exercise 4 - 7 Max weight x 15s
Exercise 8 - 10 Low weight x 12s

Friday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Max weight x 15s
Exercise 4 - 7 Lowest weight x 12s
Exercise 8 - 10 Medium weight x 12s

Week 2:
Monday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Low weight x 12s
Exercise 4 - 7 Medium weight x 12's
Exercise 8 - 10 Max weight x 12s

Wednesday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Med weight x 12s
Exercise 4 - 7 Max weight x 12s
Exercise 8 - 10 Low weight x 10s

Friday:
Exercise 1 - 3 Max weight x 12s
Exercise 4 - 7 Lowest weight x 10s
Exercise 8 - 10 Medium weight x 10s
--------------
I can't find evidence that the progressive load trend is continually climbing in HST. I've used both the original calculator and the newest spreadsheet posted and they all seem to calculate "2 steps forward and 1 step back" in terms of loading. For example, I did a test sample with Squats:

week 1: 130, 140 150 (max is 150)
week 2: 160, 170, 180 (max is 180)
week 3: 135, 150, 165 (3 x lesser weights)
week 4: 180, 195, 210 (max is 210)
week 5: 170, 185, 200 (3 x lesser weights)
week 6: 215, 230, 245 (max is 245)
week 7: 170, 185, 200 (3 x lesser weights)
week 8: 215, 230, 245 (2 x lesser weights)

--> 11 out of the 24 workouts use lower weights than a previous session.
 
afeudale said:
Hi whistledixie, thanks for the reply :-)

I can't find evidence that the progressive load trend is continually climbing in HST. I've used both the original calculator and the newest spreadsheet posted and they all seem to calculate "2 steps forward and 1 step back" in terms of loading. For example, I did a test sample with Squats:

week 1: 130, 140 150 (max is 150)
week 2: 160, 170, 180 (max is 180)
week 3: 135, 150, 165 (3 x lesser weights)
week 4: 180, 195, 210 (max is 210)
week 5: 170, 185, 200 (3 x lesser weights)
week 6: 215, 230, 245 (max is 245)
week 7: 170, 185, 200 (3 x lesser weights)
week 8: 215, 230, 245 (2 x lesser weights)

--> 11 out of the 24 workouts use lower weights than a previous session.
Click to expand...

I've never used a calculator to create my program. But I was under the impression that a user could dictate what increments are used in the calculations.

I would program my cycle differently, if this were me.

Week 1: 130, 140, 150
Week 2: 160, 170, 180
Week 3: 160, 170, 180
Week 4: 190, 200, 210
Week 5: 195, 205, 215
Week 6: 225, 235, 245

As you see, only 4 sessions with a lower weight than already lifted. (I actually wouldn't set it up exactly like that above, but the concept would be similar)

I've always looked at HST as more a set of basic, proven programming principles than a bodybuilding program where you input your numbers and see what the machine spits out for you. Foremost among those principles is progressive loading. Secondly, training frequency. From there, the other factors become matter of opinion or preference. And which component takes priority over another becomes muddier.
 
Yup, I agree that it is more about principles than a "calculator" per-se - and I think the 2 principles you outlined are correct - progressive overload and frequent muscle stimulation.

However, I think there may be some problems with the way you setup the numbers in the program above. The idea with HST (the way I understand it) is to work at 100% effort on only one day out of the cycle. This leads to two things that need to be balanced:

1) The increments need to be sufficiently large to avoid burning out on previous workouts (i.e. doing squats of Mon - 198lbs, Wed - 199lbs and Fri - 200lbs) probably would lead to burn out

2) The maximum weight (and not less) needs to be lifted on one day of the cycle

If both these are in balance, I think there will be more overlap than the 4 sessions you listed. In your example I would guess that either the max weights are too low or the increments (10lbs) are too small.

If the increments and max weights are set properly, I think the overlap of weights will be more like 40 - 50% of workouts.
 
I'm not sure I understand where you suggest my example doesn't use HST principles properly. I'll put my responses in bold: '

afeudale said:
Yup, I agree that it is more about principles than a "calculator" per-se - and I think the 2 principles you outlined are correct - progressive overload and frequent muscle stimulation.

However, I think there may be some problems with the way you setup the numbers in the program above. The idea with HST (the way I understand it) is to work at 100% effort on only one day out of the cycle. HST calls for you to use 100% effort every 2 weeks. You max out with 15s at the end of week 2, max out 10s at the end of week 4, max out 5s at the end of week 6.

This leads to two things that need to be balanced:

1) The increments need to be sufficiently large to avoid burning out on previous workouts (i.e. doing squats of Mon - 198lbs, Wed - 199lbs and Fri - 200lbs) probably would lead to burn out I would think the problem with only increasing 1lb per session would be not only burnout, but who has 1/2lb plates and the increase of 1lb per session is not enough to stimulate growth - but, regardless, I don't think I suggested anything close to this

2) The maximum weight (and not less) needs to be lifted on one day of the cycle

If both these are in balance, I think there will be more overlap than the 4 sessions you listed. In your example I would guess that either the max weights are too low or the increments (10lbs) are too small.
I used the maxes you gave for 15/10/5RM on squat - I didn't come up with them, you did.
The HST ebook states:
"To simplify things, I just use 5-10lbs (~2.25-4.5kgs) for upper body, and 10-20lbs (~4.5-9kgs) for legs."


If the increments and max weights are set properly, I think the overlap of weights will be more like 40 - 50% of workouts.
Click to expand...

So, again, how did I not set it up properly?
 
Oh, I didn't mean anything personal by my comments :-) All I was saying is this:

If we take the assumption from your program that your 5RM is 245lbs, then it follows that the 1RM is 290lbs. Calculating, we get 15RM = 190 (rather than 180) and 10RM = 216 (rather than 210).

It might not seem like a big difference, but when you draw out the 6 week cycle, we now get 6x of overlapping weights rather than 4x.

Week 1 (15s): 130, 140, 150
Week 2 (15s): 160, 170, 180
Week 3 (10s): 160, 170, 180
Week 4 (10s): 190, 200, 210
Week 5 (5s) : 195, 205, 215
Week 6 (5s) : 225, 235, 245
= 4 Sessions of Overlap (22%)

Week 1 (15s): 140, 150, 160
Week 2 (15s): 170, 180, 190
Week 3 (10s): 165, 175, 185
Week 4 (10s): 195, 205, 215
Week 5 (5s) : 195, 205, 215
Week 6 (5s) : 225, 235, 245
= 6 Sessions of Overlap (33%)

So if the HST program is planned as prescribed - i.e. that you will be using the heaviest weight possible during the last session of each rep cycle (i.e. 190lbs at the end of 15s rather than 180lbs which you would likely not fail at based on the above calculations), then the amount of overlapping weights will be closer to higher.

This is even more true if the increments are larger, i.e. 15lb increments rather than 10lbs (which would make sense on the heavier lifts). For example with 15lb increments:

Week 1 (15s): 115, 130, 145
Week 2 (15s): 160, 175, 190
Week 3 (10s): 140, 155, 170
Week 4 (10s): 185, 200, 215
Week 5 (5s) : 170, 185, 200
Week 6 (5s) : 215, 230, 245
= 8 Sessions of Overlap (44%)
 
Looking over the thread again, I guess it seems the answer to most of this is "what increment is suitable between sessions?". I don't think the ebook statement of "To simplify things, I just use 5-10lbs (~2.25-4.5kgs) for upper body, and 10-20lbs (~4.5-9kgs) for legs." is sufficient.

For example, if someone squats 500lbs, should they use the same increments of someone who squats 100lbs? I don't think so. The increment should be a function of max weight lifted and not an arbitrary 10-20lbs.

Figuring out the increment will also determine how much overlap there is in sessions.
 
afeudale said:
Looking over the thread again, I guess it seems the answer to most of this is "what increment is suitable between sessions?". I don't think the ebook statement of "To simplify things, I just use 5-10lbs (~2.25-4.5kgs) for upper body, and 10-20lbs (~4.5-9kgs) for legs." is sufficient.

For example, if someone squats 500lbs, should they use the same increments of someone who squats 100lbs? I don't think so. The increment should be a function of max weight lifted and not an arbitrary 10-20lbs.

Figuring out the increment will also determine how much overlap there is in sessions.
Click to expand...

I don't take any of this personal. But I would like to know how my example fails to follow HST principles.

The business about what max weight should be programmed is moot - I provided an example based off of your example. I used the same max loads you used in your example. Your initial example used 15RM 180lb; 10RM 210lb; 5RM 245lb (or kg) - I programmed based on that. Whether or not having ___RM means you should have ____RM is irrelevent to this discussion.

The 10 lb increment seems appropriate in the example given because during the 1st workout of the rep scheme, you should be using a weight that is approximately 75% of your max (for that rep number). Using 15lb increments will create conflict with that. The 1st workout would not be productive for growth.

How I program my HST cycle is to take my max for each rep scheme, figure out 75% of that, place the 75% load in the 1st workout and 100% in the 6th workout and divide up the difference in equal increments. Sometimes, I have to use bigger or smaller increments, sometimes I have to double up - either way, the most important thing is that I start at 75% and end at 100%. I try to reduce the amount of zig-zag for the next rep scheme to about 2 sessions.

Anyways, back to your original proposal. What are hoping to gain from modifying HST in this way? Usually when people want to try and do 1 rep scheme per week, they want to eliminate zig-zag. This proposal has built-in zig-zag. So, I'm unclear on how this improves the method.
 
One question:

Is "burning out" on max days really a concern for you? I mean, have you had issues with this?

HST pretty much has protection built in to keep this from happening. You max out at the end of your 15 RMs, then zig zag occurs as you go into the 10s giving you a few sessions that are relatively easy, almost a whole week of recovery before you get into the heavier 10s. Then you max out on the 10s and get zig zag again at the beginning of the 5s, which allows recovery again - almost like two little mini-deloads inside the cycle. Then after your finally max out on the 5s again, unless you are dieting, those weights probably aren't your 5 RMs anymore and you can choose to progress further. Either way, at this point you have SD coming up which also allows recovery.

So... with all that, is recovery still an issue? For the vast majority of people, they choose to continue on after the last day of 5s, pushing for new 5 RMs or dropping down to heavier rep ranges and pushing for heavier loads, and they do all this without burning out, though some get close before SD, but then they SD and they are fine.
 
afeudale said:
Yup, I agree that it is more about principles than a "calculator" per-se - and I think the 2 principles you outlined are correct - progressive overload and frequent muscle stimulation.

However, I think there may be some problems with the way you setup the numbers in the program above. The idea with HST (the way I understand it) is to work at 100% effort on only one day out of the cycle.
Click to expand...

That isn't really what HST is calling for, if you read the articles. All HST says is to progress the load over time, hit each muscle with sufficient frequency, use mechanical load for the growth stimulus instead of fatigue or volume, and then decondition when necessary. You can max out whenever, you could max out every day if you wanted to but repping out with each load - it won't go against HST all of a sudden because you are maxing out, as long as you are increasing the load over time. You don't even have to increase the load every session. You can repeat loads for a few sessions if you really want, as long as you are progressing over time, from week to week, from cycle to cycle.

Don't get too hung up on semantics and the little details because most of them don't really matter as long as you are doing as I stated above - use the load as the growth stimulus, lift frequently, progress the load over time and decondition when necessary.
 
@ afeudale

I think your original question is getting lost in a weight progression discussion that is really more about the fine details than the basic principle. Whether one uses the standard 2 week scheme 15s,10s,5s, a more detailed scheme like yours 15s,12s,10s. . . or straight linear progression from 75% of my 1RM to my 1RM they all adhere to the basic principle of progression.

Your main point was what effect would “staggering your maxes” have, specifically would it help prevent burn out. If you are considering “burn out” to be cumulative CNS fatigue then IMO no it would not help prevent burn out since you are still doing the same number of maxes each week and I believe that the CNS hit will be the same whether you do them the same day or alternate days since CNS fatigue as I understand is a cumulative thing. However, if by “burn out” you mean will maxing your Dead Lift have an effect on your max Squat during the same session, then yes I think staggering your max days will slightly improve how much you can do for your maxes on exercises that use the same or mostly the same muscle groups.

I considered a similar scheme before ditching the whole 15s,10s,5s for using straight linear progression. But I still take into account that my Dead Lift will affect my Squat by alternating which one gets priority on my 2 lower body days. First lower body day I do the Sumo Dead Lift first and Olympic Squat last. On the second leg day I do Power Squats first and SLDL last. However, I only max the Sumo Dead Lift and the Power Squat, as I consider the other 2 to be assistance exercises for them. Is still follow the principle of progressive loading on the assistance lifts I just don’t push for maxes on them. The same goes for my upper body lifts. I usually only max one pushing and one pulling movement, since they are mostly antagonistic muscles have no problem doing them the same day.

Now if by “burn out” you did mean cumulative CNS fatigue then I think you would be better served by not maxing out all 10 exercises but rather try something like what I do an only max out one or at most 2 compound exercises for each major muscle group. IMO, that will do more to minimize CNS fatigue, allowing you to push past the 5s and keep your cycle going longer which should give you the opportunity for more total progression throughout the cycle.
 
grunt11,

Thanks for the info, I think you correctly deciphered what I was trying to say :-) Yes, I meant staggering the maxes so that one exercise would not affect the other on the same day. Not about CNS fatigue.

Like you said, if you did all your maxes on one day, the latter ones would suffer because you would be exhausted from the prior ones.

Yes, I understand the principles of HST, however the one that is most open to interpretation (and the one I am still trying to figure out) is "progress the load over time".

If the end weight is greater than the start weight after 6 weeks, but there was "zig-zag" in between, does this count as progression? If so, how much zig-zag is too much? How do we determine this? I mean, we could say that "the details don't matter", but maybe they do if the frequency and variation of weight in the zig-zag are pronounced.

Interested in your straight linear progression scheme. Can you detail that? Are you saying you constantly up the weight/decrease the reps for each workout?
 
If the end weight is greater than the start weight after 6 weeks, but there was "zig-zag" in between, does this count as progression?
Click to expand...
Yes. As I understand it to total difference between your starting weight an ending weight for each micro-cycle and full cycle is going to be the most important factor. Repeated Bout Effect (RBE), where your muscles adapt to the load and stop making progress should not be a factor if you re-use the same weight or even drop it a little bit for a couple sessions.

If so, how much zig-zag is too much? How do we determine this? I mean, we could say that "the details don't matter", but maybe they do if the frequency and variation of weight in the zig-zag are pronounced.
Click to expand...
It’s hard to say how much zig-zagging is too much as this is going to be a very individual thing. Many people like the zig-zag because it acts as a slight deload giving their CNS a break to recover. I don’t like it and stick with straight linier progression from about 70-75% of my 1RM to my 1RM because I find it more efficient. In other words I don’t have to worry about whether I’m losing out on a small amount of gains by zig-zagging and monitor my recovery based on whether I’m adding more weight and/or more reps each session. If I stagnate then I need to back off a little, but I let my body tell me that rather than an arbitrary set/rep scheme.

IMO various forms of auto-regulation are more efficient and easier to schedule than 15s, 10s, and 5s (not that you can’t auto-regulate on that sort of set/rep scheme). However, auto-regulation is also easier to screw up and end up over doing it because of ego. Also, by more efficient I mean that you get a little bit more out of each workout because you are adjusting the workout to your needs rather than trying to fit yourself to a predetermined set/rep scheme.

AFAIR, you’re not new to HST but just trying to optimize it more for yourself. In that case I would consider trying to figure out what works best for you. However, the problem with that is it’s going to take some trial and error since everyone responds a little differently to various workout routines.

Cheers,
Dean
 
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