Too much zig zag!!

R

ratty

New Member
I have just used the HST calculator to determine my bench workout throught the cycle and it seems there is way too much zig zag!!?

5RM - 65Kg

10RM - 55Kg

15RM - 45Kg

My increments are 5Kg as its either that or 2.5 and from my understanding that is too little of an increment to stimulate hypertrophy??

So after my 15Rm workout it would take me another 5 workouts into my 10RM mini cycle to progress the load so it seems to me i am taking 2 steps forward and 2 steps back kind of thing!??

I would greatly appreciate some advice as i am a little confused as to what to do..
 
ratty, don't worry about using a 2.5kg increment if need be. It's okay to use the same loads for a few workouts just as long as there is a progression over the cycle. Small details like this will make very little difference to progress over a cycle. The load is still increasing so you'll be adding more strain to the muscle tissue each session.

Here are the loads I would use for your bench cycle:

15s: 35, 37.5, 40, 42.5, 42.5, 45
10s: 42.5, 45, 47.5, 50, 52.5, 55
5s: 52.5, 55, 57.5, 60, 62.5, 65
 
Thanks for clearing that up for me lol. you probably think im being abit picky i just want to try and get it perfectly right, you with me..

Cool ill do that then...2.5 for compounds...but i can only increment lat pull down in 5 kg...

so if my 5RM was 55 (there or there abouts)..how would you propose i would i use progression over the cycle with only 5Kg increments to work with...

Also in my first cycle i kind of dismissed vanilla HST..2 weeks 15 2 weeks 10 and 2 weeks of 5s, because of the relatively light weight i was lifting so instead i increased the load every week for 6 weeks....so for example for bench.....

week1 35Kg
 
sorry pressed reply by accident....

week1 35Kg
week 2 40
week 3 45
week 4 50
week 5 55
week 6 60

I thought this would of been sufficient to induce hypertrophy..well especially after the progress i had made before starting this which was practically nothing...

But i was disapointed, i did notice a slight increase in muscle size by the end of the cycle and probably to be fair the fastest i have ever put on muscle but it was marginal...

Looking back on my diet though..i know i didnt consume any where near the amounts of protein recommended in the eating for size article so i think i maybe comprimised my gains via my diet..

After doing some more reading (back then i just wanted to start the bloody program and pack on some mass) am i right in thinking that RBE caught up with me too quick when i increase the load each week instead if every workout and hampered my gains???
 
ratty, RBE catching up with you is very unlikely. If by week 6 you were using 60kg for sets of 5 then you could have just kept going with that load for a few more weeks before finishing the cycle (NB. there's no need to finish the cycle if everything is going great and you are still able to increment the loads a bit - just keep on trucking until you feel you need a break or you can't increment any longer).

Once you are up around your 5RM loads, RBE will take a good few weeks to really stop any gains from occurring even if you don't increment the loads any further. Of course, if you can increment a bit then so much the better. If you get really fatigued from lifting with your 5RM loads you can always keep the loads the same but drop to sets of 3 reps. ie. instead of 3 sets of 5 reps you could do 5 sets of 3 reps - same amount of work and strain on the muscle tissue but kinder to your CNS.

I think it was probably your diet that hampered your gains. If you want to make gains you really have to get your eating right. What Bryan has outlined in the Eating for Size article is spot on. If you get your calorie intake right you will grow; try to aim for about a lb a week. That means eating about 350 cals a day over your maintenance levels. Your training will help to ensure that you are putting on as much lean tissue as possible but there will be some inevitable fat gain.
 
Again, thanks for clearing that up lol..i think its so much easier just increasing the load each week..that way the increments are bigger (within reason) and as long as you keep your CNS relatively low by stopping the set as your rep speed slows down then i should get just as much growth!?

Do you think on every friday (ie every 3rd workout of every load) I could workout to or near to failure to maximise strength gains aswell during the cycle or would i risk CNS burnout from that.
 
ratty, don't do failure if you are aiming hypertrophy. Just try starting with around 75% of your RM, so for lat pulldown try to start with 45Kg. If you can't use increments smaller then 5Kg do: 45, 50, 55, 55, 65, 65. One tip is to put a 2 or 3 kg dumbell on top of the plate stack or attach a 2kg barbell plate to the pin and you can use partial increments instead of going the full 5kg.
I have found out by experience that eating right is more important than working out right at least related to size. Eat too little and all your effort in the gym is for nothing (size-wise), eat too much and you'll get too fat on the process.
 
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(ratty @ Aug. 18 2008,9:22)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Do you think on every friday (ie.  every 3rd workout of every load) I could workout to or near to failure to maximise strength gains aswell during the cycle or would i risk CNS burnout from that.</div>
So you mean just keep repping until you hit failure on the Friday workouts?

Up to you. Try it and see. Towards the end of the cycle when the loads are heavy you will probably be training much closer to failure all the time anyway. Personally, I save my CNS as much as possible for the 5s. If you are only hitting failure once a week it probably won't be a problem but it'll depend on your conditioning to failure training.

Oh, just in case this is helpful: HST type failure is usually described as being when your form starts to break down rather than when you are straining so hard to lift a load that you pop a few blood vessels in your eyes! When you think you probably couldn't get another rep, stop there. No need to go for the extra rep to find out that you can't lift it! You'll find that you recover for a second or third set much more quickly if you stop one rep short of failure. You'll often be able to get more work done if you do another set and still feel less fatigued. Training to total failure can actually take about a week to fully recover from (especially if you are not used to failure training) so in the meantime your strength will probably drop down a bit - not great if you are training full-body, three x weekly.
 
yeah i see what you mean lol...

perhaps i could go to failure on only the last set of every exercise on fridays, but stop going to failure when i get to heavy lifts maybe 10RM, and also just concentrate on compounds to limit CNS fatigue to make sure i can keep on incrementing...what you think lol??
 
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(electric @ Aug. 18 2008,11:53)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I have found out by experience that eating right is more important than working out right at least related to size. Eat too little and all your effort in the gym is for nothing (size-wise), eat too much and you'll get too fat on the process.</div>
Amen.  Just finished my 8th cycle, and sure enough, the size gains correlate nicely with weight gains.  Unfortunately, I've not yet conquered the caloric drain of the hot summer months.
 
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