Week 7-8 confusion based on faq pdf

R

rickcr

New Member
I'm a bit confused on something. The FAQ pdf I'm reading here http://users.telenet.be/aaitee/HST Faq_book.pdf says if you don't have a partner for negatives you should do your 5rpm for the remaining 2 weeks. It says you can increase the weight some if you want just don't go to failure.

What has me confused is if you are doing negatives as described in that PDF (using your 2RPM weight), I'd think that would be as taxing as on your muscles as doing a standard set to failure? I guess I'm wrong there? Every time I've done negatives in the past they seemed to cause DOM which is fine.. but 3 days a week of the same muscle group?
 
It really is ok to do negs 3 x weekly. Negs will definitely give you DOMs but that's not a good indicator for growth anyway. By the time you get to negs, the heavy 5s will already have conditioned your tissue for quite heavy loads so DOMs will be less than you might expect. Curtail the set when you feel your rep speed gets to about 2 seconds. Don't start out with long, slow reps either; each descent should be controlled but not so it's almost like an isometric contraction.

I think it is important, if doing negs, that you also do some metabolic work so you maintain a good level of glycogen storage. It's a great way to maintain the feeling of fullness that you experience during 15s and 10s. So, a set of 15 reps for each exercise after you have done the heavy sets is a good idea. Just go for the burn like you do during 15s. As a guide, try using a load that's somewhere around the load you were using at the start of your second week of 15s.
 
Since I don't think I'll have a partner to follow me around for doing negatives, I was thinking of doing (for weeks 7 and 8) .. one set of the 5 RPM, followed then by a set of 15 (where the 15th is real close to failure.)

Is that an ok approach? or should I just stick to 2 sets of the 5RPM, and then maybe follow with a set of 15?

(Also even with a spotter/partner some of the exercises seem somewhat awkward for negatives ... namely squats, bent over rows, and dead lifts.)
 
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