Weekly Periodization?

6

6x9base13

New Member
I'm wondering what the others here would think of cycling the repetition ranges within each week rather than over the course of several weeks. For example:

Monday: 10s
Wednesday: 15s
Friday: 5s

I follow a more athletically-styled program (for martial arts and various forms of heavy manual labor) where I'm looking to maintain a fairly stable level of conditioning rather than "peaking" at some specific point in time. I do give some consideration to aesthetics, but they're of secondary importance to me relative to being and feeling solid and strong.

So, while I imagine that using a weekly cycle would eliminate much of the benefits of "strategic deconditioning", would it be sound to say that this sort of cycle would still help to maintain a good power/endurance balance and encourage both myofibril-based growth and the synthesis of new mitochondria?

My specific workout consists of power cleans, bench presses, either front squats or deadlifts, seated rows, incline presses, upright rows, pull-ups, and a cable-based "core" exercise which more or less resembles a boxer's cross punch - with two working sets of each, only rarely taken to complete failure. I'd continue to perform the cleans and the cross-punch exercise only at high speeds for low repetitions, since they're intended specifically as power-development exercises. But it seems that my overall gains as of late have been almost entirely neuromuscular, and I've entered something of a plateau. So I'm interested in adopting HST principles for the remainder of my workout if they could be applied using a short cycle for periodization.
 
there has been at least one and probably more threads (or maybe it was just posts) about this in the last yr or two. i believe at least a few folks have tried it out for a period of time. try a search or perhaps some will chime in with their exper. and the approp. thread.

good luck
 
you can't do 15's after 10's because you would be lowering the load. The purpose is to increase the load each time you train. I recommend taking SD before starting a HST cycle
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I recommend taking SD before starting a HST cycle</div>

Already have, in the form of a two-week holiday vacation where I spent all my time with friends and family - and got lazy about going to the gym. :-)

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">You can't do 15's after 10's because you would be lowering the load. The purpose is to increase the load each time you train.</div>

Ah. I was thinking in terms of improved recovery between workouts (more time between the 10s and 5s, and two days of rest after the 5s), but I can see how that could come at the cost of reducing the benefits of a constant load increase.

I've been able to add weight to the bar at least one a week until very recently (and I'm not exactly a beginner), so I imagine this will again be the case if the higher-rep days help to fill in the mitochondrial energy-production and sarcoplasmic energy-storage aspects of muscle growth that I've been generally ignoring. I know that landscaping work (which involves a lot of high-repetition anaerobic endurance activities) seems to give my gym workouts a significant boost, and I've been thinking that an HST program would work in a similar manner during the winter months.

I'll try putting the 15s on Monday and the 10s on Wednesday to see how that works out.

As to other threads or posts, I haven't been able to come up with anything using the forum search. I might not be using the right keywords, though, so I'd be very appreciative if someone could give me a link to anything that someone else had already discussed and tried.
 
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(colby2152 @ Jan. 09 2008,20:50)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">It takes away from progressive load when you jump from the 5's on a week to the 15's the next week.</div>
True, but I'm trying to compensate for the fact that I've been training exclusively in the low-repetition range for almost a year now - which, while yielding strength gains around 150% (over a baseline established by a lifestyle which already involved a lot of intense physical work) and a 35-pound increase in lean tissue on a drug-free clean-diet bulk, has also significantly reduced my anaerobic endurance and run up against a wall where I've reached the limits of my ability to fully (with little, if any, next-day weakness and soreness) recover from my workouts.

Reading one of Bryan's articles (which I coincidentally ran across on a different site), I gather that I've entered a state of what he called &quot;irrational hypertrophy&quot; in which my myofibril growth has outstripped my intracellular metabolic capacity - meaning that I should probably go easy on the low rep work, holding it at a maintenance level rather than pushing for further increases, until my performance in the endurance ranges catches up to my strength/power increases.

Again, I'm not so concerned with hypertrophy itself as I am with functional strength. But your methods for optimizing hypertrophy also look like something that could help me round out my performance and overcome the plateau I've come upon with my old program, and I have no special reason to avoid further hypertrophy as a side-effect.

I want to hold onto the 5s to prevent losses in that range, but my primary goal at this point is to restore balance in the 10s and 15s.

In light of this fact, does limiting my low-rep work to once-a-week for the next few months make more sense?
 
Hi 6 x 9

Having read this thread of yours, I'd have to consider throwing in my 2 cents worth for what its worth.
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My opinion, after reading your concrens is that you should give &quot;normal&quot; HST a go for now, a simple program like any in the &quot;Simplify and Win&quot; thread should do you a world of good.

Your approach is ceratinly not going to benefit you in the area you seek to benefit from, basically because your &quot;wall&quot; as you put it is a lot closer than you'd imagine by periodizing weekly rather than in a 8 week set up.

Perhaps you should download the FAQ e-book, the &quot;Pimp my HST e-book&quot; and maybe even the HST e-book written by Charles Ridgeley, both the FAQ (Authored by Bryan and Blade) and the HST Minor Principles (authored By Charles) are highly informative on all the options you may want to check.

Th pimp my hst is more in the line of alternative methodologies and enhancing techniques within the HST setup.

But let me get back to the discussion at hand...you have already performed a SD of 2 weeks which should have &quot;re-set&quot; you to a default mode, so all you need do now is start up.

Doing two weeks of 15's preparaes your muscles and specially your joints for the later 5's which by all means you can extend way beyond the 2 weeks prescribed by using some alternative techniques as most of us vets do, namely MaxStim, 5 x 5 etc. This of course depends on whether you planning to do negatives or not.

Anyway...I'll park here for now as I expect other HST experts to also get involved and give their opinions or comments. On the other hand I think if you manage to download the e-books you'll have quite a bit to read...and digest...before you take another approach to HST training if at all.

If by any chance you reach difficulties downloading any of them, just pm me
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Cheers bud
 
I've read the FAQs and &quot;Pimp My HST&quot; e-book, and they both make complete sense to me. I haven't come across the other books you've mentioned, but I'd like to take a look at them if you could post links.

I haven't yet seen anything that really addresses strength maintenance during the 15s and 10s. Not strength gains - I know better than to try to work toward two competing goals at once. But I don't want to backslide on functional strength/power while going through a macrocycle periodization plan.

I did just have a thought, though, that might help solve this. The cleans and the &quot;boxer's cross&quot; exercise are both parts of my program that I'm not going to let go of, and which (as high-speed high-load power exercises) don't exactly lend themselves to high repetition ranges.

Those two exercises, taken together, significantly involve all of the major prime movers. My low-volume approach toward them means that they don't contribute much to either tissue damage or energy depletion, so I'm guessing they wouldn't detrimentally compete with the first two phases of a standard HST program. But they probably would help to keep my neuromuscular connections and fast-twitch fiber activation in good order, thus preserving most if not all of my functional strength.

So, for a minimally-modified HST program, would it be better to stick to the normal 15-10-5 macrocycle while retaining the three 3-rep working sets I use for those two power exercises?
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">So, for a minimally-modified HST program, would it be better to stick to the normal 15-10-5 macrocycle while retaining the three 3-rep working sets I use for those two power exercises? </div>

Essentially, yes. What I'd suggest (and that is all it is - a suggestion) is that you slot those 2 exercises on a non-HST training day, that will give you the freedom to do whatever you like with them...I think.
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<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I haven't yet seen anything that really addresses strength maintenance during the 15s and 10s. Not strength gains - I know better than to try to work toward two competing goals at once. But I don't want to backslide on functional strength/power while going through a macrocycle periodization plan.</div>

That's because they are not geared for strength, if you really want to dissect things, the 15's are simply for lactic acid &quot;flushing&quot; of muscles and joints, and are more of a metabolic adaptor, whereas the 10's some consider them to be in the &quot;hypertrophy range&quot; although this can sound contradictory to some of the more &quot;lab coat types&quot; around here.

For strength as I initially suggested...after getting through the 2 weeks of 5's and the 2 weeks of negatives, you can then switch to Max-Stim or better yet (for strength that is) to 5 x 5, which are built with strength in mind.

Now for links: Charles Ridgely - HST Minor Principles

The other is the Max Stimulation by Dan Moore:

Max Stimulation

and lastly, Dan's website...a mine of information for people like you who seem to know how physiology works fairly well.

http://hypertrophy-research.com/maxstim/index.html

I'll just link you to the index page...you decide which way to go, there is straight research...and then there's the forum...both highly educational IMO
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Cheers
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OK my 2¢:

I think you could work it either way.

If you did this for a cycle of say 6 weeks:

Monday: 10s
Wednesday: 15s
Friday: 5s

you would be working the higher rep ranges whilst still getting a weekly heavy session in. Each week you increment all the loads. That would probably work quite well. It can't hurt to try it. Mikeynov suggested just such a plan for an HST type cycle variation. My only problem with it is that the weeks get harder and harder with no back-off in intensity for the whole period, but if the cycle was only 6 weeks or so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

If you do a regular HST cycle I think you will still retain your functional strength and hopefully make improvements to it once you are at the end of the 5s. However, as you are keen to improve in the higher rep mesocycles I would suggest that you don't continue the 5s for as long as possible - perhaps just do them for 4 weeks and then start over. Because of this, I also think you could skip SD every other cycle and go straight from 5s to the start of 15s which would work quite nicely as a deload before ramping up again. That'll keep you working in the higher rep ranges for longer. Once you feel that your high rep work is up to par you can then start to increase the length of the 5s again and focus on pushing the loads up.
 
I don't totally agree with everything everyone wrote, but for the most part; all is well. I've often said and still reiterate: no matter what you do, it will plateau eventually, and any change will elicit improvements, so 6x9 is correct in his assumptions throughout.
Isn't it Old&amp;Grey who has been doing multiple rep ranges through his HST cycles? And as for hitting a variety in the same workout, why the heck not?
I mean, if it's primarily about motor recruitment and signalling, then what are you doing? Repping high for a warmup and lactic acid flush, repping medium (8's to 12's) for volume and load, then repping low and heavy for strength maintenance signalling.
Compare that to the single sets of 15's some of these guys do (too wimpy IMO) and you have one super workout hard enough to satisfy the needs of an advanced lifter. Add in progression and fatigue management (M-time) and you can adjust this to anyone.
Advanced lifters need a bit more volume anyway. I see this setup as a very good thing and may do a cycle of it myself upcoming.
 
Doing all the rep ranges each week can be done, and it does represent progression as long as you increase the weight FOR EACH REP RANGE as you go just like in standard HST.  The major problem you run into if you use normal progression is that you will hit your maxes for each rep range all in the same week, which adds new meaning to the phrase &quot;week from hell&quot;.  
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 I have done a successful cycle using all rep ranges each week, but my experience did not make me want to do it on a regular basis.
 
<div>
(leegee38 @ Jan. 10 2008,08:47)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Doing all the rep ranges each week can be done, and it does represent progression as long as you increase the weight FOR EACH REP RANGE as you go just like in standard HST. The major problem you run into if you use normal progression is that you will hit your maxes for each rep range all in the same week, which adds new meaning to the phrase &quot;week from hell&quot;.
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I have done a successful cycle using all rep ranges each week, but my experience did not make me want to do it on a regular basis.</div>
You will still zig-zag significantly each week.
 
I have done 15's, 10's and 5's each week for many cycles and found it to be a good stimulus for growth. Currently I am doing 12's and 8's each week.

That being said, I doubt that there is a great anabolic advantage to periodization each week over the usual HST practice. The biggest advantage I found was less of a mental fatigue by continually switching up my reps each workout instead of 2 weeks of 15's, 2 weeks of 10's, etc. I find I look forward to each workout more keely than I have with the vanilla program and that provides the mental means to get a better physical workout.
 
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments.

Pulling together your suggestions, the logic behind them, and my own personal goals, I arrive at this:

- Two weeks each of 15s and 10s, followed by...
- Four weeks of a weekly 15-10-5 cycle. The first four weeks should help to provide the full benefits associated with those repetition ranges, while the last four weeks will continue to round-out my performance across all three repetition ranges. After eight weeks I can take a break (coinciding with my next vacation) and decide where to go from there.
- HST-style workouts twice a week, one power-specific workout per week (where I'll drop loads a bit, increase the number of sets, and concentrate on refining my technique), and one working set of each of my two power exercises on my HST days to keep the mind-body connection fresh (doing them only once a week seems to cause sloppy form due to &quot;forgetting&quot; the unconscious elements of proper technique). The single working set of those two exercises won't deplete my energy stores much - and the cleans, with a few warm-up sets before the working set, make for a good general warm-up that improves my performance for the rest of my workout.

I don't do any true negative/eccentric work, mostly because I don't have a reliable training partner (I use dumbbells for my bench/incline presses for the same reason). I suppose I could severely cheat the weight up for most of these exercises and lower it slowly with strict form, but that just sounds like an injury waiting to happen.

I've found that isometric holds within a few degrees of a full stretch at the end of my second/last working set have immensely improved &quot;starting strength&quot;, and thus my ability to use heavier loads through the rest of the full ROM.

And I use a more moderate explosive-concentric/controlled-eccentric combination anyway, since being able to put things down in a smooth and gentle manner is kinda useful (particularly when handling $25K servers or trying to keep that stupid purple light from going off at Planet Fitness).

I'm assuming, though, that slow-and-smooth contractions would be better for the high-rep work - along with very short rest periods - since the idea is to deplete energy stores and give your connective tissue a lot of relatively gentle stimulation. I'm also going to try going for a second two-set circuit after the first to see how the increased volume feels for the high-rep training phases.

Post-workout stretching is, of course, a given. I use a barre-based routine I picked up from a ballet dancer that seems to work nicely without taking up a lot of time.

I started with 5x5 for strength-building under the instruction of a powerlifter who was dating my sister at the time. The only difference I've found between 5x5 and 2x5, though, was that 5x5 left me feeling sore all the time while 2x5 yielded satisfying improvement without the soreness. Personally, I think there's a major practical (and psychological) benefit to feeling lithe and well-rested between workouts - I don't have to avoid other forms of physical activity, and can go into every workout feeling fresh and ready for a full-intensity session.

5x5 was a little faster, so far as measurable results were concerned, but I didn't really enjoy it or feel that it was the best thing for someone who wasn't specifically training for pure strength competition.

I don't really mind reaching a strength/size plateau in the near future, since I'm already at a relatively lean 190lbs (at 5'8&quot;) and almost never encounter real-world situations where I don't feel up-to-task. Looking ripped (by my modest standards, anyway) at this point would be more a matter of dropping a 7-8 lbs of bodyfat than anything else, and I'd be pretty happy to hold at 190lbs while slowly shifting body composition (something I've been successfully doing for the last few months anyway). The endurance loss, however, was bothering me because I miss being one of those people who took forever to start feeling overwhelming fatigue and/or lactic-acid buildup.

Connective tissue and joint health haven't ever been an issue for me, probably because I've spent many of my warm-weather weekends shoveling and stacking stones since I was in middle school - developing pretty resilient bones and tendons in the process. That said, I'm also well aware of the fact that I won't always be 23 - and should thus get in the habit of training in a way that won't cause problems down the road when my recovery ability starts to wane.
 
Please tell us about this purple light at Planet Fitness. It sounds like it would be a funny story.

I have never tried disbanding with the mesocycles and applying the different rep ranges to their own workout days within a week, but that was for good reason - simple HST has worked for me, it wasn't boring, and I loved the setup. I have customized more and more over the past few years, but I still haven't tried this scheme. Experimentation is worthwhile as you have plenty of time to make up for that failure whether it be lost gains in muscle or strength. You are young like me, so try out these methods that wouldn't normally do when you are older.
 
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(colby2152 @ Jan. 10 2008,13:51)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Please tell us about this purple light at Planet Fitness. It sounds like it would be a funny story.</div>
Oh - that's their &quot;lunk alarm&quot;.

Every time I go there the manager kinda stands over my shoulder frowning. A couple of the kids who work behind the desk have tried to tell me that deadlifts aren't allowed (though they couldn't find the rule written down anywhere when I called them on it) and one guy somehow managed to mistake cleans for some sort of extreme cheat reverse-curl - proceeding to demonstrate with an air-barbell how I should be doing them with my arms instead of using all that leg drive. So I get the impression that they're pretty much waiting for an opportunity to kick me out despite the fact that I wait my turn, don't make a lot of noise, and am one of the very few people who shows the courtesy of letting other people work in and putting all the plates back where they belong when I'm done.

Oh how I prefer my university gym.

I'll be making myself a platform and getting an Olympic set with some bumper plates this summer so I can just stay at home and avoid the (ironic) constant judgment of the PF crowd. The only thing I use any special equipment for is the twisting punch thingy - and I prefer just throwing rocks and iron shot for distance in the summer anyway.
 
I am with you Quad, I work out in my garage/basement and loud metal, grunting and iron hitting concrete are commonplace. Even the wifey makes noise clanging around down there with the iron...makes me proud! Even she would get kicked out of that dump since I taught her to lift and deadlifts and squats are her fave. (which is fine with me, tight bunz!
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I can just picture her signing up for a day in her little cute gym outfit and makeup, and then loading up an olympic bar to bang out some deadlifts setting off that stupid alarm. That would be hilarious watching them kick out a little, cute, blonde 'lunk-ette'.
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(colby2152 @ Jan. 10 2008,14:07)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(leegee38 @ Jan. 10 2008,08:47)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Doing all the rep ranges each week can be done, and it does represent progression as long as you increase the weight FOR EACH REP RANGE as you go just like in standard HST.  The major problem you run into if you use normal progression is that you will hit your maxes for each rep range all in the same week, which adds new meaning to the phrase &quot;week from hell&quot;.  
wow.gif
 I have done a successful cycle using all rep ranges each week, but my experience did not make me want to do it on a regular basis.</div>
You will still zig-zag significantly each week.</div>
Not really Colby. Zig-zag is all about using a load lighter than or similar to the load used in the previous session but for a lower rep range. Hence, you experience less fatigue. Using all the rep ranges and increasing the loads for all rep ranges each week eventually sees you arriving at RM workouts for all rep ranges in the same week. That's what leegee is on about and it is pretty brutal plus there's also the likelihood of greater accumulated fatigue at that point than if you did a regular HST cycle with zig-zag.
 
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