Weight training comeback - straight to HST or no?

T

thomanil

New Member
Hello all,

I'm picking up weight training after a 6+ year hiatus. Should I go straight to regular HST cycles or start with more basic routines?

Some background: I'm 31 years old. Hardgainer/ectomorph, lifted a little in high school and college years with poor results - ate wrong, and used unproductive routines (think "Weider method").

My last stint in 2002-2003 was the only one where I finally saw some real progress - tried out HST and ate right, with perceptible gains.

Haven't lifted since then, but I'm in decent cardio and flexibility shape - I've practiced martial arts for 12+ years, though much more focused on flexibility and endurance than raw strength.

So my question is: now that I'm looking at weight training again, should I go straight on HST or start with a more basic, flat 3x8/5x5 program? (I'm going to go with whole body 3x a week no matter what, though).

Thanks, and cool to see the HST community still alive and well!
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Hey thomanil,

A similar thing was asked recently. Did you see this thread?

http://www.hypertrophy-specific.info/cgi-bin....t=15610

If I was in your situation, I'd probably just use a linear loading approach (using 3 x 5 across for each main compound exercise) until my strength peaked and then switch to an HST routine, keeping to about four or five main exercises per session. The only caveat to this approach would be to add in some high-rep work for your joints if you felt the need.

If you are going to be doing a fair amount of cardio at the same time, be sure to get enough calories to keep you in surplus.
 
Thanks for the reply, Lol.

Your are right, that's a very similar thread. Guess I need new glasses, I skimmed right past that one. Sorry for spamming.
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As for my situation, thank you for the concrete advice on linear loading, sounds reasonable - especially the suggestion about throwing in some high reps for the joints!
 
i would probably start with HST and do the 15s that way you are using lighter weights rather than jumping straight into 5x5 etc.
 
I recently was on my own hiatus when a friend told me about this site and I decided to give it a try.  I think starting with the 15s doing 1 set of each exercise has been perfect.  In the past when ever I'm coming back from some time off I've always had problems starting too hard where I become way too sore for the rest of the week to even train, which makes it not very effective at all.  With HST I felt it was easy and the workouts are short at first, but I would still get soreness that would last a couple days which allows you to keep training.  I'm only 5 weeks in and I have gained a lot.
 
hard'gain'er (-gain'er), n. One who believes that the feeling of satiety is a condition of overcaloric surplus, supposedly resulting in an anabolic condition. See 'errant, deceptive (adj), mislead (adv).
 
<div>
(quadancer @ Sep. 13 2009,8:14)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">hard'gain'er (-gain'er), n. One who believes that the feeling of satiety is a condition of overcaloric surplus, supposedly resulting in an anabolic condition. See 'errant, deceptive (adj), mislead (adv).</div>
quadancer,

I don't mean to belittle your efforts. I have seen your training logs and pictures and realize that you put forth an extreme amount of effort to get where you are. I also know with some certaintly that you are not ectomorphic. I can sympathize with ectormorphs because I am one aswell. I eat more food than anybody I know, I train just as hard to bulk up, but weight doesn't come fast or easy. Throughout my life I have maintained a bf% betwen 4-7% while I pig out with food. My body strongly resists any increase in size. So I would disagree that a &quot;hardgainer&quot; is somebody who is deceived or mislead. I'm not saying that anybody should use their genetics as an excuse to not hit their goals but but they can be a harder opstical thant you realize. In the past 10 years, I managed to get from 140lbs to 185lbs.
 
Well bro, you're going to find a lot of controversy as to even the existence of the 3 bodytypes, which advocates of will admit, are almost always mixes of two types. There are people with faster/slower metabolisms, amongst other conditions create a definitive difference in caloric response.
And I used to believe all of it.
However, take anyone and starve them (Auswichz comes to mind) and they become &quot;ectomorphs&quot; - overfeed anyone and they don't live much past 60.
I had one acquaintance who had palsy and twitched every couple of seconds- he burned of every ounce of fat regardless of diet. Average man fidgets to the tune of 600 calories a day; tapping pencils, feet, etc.
Again and again I have seen BB coaches tell trainees that they WILL beef them up - as soon as they get used to heavy eating, and sleep enough to repair the body. It generally takes about 2 weeks to get accustomed to a bulk, but anybody can do it that isn't outright sick. I'll bet if you posted your diet, there would be a lot of things we can substitute, for instance, bananas instead of grapes or vegetables. If you want to BE a 220 pounder, you have to EAT for a 220 pounder. For the record, my natty weight is about 175 lbs. I'm 218 now with too much BF. I look okay at around 210-215, but not really cut there either.
I couldn't seem to gain much at first either. Now I can't seem to slow it down!
 
dgunderm,

I would have to agree with Quad on this one...

I was a very skinny teen, when I started training, and 'thought' I was a 'hard gainer' too... as all the 'weight gain powder' sellers suggested, encouraging me to buy their wonder bulk up powders
(I think I remember a Weider one with 2000cals per serving.... mainly all sugar I guess)

But that was the problem. Although I ate a lot. I probably only had one good meal a day, and the rest was rubbish. Junk food and sugary stuff, and I then burnt that off - probably twitching and tapping stuff?

However, once i got the hang of eating properly - and, as Quad stated, spot on, in my opinion too - eating like the 220lb BB I wanted to be, then I began to bulk up really easily...

Infact too easily, cos now, at 38yrs, I'm actually 290lb (admittedly with around 22% bf at the moment..
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)

So post your exact diet, and let us give you some opinions?

Good luck

Brix
 
Hey dgunderm, going from 140lbs to 185lbs is worth some commendation. What I'd like to know is: how much did you gain the first year, then the second year etc?

If you had had access to current training and dietary advice 10 years ago, you could well have gained 20-30lbs in the first year of training (possibly more). Sure, some of it would have been fat. That may have been the problem? Often, the first sight of added fat is enough to start folks eating really clean in an attempt to only add lean muscle mass. That'll drop your cals right down and pretty much stop all gains in their tracks.

The trouble is, your p-ratio is what it is. Training will skew it in favour of lean mass to some extent but you will still inevitably add some fat as you make gains. Chemical assistance will skew it even further in favour of lean mass and allow you to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time - not something that usually happens once you are past the early stages of training.

Like Brix, I was a skinny teen too. I trained hard and thought I ate a lot, but I really didn't know what eating a lot meant and I certainly didn't record calories accurately.

Once I got back into training in my late 30s I was still pretty skinny. Thankfully, I found the HST site, among others, and got some sound advice on training and daily calorie consumption. I took the advice and forgot about eating clean for a year or so. I packed on the pounds and in not much more than a year I added around 40lb to my bodyweight. I wouldn't actually recommend doing what I did because quite a bit of it was fat and I ended up taking the best part of my third year attempting to diet down while keeping as much lean mass as possible.

Like Quad and Brix have said, unless you can post your exact diet, it's quite possible that you are eating less than you think. It can be quite interesting to track your cals on FitDay.com (eg.) for a few days and see how they turn out.

One other thing: I found that as I ate more, my body started to try to burn off the extra cals by keeping me hot all the time! That made it harder to continue to add weight. Maybe you found the same thing?
 
For long thought I was a hardgainer (maybe I am) since I was always skinny and everyone told me I ate for someone twice my size. I did eat comparatively more then most people while remaining lean and when I started lifting weights I didn't get anywhere and started getting frustrated.
What I realized was that even though I did eat more then other people during meals I didn't eat much between them while other people were eating cookies and chocolate. I drank diet soda while other people were drinking the regular kind. And so on.
Sure there are people with faster metabolisms that need more calories then other for the same amount of mass but you just need to up your calories even more. I started doing that and gains started coming. Started adding snacks betweens meals and eating more caloric foods. And as other have suggested you need to track your calories using the most precise portion size you can. Weight everything you eat if you can. It is so easy to overestimate things. And I say that by experience.
Apart from that, as you grow you'll need even more calories because not only because you are heavier but because a good part of that is calorie-consuming muscle.
Keep tracking your calories and increase them gradually until you are seeing gains. If gains stop coming increase calories further. Remember to get enough protein.
 
Original poster here. Well, I'm two weeks into my first HST cycle after starting up again, just did my first session of 10s today. Feeling great!

As for this whole hardgainer discussion: Interesting. Is the body type theory properly disproven by science now or is there some uncertainty? (Understand that I haven't done any research on weight training since the last time I lifted regularly, ie 7 years ago).
 
There is no actual evidence to support body typing. Read up on what the bodytypes actually mean and you'll be appalled at how much of it sounds similar to phrenology and other pseudosciences.

I'm another former &quot;ectomorph&quot; though to be fair there is possibly a small grain of truth to it - not that it is hard to gain, but simply that my metabolism required way higher calories than other guys my size needed to gain. But again, once I recorded calories and kept adjusting upward, I began to make gains... despite being a &quot;hard gainer&quot; etc etc.

It is worth noting that many people who think they are ectomorphs are much more active than people who are 'endomorphs.' Just walking more in each day, etc etc (non-exercise activity) can make a difference in how much food you require.
 
Plus, there is a tendency for some folks to feel hungry more and for others to not. I'm in the latter camp; I find it a real chore to eat enough food to gain weight if I'm already eating at maintenance. Maybe something to do with an individual's natural levels of leptin, grehlin or some other hormone?

(Hope your training is going well Totz).
 
Oh, I do believe that there are body types. But it's not what you think you are. Polynesians are big boned and tend to be fatter - and half of America likes to think of themselves as &quot;big-boned&quot;. When I wrap my forefinger and thumb around your wrist and get that 7&quot;, you are not.
A kid in my church is a skeleton and according to his family eats like a hog. I particularly doubt it: it's not enough for him, that's all. There may be exceptions to the rule, but the rule is, we're all fairly much the same.
Differences are apparent in fingers and toes. People with short stubby toes gain fat easier then those with &quot;finger&quot; toes, like me. But that's not to say the one cannot attain the bodyfat of the other; they can. It is just a tendency to go one way or the other, not a prison you're forever doomed to dwell in.
 
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