Why did I get weaker?

S

sard

New Member
My previous HST cycle, I was coming off some shoulder pain, so I decided to add a round of 20s before the 15s.
Did my 20s/15s/10s/5s and felt good. Every last workout of the cycle (the 6th workout) I hit the target number of reps in the first set, and the second set I was very close to hitting the target number.

Now (this is an example ONLY) this was my lift for 15s (over the 6 workouts)
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 (so you see I progressed every workout)

Now when I started my current cycle, I decided to start with the 15s (no 20s this time) and since I felt strong last time, I decided to use increase the weights.
So this time it was:
20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70
So as you can see, the weights for workout 1-5 are the same, but my 6th workout would be a new "high"

But for some reason, starting with workout 1, I was already struggling with the weights.
I managed to do workout 2, 3 and 4 before I had to go on a trip and decided to stop for 10 days and start over.

But workout 2-4 were very tough, I didnt even manage to get 15 on some of the exercises.

Why would that be the case?
The previous cycle, I was able to (as you see by my example) do the same weight, with not a lot of problems.

Could it have to do with the fact that I did a cycle of 20?
So when I got to the 15s my body was "warmed" up and in the groove?

So next week when I start my 15s again, I guess I will go back to the original weights instead of the ones I just tried.

Thanks
 
There is not enough information to answer. There are many variables that can influence this. Diet, general health, stress... Other then that if you had a good SD the starting weights should feel somewhat hard. It is a good indicator that you successfully deconditioned.
I don't think the 20s should have this kind of impact so check the other variables. Maybe you changed gyms and the bars weight differently or you are using machines and it is not exactly the same machine?
 
sard,

I'll take a few stabs at this as there are a number of possible reasons why things have gone awry.

Diet: What was your eating like during your time off? You should be aiming to maintain at the very least. If you have been doing any cardio while on SD then you would need to take in enough extra cals to balance that. Following the end of a bulk cycle I would still be consuming extra cals over maintenance for a few days to give my body a chance to heal and grow properly.

Loading: If you finished up lifting 60lb for your 15RM last cycle then just add around 5% for the next cycle if you didn't retest your maxes. That would give you a target of 63lb this cycle. Jumping to 70lb would be an increase of about 17% in one cycle - probably only likely if you are very new to training and still benefiting from some neural conditioning.

Just as an aside: You certainly have progressive load during the 15s but you are actually starting the mesocycle with a load that is too light relative to your 15RM. If your 15RM was set at 70lb (from your example) then you should be starting the cycle with around 50lb (~75% of 15RM).

So a better increment scheme for your 15s would be:

45,50,55,60,65,70 - it's ok to start off a little light after SD but not by too much.

Or based on a 5% increase over last cycle:

47,50,53,56,59,63

But that might well be awkward to set up so you could try this:

45,50,50,55,60,65

If you weren't able to get all 15 reps with 65lb then you could just use the same loads for the following cycle.
 
Lol has good advice. follow FTW!

fwiw I learned these things the hard way this cycle

i slightly under estimated my maintenance + didn't start my 15s at 80% of 15RM

voila...lost muscle, lost strength

I think keeping the minimum load at 80% of RM is one of those key points in HST that tends to get lost in the mix
 
I'll try to respond to the questions.

Everything else basically stayed the same.
I use the same gym, weights, etc.
My diet stays the same all year round (which is probably not the best thing)

So thats why I am so baffled as to why I had so much trouble.
The ONLY difference I can think of is:
I usually workout every other day.
This time it was every other day, but some times I took an extra day off.
I always found that if there are 2 days in between rather than 1 day, I feel weaker.

The weights I used, were the same weights as the previous cycle, but this time around I could not complete them.

Lol - as for the progression of weights, I just do what the FAQ said.
to make it easy, just use 10lb increments for the upper body and 20 for the lower.
I use 10lb increments for all barbell stuff, and 5lb for dumbbell stuff.
 
Good advise guys. As the poster said he needs to get his diet in check as well. That is so important.

Also of note, the poster's instincts may well be right concerning his cycle of 20s impacting his strength. Although he did attempt a large percentage increase. That rep range is more for muscle endurance work and less for strength / hyper-trophy. As such he could have been working a different set of muscle fibers depending upon the technique used in those rep ranges. That being said he could have seen a strength loss due to working the type I fibers mostly for those weeks which would have let the type II fibers have a longer than expected layoff. I believe that in the high rep range you would need to speed train to get the Type II fibers to work more.

Just a theory and I am sure those more anatomically educated can correct me if I am off base.
 
sard, what were you doing before each cycle? I suspect that residual fatigue may have crept in to throw off your performance on the second time around. Just a thought from the info you've provided.
 
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