In 1996 I had been training for more than 20 years, mainly 4-6 times per week. Mike Mentzer put me on his abbreviated routine of about 4 sets every 4 days, and my strength shot up a tremendous amount and I gained 17 lbs. in the next 5 months. Knowing what we know now with HST principles and understanding that I was already an experienced lifter at that point, why would the decreased frequency and increased intensity cause me to grow? I certainly stalled out fairly quickly afterwards, but why did it work at all?
Why did I grow from HIT?
- Thread starter leegee38
- Start date
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imported_dkm1987
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IMHO, Load, working with the higher intensity that Mike was known for created more tension than you were accustomed to in your previous training. I don't know this for a fact since you didn't elaborate on what he had you doing. If you had kept up with it and thrown in some SD to counteract RBE, then I would imagine you would have grown a bit more.[b said:
Change is good and needs to be constant. The initial change to HIT was a new experience for your body. Unfortunately HIT does not recognize that constant change is necessary and that muscles will eventually suffer from the repeated bout effect. HST is about constant change through progressive load and rep changes when you max out and SD to avoid RBE.
precious_roy
New Member
Do any of you regularly alternate between HST and some other form(s) of training (Max OT, DC, WSB)?
Simple version: you lifted heavier stuff.[b said:
Slightly more complicated: your muscle tissue was exposed to a greater degree of tension over time due to your strength gains.
Really complicated: Read anything by Bryan, Blade, Jules or Dan. And even a little me back when I was more active.
Just as a thought, don't think of training paradigms like religion. Examine the evidence for yourself and collect what principles you feel actually pertain to reality, then apply that to your training. Particular protocols can give you a feel for implementing specifics of these principles (e.g. standard HST format to optimize hypertrophy), but really understanding the evidence and reasoning allows you to make up your own stuff.[b said:
Really complicated but 100% true: One of the HIT Jedi took you under as padwan and helped you reach knighthood. But, as HIT Jedi are want to do, they limited you with their dogme and talk of "only those who have above-average metachloreans can become master." Pish. They claim oneness with the Hypertrophy but do not understand it. Embrace the HST. Only by knowing the Dark Side of the MAPKp38 pathway can you understand the true power of Hypertrophy. Let the anger and fear of your ectomorphic state course through you and make you strong!
Really true but 100% complicated:
Mentzer's HD2 template basically had quirky frequency setups in his routine. For legs and back, he would have you work out once every 12 days. But the upper torso would be worked twice over a 8 day period, and then given a 8 day layoff.
What this usually meant was that both the back and legs were significantly deconditioned session to session. This, in addition to working with new PRs for legs and back, would guarantee significant microtrauma during each session. And because we're talking about a very low volume one-shot, it's not likely the muscle's resistance to future bouts would have been adequately developed anyway. Thus, each growth response would have been very significant and possibly sustained longer than the 36-48 hour window.
It should also be noted that cardio was strongly frowned upon with his program. The HIT conventional wisdom at the time was that cardio ate up gains, not only glycogen storage. Here, this was somewhat true. Due to HD (and 3-way split routines were designed in general) very, very strong reliance upon a significantly deconditioned state to elicit growth, any amount of serious physical activity would significantly hurt potential gains. Looking back, it's probably the rise of the MWF split in the 90s that begun really demonizing cardio as this mass-eater.
The other thing is, general arm and upper torso gains, strength or sizewise, were not that great with HD2. People usually saw great gains in the back and leg work, but the arms were the first to taper a bit. In fact, I think the static contractions were introduced mostly to bump up arm development. (Though to his credit, Mentzer recommending hitching the stretch reflex in his movements too.) And again, the conventional wisdom was that, well, arms are a smaller bodypart and need more time to grow. And some people later on reasoned that arms didn't grow that much because the frequency was higher-than-optimal in his given template. For myself, I noticed that it was harder to continuously increase my bench press on HD2 whereas the legs and backs flew right by.
The problem was two-fold in his arm exercises. He chose peak contraction-style exercises, movements like lateral raises and tricep pushdown, which can induce a lot of stress (thus slowing down strength gains), but is often no better if not inferior to the bench press and other movements in producing microtruama. This would be the equivalent of somebody doing HST twice a week and choosing 5-10% lighter weight during the 2nd session. But, because the 2nd session created significant stress, it would hamper the real-world strength gains possible with this routine. The template usually scheduled the chest session 2-4 days after the arms session. Because of the stress usually imposed by performing peak contractions movements to failure, it also hurt the real-world strength gains the trainee should have been enjoying on their chest day.
From my experience and others, the people who seemed to benefit most from HD2 were people with a (recent) athletic background and/or lengthy experience with high volume routines, such as yourself. Some of that, of course, is due to the lower frequency enabling higher loads, in turn initiating significant growth. But some of that is also part of the smoke and mirrors we all use when evaluating our weight gains.
Or to put it another way, given a sufficient bulking diet, most beginning-to-intermediate natural trainees can gain 17lbs in 5 months. The real question, then, is how much of it will be water, fat, and lean muscle. HD was particularly bad about this. Most who gained a lot of weight on HD in a short time also gained a lot of fat, usually around 1:1 muscle to fat. Those who did better than that, would store the excess calories in glycogen stores and gain a lot of water weight. Easily 4-6lbs can be gained from water weight alone over this way in a short time, but only by people who either have below-average glycogen stores or highly conditioned muscles by which more of excess carbs can be shuttled into the stores. It happens that athletes and high-volume trainees fit that bill. They can partially deflect the bulking diet by storing it in water, which would create higher LBM gains.
But, that in turn suffers due to the relatively light frequency. A person is caught in a double-dang situation with the HD schedule. If you are sedentary between each metabolically iffy session, you start to lose your aerobic conditioning, your water weight wll drop, your metabolism will drop, and in turn your ability to partition nutrients optimally drops. But if you remain active and vigorous, you hurt your potential for real-world gains session to session. The only "safe" alternative to mantain that weight is to eat a proper bulking diet everyday; bu without the exercise, you'll get fat. LBM gains taper off rapidly.
Therefore, a person who gained 17lbs in 5 months on HD may only gain 5-10lbs in fat, 7-12lbs in LBM, and 3-4lbs of that is in glycogen/water storage. That in itself is not a bad, but it tempers the rapid results from said program.
And it levies why HDers find it difficult to continue gaining signficantly on the program. The HDer is basically left with two choices if they stick with the program. They can eat significantly all the time and risk a lot of fat gain. Or they can eat smaller meals, accepting that a 10-15lbs gain (for the beginner/intermediate) is a very good year as long as they feel very strong. The combination of their strength gains and their belief in their mediocre genetics or ectomorph metabolism soothes their doubts over whether another routine could produce better results. If you were a trainee with normal-to-average metabolism, pretty strong conditioning from previous training experience, and a desire to eat calorically significant meals, you could veer toward true bulking with less worry of fat. Those who don't, will stick to their lower calorie diets and reinforce their prophecy that "significant strength gains before real size gains." When the strength numbers stagnate, they lower frequency, which gets them stronger, but lowers their upside in LBM rate. .
But, yeah, Sith happens.
cheers,
Jules
Really true but 100% complicated:
Mentzer's HD2 template basically had quirky frequency setups in his routine. For legs and back, he would have you work out once every 12 days. But the upper torso would be worked twice over a 8 day period, and then given a 8 day layoff.
What this usually meant was that both the back and legs were significantly deconditioned session to session. This, in addition to working with new PRs for legs and back, would guarantee significant microtrauma during each session. And because we're talking about a very low volume one-shot, it's not likely the muscle's resistance to future bouts would have been adequately developed anyway. Thus, each growth response would have been very significant and possibly sustained longer than the 36-48 hour window.
It should also be noted that cardio was strongly frowned upon with his program. The HIT conventional wisdom at the time was that cardio ate up gains, not only glycogen storage. Here, this was somewhat true. Due to HD (and 3-way split routines were designed in general) very, very strong reliance upon a significantly deconditioned state to elicit growth, any amount of serious physical activity would significantly hurt potential gains. Looking back, it's probably the rise of the MWF split in the 90s that begun really demonizing cardio as this mass-eater.
The other thing is, general arm and upper torso gains, strength or sizewise, were not that great with HD2. People usually saw great gains in the back and leg work, but the arms were the first to taper a bit. In fact, I think the static contractions were introduced mostly to bump up arm development. (Though to his credit, Mentzer recommending hitching the stretch reflex in his movements too.) And again, the conventional wisdom was that, well, arms are a smaller bodypart and need more time to grow. And some people later on reasoned that arms didn't grow that much because the frequency was higher-than-optimal in his given template. For myself, I noticed that it was harder to continuously increase my bench press on HD2 whereas the legs and backs flew right by.
The problem was two-fold in his arm exercises. He chose peak contraction-style exercises, movements like lateral raises and tricep pushdown, which can induce a lot of stress (thus slowing down strength gains), but is often no better if not inferior to the bench press and other movements in producing microtruama. This would be the equivalent of somebody doing HST twice a week and choosing 5-10% lighter weight during the 2nd session. But, because the 2nd session created significant stress, it would hamper the real-world strength gains possible with this routine. The template usually scheduled the chest session 2-4 days after the arms session. Because of the stress usually imposed by performing peak contractions movements to failure, it also hurt the real-world strength gains the trainee should have been enjoying on their chest day.
From my experience and others, the people who seemed to benefit most from HD2 were people with a (recent) athletic background and/or lengthy experience with high volume routines, such as yourself. Some of that, of course, is due to the lower frequency enabling higher loads, in turn initiating significant growth. But some of that is also part of the smoke and mirrors we all use when evaluating our weight gains.
Or to put it another way, given a sufficient bulking diet, most beginning-to-intermediate natural trainees can gain 17lbs in 5 months. The real question, then, is how much of it will be water, fat, and lean muscle. HD was particularly bad about this. Most who gained a lot of weight on HD in a short time also gained a lot of fat, usually around 1:1 muscle to fat. Those who did better than that, would store the excess calories in glycogen stores and gain a lot of water weight. Easily 4-6lbs can be gained from water weight alone over this way in a short time, but only by people who either have below-average glycogen stores or highly conditioned muscles by which more of excess carbs can be shuttled into the stores. It happens that athletes and high-volume trainees fit that bill. They can partially deflect the bulking diet by storing it in water, which would create higher LBM gains.
But, that in turn suffers due to the relatively light frequency. A person is caught in a double-dang situation with the HD schedule. If you are sedentary between each metabolically iffy session, you start to lose your aerobic conditioning, your water weight wll drop, your metabolism will drop, and in turn your ability to partition nutrients optimally drops. But if you remain active and vigorous, you hurt your potential for real-world gains session to session. The only "safe" alternative to mantain that weight is to eat a proper bulking diet everyday; bu without the exercise, you'll get fat. LBM gains taper off rapidly.
Therefore, a person who gained 17lbs in 5 months on HD may only gain 5-10lbs in fat, 7-12lbs in LBM, and 3-4lbs of that is in glycogen/water storage. That in itself is not a bad, but it tempers the rapid results from said program.
And it levies why HDers find it difficult to continue gaining signficantly on the program. The HDer is basically left with two choices if they stick with the program. They can eat significantly all the time and risk a lot of fat gain. Or they can eat smaller meals, accepting that a 10-15lbs gain (for the beginner/intermediate) is a very good year as long as they feel very strong. The combination of their strength gains and their belief in their mediocre genetics or ectomorph metabolism soothes their doubts over whether another routine could produce better results. If you were a trainee with normal-to-average metabolism, pretty strong conditioning from previous training experience, and a desire to eat calorically significant meals, you could veer toward true bulking with less worry of fat. Those who don't, will stick to their lower calorie diets and reinforce their prophecy that "significant strength gains before real size gains." When the strength numbers stagnate, they lower frequency, which gets them stronger, but lowers their upside in LBM rate. .
But, yeah, Sith happens.
cheers,
Jules
I
imported_dkm1987
Guest
Well hello Mr. Novak, how ya doing? Nice to see ya posting again
Don't let Michael fool ya, he's one sharp dood and you can learn A LOT from him and his posts, I sure did.
[b said:
Don't let Michael fool ya, he's one sharp dood and you can learn A LOT from him and his posts, I sure did.
I
imported_dkm1987
Guest
Jules, did you go to the movies last night?[b said:
Good question BoSox. I am going to guess that the answer is that a lot of stress, on either joints or muscles, limits the amount of weight that can be moved and would thus limit strength gains. That doesn't necessarily mean it is bad for hypertrophy or endurance though.
I'm guessing too, but I don't think that's it. I think he's saying that peak contraction exercises put a lot of stress on the CNS, thereby limiting strength gains.[b said:
This is what leads me to that conclusion:
"Because of the stress usually imposed by performing peak contractions movements to failure, it also hurt the real-world strength gains the trainee should have been enjoying on their chest day. "
Hopefully he will pop in and clarify.
Ah, let me explain. It requires some context of the standard HD2 routine . . .
Usually, Mentzer used a 3-way split spread over 7-14 days. The layout was chest/back, legs, and arms, each day was separated by 2-4 days or so. I *think* the arms day included dips but I don't remember.
This meant that, after your chest day, you would rest 8 days before going for arms. But, you would only rest 4 days going from arms to chest. Big, big disrepancy here.
There was two problems with this. First, because you took 8 days off, the arms day had the potential to create a lot of DOMS. In addition to this, because you were training to failure with peak contraction movements (and since we're talking about Heavy Duty, we're talking real failure here, plus a static hold), you also fried your CNS. And remember, you're not doing enough exercise anyway to improve your functional performance, so glycogen storage and replenishment can be an issue too. Triple jeapardy in terms of strength loss. Now, you have 4 days to not only recover your previous arm strength but be in the surplus.
I always felt really strong going into my arms day, but then felt like I really needed an extra day or two to prime my arms for the chest day. I didn't have this problem with the back or the legs, just with the pressing movements. A lot of people on HD complained about this same thing, and so they switched to a back-legs-chest split with the same rest days. Thus, the rest times were more even, and strength gains were more consistent across the board. Of course, this also meant that the training bouts for arms decreased even further, which create a new set of problems. And so the HIT merry-go-around goes.
cheers,
Jules
Usually, Mentzer used a 3-way split spread over 7-14 days. The layout was chest/back, legs, and arms, each day was separated by 2-4 days or so. I *think* the arms day included dips but I don't remember.
This meant that, after your chest day, you would rest 8 days before going for arms. But, you would only rest 4 days going from arms to chest. Big, big disrepancy here.
There was two problems with this. First, because you took 8 days off, the arms day had the potential to create a lot of DOMS. In addition to this, because you were training to failure with peak contraction movements (and since we're talking about Heavy Duty, we're talking real failure here, plus a static hold), you also fried your CNS. And remember, you're not doing enough exercise anyway to improve your functional performance, so glycogen storage and replenishment can be an issue too. Triple jeapardy in terms of strength loss. Now, you have 4 days to not only recover your previous arm strength but be in the surplus.
I always felt really strong going into my arms day, but then felt like I really needed an extra day or two to prime my arms for the chest day. I didn't have this problem with the back or the legs, just with the pressing movements. A lot of people on HD complained about this same thing, and so they switched to a back-legs-chest split with the same rest days. Thus, the rest times were more even, and strength gains were more consistent across the board. Of course, this also meant that the training bouts for arms decreased even further, which create a new set of problems. And so the HIT merry-go-around goes.
cheers,
Jules
Jules, I'm not sure which I liked better ... Your HD2 explanation or your movie review.
I first met Mike Mentzer in 1978 and trained with relatively high intensity ever since. I always looked better when I did a 3-way split and trained 6 days a week, though. The problem was I could only do that for 4-6 weeks before I either hurt something or got sick. This sort of all fits in with SD and frequency, huh?
The gains I made in those first 5 months of HD2 were the best I had made since I was a teenager, and still are better than any short period since. I've been doing HST for about a year and half now and this is the first time I've gone past the bodyweight I acheived back then. Suprisingly though my arms are actually smaller than they were then. I'd like to hear more about what you think is going on with the peak contraction and isolation exercises. Should we not really do peak contraction stuff for arms but focus on the stretch position and myotactic reflex instead? Along with the mid range compounds, of course. Interestng stuff!
I first met Mike Mentzer in 1978 and trained with relatively high intensity ever since. I always looked better when I did a 3-way split and trained 6 days a week, though. The problem was I could only do that for 4-6 weeks before I either hurt something or got sick. This sort of all fits in with SD and frequency, huh?
The gains I made in those first 5 months of HD2 were the best I had made since I was a teenager, and still are better than any short period since. I've been doing HST for about a year and half now and this is the first time I've gone past the bodyweight I acheived back then. Suprisingly though my arms are actually smaller than they were then. I'd like to hear more about what you think is going on with the peak contraction and isolation exercises. Should we not really do peak contraction stuff for arms but focus on the stretch position and myotactic reflex instead? Along with the mid range compounds, of course. Interestng stuff!
[b said:
FWIW, I still consider Mentzer the biggest influence on training education. The training examples doesn't look like that, but his book was the first one that got me into seeing big picture and deconstructing workout routines. That is the real beginning of mastery, when you go from merely accruing various techniques and workout systems/templates, toward writing your own and analyzing other templates that may not resemble yours at all.
Between 96-97, I and my mates on a discussion forum put together some ideas about implementing cycling concepts into a true HIT program, static-negative training, and a really involved using rep-ranges; the former resembles IART's Chaos training concepts, the 2nd anticipated Sisco's static-only theory, and the latter resembled the SSEG's Dose-Response work with TUT. And this was all done a few years ahead of the advent of each. At the time, it wasn't important to me whether HIT was 100% valid -- even then, I knew it couldn't be because there were so many counterexamples -- but I knew HIT worked, Mentzer was the guy who got us thinking in a progressive direction.
[b said:
The peak contraction stuff helps build metabolic stress (i.e. the burn/pump.) That is useful, but not as much as boosting microtrauma/strain by stretch-point movements and/or lifting heavy with your basic midrange stuff. It's not either/or, but order of priority. Once you've generated significant microtrauma, then you want to increase the metabolic stress on the muscle to round out the hypertrophy effects. A more thorough explanation is in the Customizing thread, which you can DL as a Word/PDF document now.
[b said:
Simple answer: Roids. Just kidding.
Simple answer, part 2:
1) DCers are generally more experienced. Quite a few come from the HG wing of HIT, and so the 20-rep squats and beat-the-logbook mentality is a natural outgrowth of their practical experience.
2) They know how to bulk properly, and they tend to supplement (green tea, post-WO carbs) in a way that helps to manage CNS fatigue. Among the three major program, DCers are overall the best at bulking diets and post-WO nutrition.
3) Any form of failure-based training has enormous potential for strength gains. As long as the CNS stress is managed. On DC's system, you rotate exercises 3-way, which does two things. First, it varies the recruitment pattern, meaning your E/C doesn't get burned the same way session to session. Second, it varies the stabilization requirement, which in turn varies the neural drive requirement (squats one day, leg press another day, etc.), and so there's just less CNS stress on certain days than others.
4) Their bodyparts are trained often enough to avoid excessive DOMS, which causes a very significant decoupling effect. When you train to failure AND you're relatively deconditioned, your strength levels can drop precipitously. On a MWF split or a HD2 split, there's often significant DOMS after a routine. That suggests a significant growth response, but it also underlies that your native strength. It's a feedback loop, basically. If you've had a lengthy history of hitting a bodypart once a week AND trying to surpass your functional strength, you either have to continue training once a week in order to keep progressing, or you increase your frequency and take your lumps for a few weeks until your muscle grows more resistant to damage. It actually makes more sense to start from a 3x-a-week full body HIT routine, then devolve into a HD2 setup over an entire cycle. Once the gains stop altogether, then you take that 2-week break and go 3x-a-week again.
5) Because DC has an aggressive metabolic element (easily the most of the three major systems), your functional strength performance is never limited by your muscle's aerobic conditioning. Unfortunately, on a Mentzer program and a plain-vanilla MWF HIT split (though not on a high-volume MWF split), your muscle loses its energy efficiency. Also, your glycogen storage probably won't be optimal. That's why I think adding that 15s set to a Max-OT program will significantly help their results.
6) They gain a lot of muscle, therefore they get a lot of stronger.
Overall, I'd say Max-OTers seem to see the best strength gains among the three systems. Their frequency is lower than DC, and they don't use as much of the hardcore stress techniques. But DC produces much better hypertrophy results, partly because it (like HST) still recognizes that additional strength is a means to an end, not the goal itself.
Max-OT sees each new PR as a sign that you're getting bigger. That's very HIT. DC takes each new PR as a foundation to brutalize/stimulate your muscle even more. That's how some HITers eventually progressed toward to a few years back, partly those in the IART camp.
HST is different, in that it sees your strength as a menu of choices to create growth. That falls out of HIT's paradigm and is arguably the hardest part for HITers to grasp.
cheers,
Jules
[b said:Quote[/b] (leegee38 @ May 20 2005,2<!--emo&)]In 1996 I had been training for more than 20 years, mainly 4-6 times per week. Mike Mentzer put me on his abbreviated routine of about 4 sets every 4 days, and my strength shot up a tremendous amount and I gained 17 lbs. in the next 5 months. Knowing what we know now with HST principles and understanding that I was already an experienced lifter at that point, why would the decreased frequency and increased intensity cause me to grow? I certainly stalled out fairly quickly afterwards, but why did it work at all?
When you trained 4-6 times per week your CNS was probably "burned" ! When you started heavy duty your CNS recovered because of the very low frequency which allowed you to lift heavier weights and thus make you grow. The intensity (load) is definitively the most important factor. Even if volume and frequency are very low on HD/HIT you still can grow because you use relatively heavy weights (6-10RM).
The problem with HD (low volume / low frequency / medium to heavy weights / high intensity of effort) is that once your CNS has recovered (or surcompensate) because of the low volume/frequency gains stop or are very slow because the hypertrophic stimulation is very low ! And if you do HIT (higher volume/frequency) you'll burn your CNS very fast because of the (too) high intensity of effort.
Try to keep the hypertrophic stimulation (weight > frequency > volume) as high as possible with the CNS stimulation (intensity of effort) as low as possible. Use singles to lift heavy weights (the rep range has nothing to do with hypertrophy) and keep the density very low to lift heavy weights with the lowest effort possible (to be able to keep a HIGH frequency/volume).