TG´s HST ***Give it Hell*** LOG

Allright, for those who are interested can follow my training here.

HST ***GIVE IT HELL*** TEMPLATE

-HST
-2 set per muscle group
-15/10/5 rep range
- 2 x the whole body week
-zig zag. Start with 75% of RPM to 100% in 6 sessions.

-If jumps are too height they get repeated for one session.

Programm:


Leg Press
Leg Curl
Bench Press
Cable Row
Shoulder dumbbell Press seated
LAt pulldown
Triceps Pushdowns
Cable Curl
-1-2 sets of hyperxtensions and crunches in the 6-12 rep range.


MAXES (15/10/5)
Bench 65/75/80
Cable Row: 55/65/70
Dumbbell shoulder Press: 22,5/27.5/30
Pulldown: 57.5/67.5/72.5
Cable Curl: 40/50/55
Pushdown: 60/70/75
Leg Press feet high: 70/90/140
Leg Curl: 17.5/27.5/32.5


Enjoy the ride,
TG
 
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1. Session 15´s

Went good although the SD made the weight really heavy. I got all reps and sets in but had to rest longer than suspected (3min approx)

TG
 
2. Session 15´s

Was really tired and slepted not well (3 hours). Went nevertheless to the gym. The weights got really heavy for me but I made the round.
Only exercise I didn´t get 2 sets in were curls. I only got 8 on the second. So I will drop the second set and stick to one next session.

TG
 
3. Session 15´s

- Better this time. More sleep and more food.
-Got all sets and reps in.
-For curls I sticked to one set.

Comments:
I am curious if I PR on the last session. i know its not the goal but its important for me for motivation.
If the muscle gets bigger you should also get stronger (not 1:1 but korrelated) in the worked rep range.
Psychological and perhaps physiological wise a rotation of reps schemes like HLM is easier for me to pull of than sticking to one rep range each workout. It feels a bit "annoying".
Also I think if I should increase the volume of the 10´s to 30 total reps too.
 
3. Session 15´s

- Better this time. More sleep and more food.
-Got all sets and reps in.
-For curls I sticked to one set.

Comments:
I am curious if I PR on the last session. i know its not the goal but its important for me for motivation.
If the muscle gets bigger you should also get stronger (not 1:1 but korrelated) in the worked rep range.
Psychological and perhaps physiological wise a rotation of reps schemes like HLM is easier for me to pull of than sticking to one rep range each workout. It feels a bit "annoying".
Also I think if I should increase the volume of the 10´s to 30 total reps too.

I always like to try for PR's on the RM sessions. It's absolutely not necessary but it is fun to try. :) Bear in mind that your max effort lift on any day can be affected by lots of factors.

If you are thinking of getting more TUT than 20 reps will provide, but you don't want to accumulate fatigue too soon during 10s, then after 2 sets of 10 reps you can always drop the number of reps for your third set. In fact, once you get to your 10RM w/o, you may not be able to complete more than one set of 10 reps. If that's the case then you can just drop the reps down a bit. Maybe for your second set you can still manage 8 or 9 reps and then get a third set of 7 or 8 reps. That will give you a total around 25 reps with your 10RM load.
 
I always like to try for PR's on the RM sessions. It's absolutely not necessary but it is fun to try. :) Bear in mind that your max effort lift on any day can be affected by lots of factors.

If you are thinking of getting more TUT than 20 reps will provide, but you don't want to accumulate fatigue too soon during 10s, then after 2 sets of 10 reps you can always drop the number of reps for your third set. In fact, once you get to your 10RM w/o, you may not be able to complete more than one set of 10 reps. If that's the case then you can just drop the reps down a bit. Maybe for your second set you can still manage 8 or 9 reps and then get a third set of 7 or 8 reps. That will give you a total around 25 reps with your 10RM load.

thank you LOL fpr your reply.

Have you personally experienced different results when using different volumina? 10,20,30 total reps for example?
 
I would not do a 3rd set of 10s. This is your first cycle, try doing it as recommended, especially given your various issues with fatigue.
 
thank you LOL fpr your reply.

Have you personally experienced different results when using different volumina? 10,20,30 total reps for example?

From a purely hypertrophic perspective, yes, and for the reason that it will depend on where you are in your training, ie. what stage you are at, how long you've been lifting etc. The intensity level will play a part too. Doing too many heavy reps will burn you out sooner than cycling the rep ranges like you do with HST. Some folks can cope with lots of heavy work better than others. It's age dependent too.

<muscle-musing-head on>Talking with Dan Moore about this a few years ago made me think that the total amount of work that's done each session for a muscle group is relevant to hypertrophy. That boils down to load x reps. So, if I can't manage a lot of reps (without frying my CNS) because the load is heavy, then I will add in lighter additional reps to maintain, or even increase, the total amount of work I'm doing each session and I will do this over the course of an HST cycle. It's very easy to do a ton of work during 15s and then reduce that massively by the time you get to 5s. I don't think that's a good thing for maximum hypertrophy. So, this is when some lighter metabolic work can be useful to bring the work-done total up, plus it has the added benefit of getting your body to maintain it's muscle glycogen storage and for metabolic signalling of ERK1/2, keeping your muscles not only feeling fuller but also improving muscle efficiency very slightly due to the slight improvements in mechanical advantage afforded to a slightly bigger muscle. Every little helps! Intra-muscular fat does the same thing, which is perhaps one reason why I tend to get weaker when I diet away fat. I think I store more fat in-between my muscles than some folks.</muscle-musing-head off>

I would always try to do the minimum necessary to get results. I don't see the point in doing too much as it's just taking calories away from helping out elsewhere (figuratively speaking). Always best to start low and build up. If you are eating enough to add lean mass then as long as you can continue to add weight to the bar over time you are doing enough to grow. With HST it's very possible for a novice trainee to add over 50lb of bodyweight in a year and for a lot of that to be lean mass. Of course, individual P-ratios play a part along with a host of other (genetic) factors.
 
From a purely hypertrophic perspective, yes, and for the reason that it will depend on where you are in your training, ie. what stage you are at, how long you've been lifting etc. The intensity level will play a part too. Doing too many heavy reps will burn you out sooner than cycling the rep ranges like you do with HST. Some folks can cope with lots of heavy work better than others. It's age dependent too.

<muscle-musing-head on>Talking with Dan Moore about this a few years ago made me think that the total amount of work that's done each session for a muscle group is relevant to hypertrophy. That boils down to load x reps. So, if I can't manage a lot of reps (without frying my CNS) because the load is heavy, then I will add in lighter additional reps to maintain, or even increase, the total amount of work I'm doing each session and I will do this over the course of an HST cycle. It's very easy to do a ton of work during 15s and then reduce that massively by the time you get to 5s. I don't think that's a good thing for maximum hypertrophy. So, this is when some lighter metabolic work can be useful to bring the work-done total up, plus it has the added benefit of getting your body to maintain it's muscle glycogen storage and for metabolic signalling of ERK1/2, keeping your muscles not only feeling fuller but also improving muscle efficiency very slightly due to the slight improvements in mechanical advantage afforded to a slightly bigger muscle. Every little helps! Intra-muscular fat does the same thing, which is perhaps one reason why I tend to get weaker when I diet away fat. I think I store more fat in-between my muscles than some folks.</muscle-musing-head off>

I would always try to do the minimum necessary to get results. I don't see the point in doing too much as it's just taking calories away from helping out elsewhere (figuratively speaking). Always best to start low and build up. If you are eating enough to add lean mass then as long as you can continue to add weight to the bar over time you are doing enough to grow. With HST it's very possible for a novice trainee to add over 50lb of bodyweight in a year and for a lot of that to be lean mass. Of course, individual P-ratios play a part along with a host of other (genetic) factors.

Damn. Good stuff in this post. I agree with almost all of these points, programming work and load together hamroniously is very important in an HST program. Too much load, too fast, kills work volume by inducing rapid fatigue. Too much volume and the loads cannot progress very far. I like your idea of doing drop sets to get the volume in, and I also like the fact that the minimum necessary (too get a significant hypertrophy signal) is a good target when dealing with hypertrophy.
 
Damn. Good stuff in this post. I agree with almost all of these points, programming work and load together hamroniously is very important in an HST program. Too much load, too fast, kills work volume by inducing rapid fatigue. Too much volume and the loads cannot progress very far. I like your idea of doing drop sets to get the volume in, and I also like the fact that the minimum necessary (too get a significant hypertrophy signal) is a good target when dealing with hypertrophy.

It is still my understanding that the most important thing, as far as hypertrophy is concerned, is the MAPK p38 signaling path due to tension (from loading) and stretch on the muscle tissue. I didn't want to give a different impression in what I said earlier. All the other stuff is useful but if you don't trigger the p38 signaling path in a session then you aren't doing anything much for growth. Some workouts will be more effective than others because it depends how sensitive the muscle tissue is to the applied tension at that time. What you are aiming to do over the course of an HST cycle is to give yourself the best chance of stimulating the p38 pathway because the load is increasing over the course of the cycle and so hopefully you are staying ahead of our hypertrophy-nemesis, RBE!

Sci, I'd like to know what you don't agree with, cos that's how I learn. :)
 
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It is still my understanding that the most important thing, as far as hypertrophy is concerned, is the MAPK p38 signaling path due to tension (from loading) and stretch on the muscle tissue. I didn't want to give a different impression in what I said earlier. All the other stuff is useful but if you don't trigger the p38 signaling path in a session then you aren't doing anything much for growth. Some workouts will be more effective than others because it depends how sensitive the muscle tissue is to the applied tension at that time. What you are aiming to do over the course of an HST cycle is to give yourself the best chance of stimulating the p38 pathway because the load is increasing over the course of the cycle and so hopefully you are staying ahead of our hypertrophy-nemesis, RBE!

Sci, I'd like to know what you don't agree with, cos that's how I learn. :)

Yep, MAPK p38 is where it's at (without AAS/HGH ofc). There's a lot of nice discussion in the first HST e-book, although it can likely be found by searching for the user 'vicious' as well. Loaded stretches and pulsing helps for MAPK p38 activity.

I also largely agree w/the load x reps hypothesis, although I tend to find that dropsets and 'lower load' work to bring the total tonnage/work done up is less effective, if at all. Highly useful for promoting glycogen storage though.
 
I would not do a 3rd set of 10s. This is your first cycle, try doing it as recommended, especially given your various issues with fatigue.

thank you alex.
Do you think in my case I should driop the second set if i can´t get the reps anymore or cluster/myo rep them?
Although I am not sure if the second option will still be too much.
 
Interesting points lol. thanks.

is there some research on the minimul load for back off/metabolic sets?
Its also a difference if you do 40 reps or 15 after your "tension" set(s)
 
Sci, I'd like to know what you don't agree with, cos that's how I learn. :)

Well, I agree that progressive load is the number one factor, but like Alex said, I am a bit skeptical about drop-sets being optimally effective. I think it's more important to do as much as possible with the progressive load, then to get more volume if needed, max-stim, myoreps or clustering with same heavy load is probably more effective than droppig the load as in traditional drop-sets. That's about it, everything else I agree with 100%
 
thank you alex.
Do you think in my case I should driop the second set if i can´t get the reps anymore or cluster/myo rep them?
Although I am not sure if the second option will still be too much.

a) If you can't get the 2nd set then don't even think about the 3rd
b) Cluster the reps for 2nd set is fine
c) If you're consistently unable to do the 2nd set then either your rest periods are too short or target weights//increments are too high


This really shouldn't be an issue needing discussion yet, you're still way too early for it.
 
a) If you can't get the 2nd set then don't even think about the 3rd
b) Cluster the reps for 2nd set is fine
c) If you're consistently unable to do the 2nd set then either your rest periods are too short or target weights//increments are too high

This really shouldn't be an issue needing discussion yet, you're still way too early for it.

Thank you ALex again for your fast and helpful reply.
Well I thought the second set will be an issue because I will approach my 15RPM this cycle in 2 sessions,thats why _I wanted to ask!
 
4th Session of 15´s

-Got all reps and sets in. 3 min rest
-Sticked to one set of curls


Comments:
-The coldness is draining me.
-I feel really beaten up after training. I think its due the leg work which I now started seriously this cycle instead of my 10 years before. The overall volume is more than enough. One more set on each exercise and I would puke.
-The one set of hyperxtensions in the 8-12 range is perfectly fine. I can increase the load each session.
-Still have to find a good ab exercise which doesn´t bother my back. thought of starting these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YEJDaKtJwc
 
Sure, leave them in. No need to go to 5's with them though, just stick at your ~8-10RM. More risk of injury if you go a lot heavier than that.
 
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