Is Strategic Deconditioning Systemic or Local?

In my experience, it's both. The individual muscles are deconditioned to the heavier loads, but I definitely feel like my overall conditioning has decreased. This seems to come back very quickly though. The first day of 15s (lightest day) is actually one of the toughest days of the whole cycle.
 
Let me restate that.

Is the goal of strategic deconditioning to decondition the system or to decondition the individual muscles?

General health & conditioning will obviously be adversely affected by SD. Does this contribute to the desired state? Is the desired state untrained muscles or poor health and conditioning?

Singleton
 
The goal is to decondition the target muscles to make them susceptible to trauma and subsequent growth.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Let me restate that.

Is the goal of strategic deconditioning to decondition the system or to decondition the individual muscles?
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Read the FAQ and the HST articles then you wont need to ask such questions.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]General health & conditioning will obviously be adversely affected by SD. Does this contribute to the desired state? Is the desired state untrained muscles or poor health and conditioning?
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Who says health will be adversely affected by 9 days out of the gym?

Id go as far as to say it does you good (healthwise, not just hypertrophywise) to have time off from the gym every now and again.

I recommend you actually try the program for a cycle or two before you start bashing it. Then youll actually be in a position from which to make a worthwhile judgement.
 
Whoa there Pauly...

I think he just wants clarification.

No, 9 days isn't enough to make you noticeably less fit or healthy.
 
After weeks of heavy training I feel the 1-2 weeks of rest really does my body and mind a lot of good. When I begin training again, my muscles are primed for growth, pains and aches are gone, and my motivation and focus is up at 110%.
 
I've been wondering the same thing - especially regarding cycle construction.

Would it work to cycle each exercise independantly of each other. For example, progress in the deadlift until my max for 2 sets of 5 is reached, then SD only the deadlift, while continuing to progress the overhead press and pull up. Each exercise has its own SD independant of the others. When I reach my limits on any given exercise, it gets the SD - it may be one at a time or all 3 at the same time, depends on the progression of each.

All HST principles (progressive load, frequent training, SD) in essence remain intact. This way though, it is highly unlikely to have a full week off.

Proteus

Anyone tried this? Anyone have any thoughts as to its possible success or failure?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]After weeks of heavy training I feel the 1-2 weeks of rest really does my body and mind a lot of good. When I begin training again, my muscles are primed for growth, pains and aches are gone, and my motivation and focus is up at 110%.
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We're different animals. When I don't train, my motivation goes down. I don't feel primed. After ceasing training, I still sweat a lot, but it is stinky sweat. I don't feel like training anymore.

Exercise releases endorphins, induces fat burning, increases glycogen storage. It also improves blood pressure and circulation. These are systemic effects. Exercise also improves kinetic response, and can improve mental focus, posture, disposition, and balance.

The body builds up a level of conditioning, but I think HST looks at this adaptive response as detrimental toward an ultimate goal of hypertrophy.

A high level of conditioning can bring about a great sense of well-being. I love this.

Proteus is thinking more along my lines. I was thinking about yoga, stretching, and low impact cardio, whereas he is considering staggering or overlapping bodyparts.

My training is not limited to the gym. I wanted to keep up all the other good stuff I love to do.

From my understanding of HST, neither approach would fit. Doing squats, deads, pullovers would all affect the whole system, as would yoga or sports activities.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Exercise releases endorphins, induces fat burning, increases glycogen storage. It also improves blood pressure and circulation. These are systemic effects. Exercise also improves kinetic response, and can improve mental focus, posture, disposition, and balance.
Click to expand...

All of this is true. Its just that you wont lose any of this from a period of 9-12 days without training.
 
It's amazing the little self sacrifice capacity you seem to have. What are 9-12 days in the big scheme of things?

It wouldn't be a bad ideia to seek a self support group.

About that paralel progression on diferent exercises, it has been discussed before. You could do something like decondicion pushing movements and train pull and then vice versa, or whatever. This way there wouldn't be much overlap between diferent exercises. Of course, an exercise like the deadliftr that trains the whole body would send your plan to the dirt.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (proteus9 @ Aug. 01 2003,2:57)]I've been wondering the same thing - especially regarding cycle construction.
Would it work to cycle each exercise independantly of each other. For example, progress in the deadlift until my max for 2 sets of 5 is reached, then SD only the deadlift, while continuing to progress the overhead press and pull up. Each exercise has its own SD independant of the others. When I reach my limits on any given exercise, it gets the SD - it may be one at a time or all 3 at the same time, depends on the progression of each.
All HST principles (progressive load, frequent training, SD) in essence remain intact. This way though, it is highly unlikely to have a full week off.
Proteus
Anyone tried this? Anyone have any thoughts as to its possible success or failure?
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I'd be interested to see an answer to this question
 
Bryan has mentioned it before, and I do it to some extent when training back HST and strength training elsewhere.
IT doesnt give the advatage of a wholebody SD (mental and complete physical rest)
 
Deconditioning or rest? I read an article that stated something like : SD is not recuperation from overtraining, rather it is deconditioning.

I definitely feel deconditioned.
 
Maybe it's both :) if you stop training 10 days you recover (whole system) and (if SD is long enough) your muscles will decondition allowing future growth with submaximum weights.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (proteus9 @ Aug. 01 2003,2:57)]Would it work to cycle each exercise independantly of each other. For example, progress in the deadlift until my max for 2 sets of 5 is reached, then SD only the deadlift, while continuing to progress the overhead press and pull up. Each exercise has its own SD independant of the others. When I reach my limits on any given exercise, it gets the SD - it may be one at a time or all 3 at the same time, depends on the progression of each.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this concept has been discussed before and the consensus was that it is viable and compatible with HST principles. I haven't really tried it myself yet.

You'd have to do it on the level of muscle "workgroups", not individual exercises like deadlifts. So you might run chest/tris/shoulders on an independent track, and back/biceps on their own track, etc. Otherwise you might never really decondition any muscle (since even if it's not directly impacted by a given exercise, it is still assisting).

The big disadvantage is the one Aaron pointed out. You might never get the needed CNS break.
 
I agree with Jon Stark and others, all muscles 'assist' in other exercises, so on that, deconditioning the whole body in a phase can be the only surefire way of doing it right? Your CNS needs a break now and then, and for deconditioning to work as it's meant to, wouldn't it be better to take the suggested week or so off.

Personally I think the deconditioning phase makes perfect sense as it is, although it is interesting to see what others have to say about it.

adam ;)
 
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