Dan ... "In the Right Now"

[Joe.Muscle]

I agree with Lol.

But it goes against what we are taught .....I think

For example I have addes 40 pounds of muscle over 13 years....and I did it all on a split routine.

Now HST the last couple of years has been awesome...and my body looks different and feels WAAAYYYY better b/c of HST but my bodyweight is about the same.

So I would fit in that category of maybe split training with more volume....but I just don't want too...I love fully body routines too much

But maybe...just maybe I have too?

But that can be argued with Bryan routine.

I am almost 100% sure that he stick around 30 to 36 reps per his last routine.

So if it good enough for him...which I think he has been more dedicated to bodybuilding than me then it should work?

?

Plus Bryan is so damn smart that if he thought that splits were better I would think...not sure....but think he would advecate it???

 

[RUSS]

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(Martin Levac @ Aug. 22 2007,02:30)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">It takes time to grow. It takes mechanical load to grow. The load also induces a resistance to itself. Thus, at some point in time, load must be increased or the number of times it's applied must be increased or the muscle must be resensitized to the load for further growth to occur. SD won't revert all the changes but it is nevertheless effective.

Catch 22. The more often the load is applied, the quicker RBE sets in. The greater the load, the greater the resistance to the load once RBE sets in.

To mitigate RBE and to grow as fast and as much as possible, use the lightest load that will stimulate growth and use it as little as possible immediately but as frequently as possible over time. In other words, if a single set of 5 is enough to stimulate growth, do only that until it becomes not enough. Otherwise, RBE sets in and you're stuck doing more reps or lifting heavier or taking longer SD or a combination of any of the above.

The goal of HST is not to stimulate growth over the weekend at the cost of taking a break afterward and then stopping there. The goal of HST is to stimulate growth over two months at the cost of taking a break for two weeks afterward in order to continue to stimulate growth over the subsequent two months after that. And so forth. The goal of HST is not to render the muscle immune to the growth stimulus. Au contraire, the goal of HST is to maintain the muscle as sensitive to the stimulus for as long as possible in order to continue to grow as quickly and for as long as possible.

Attempting to do as much as possible as quickly as possible to stimulate growth would accelerate RBE which would in turn stop growth prematurely.</div>
I agree that you want to do as little as possible to grow. I also agree that creating a higher than necessary stimulus might exacerbate your ability to induce another stimulus a short time later.

But the entire point is how the heck do you know if you've truly done enough acutely? This becomes an increasing concern over time as you gain training age/muscle, as it's almost undoubtedly true that more volume becomes necessary for a better dose/response the longer you've been exposing your muscles to the higher than usual level tensions of weight training. Bryan himself has commented as much on the subject.

So the &quot;point&quot; of higher volume HST routines is to ensure the acute stimulus actually happens. I think it's very, very easy to convince yourself that you are gaining muscle by A) getting a little fatter over time and B) watching yourself grow stronger. Unfortunately, neither guarantee you will hold more muscle when lean, which I've spoken at length about here before.

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(cgutcu @ Aug. 22 2007,10:28)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Ok, If I do 50 reps for chest, back and legs, and if this is the ideal volume, how much should I do for delts, biceps, and triceps, that are worked when back and chest are trained?The same 50 reps, or can I reduce the volume for 25?</div>
I really don't want anyone to get the wrong idea with what I said. I used 50 reps as an intentionally extreme example, I have no idea if that volume prescription would represent an ideal dose/response for a more advanced trainee.

A better first step might be Bryan's recommendation for intermediate/advanced HST trainees - 6 days per week upper/lower split. Or my 5 day compromise which I've written about before.

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(Lol @ Aug. 22 2007,14:45)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">IMO, I don't think mikeynov is saying 50 reps per bodypart per session is definitely going to cause a PS response in the muscle. There is no magic number. There will be an 'ideal' TUT for each person for each exercise and it will vary over one's training life. No one can know what that is for any individual. 50 reps each session per bodypart just happens to be a lot of reps (more than many are doing) so it will likely provide enough of a stimulus to cause PS.

However, if you are new to training (ie. less than a few years) that amount of volume will likely be unnecessary and, as Dan has pointed out, may be counter productive if attempted too frequently (&quot;,,, you may be creating a stimulus but it may be diminished due to overly increased metabolic needs ,,,&quot.

Once you have a few years of solid (pretty optimal) training behind you and have gained a good 30-50lbs then you may find that unless you start to increase your volume each session you will not continue to trigger a PS response. In other words, if you plateau at this point, even though you are training optimally as far as load progression and frequency goes, then adding volume could just be the stimulus you need to trigger PS again. Doing enough volume in the here-and-now might mean that you have to reduce frequency or it might not. That will just depend on how you react to it and it would be up to the individual to decide how progress is going. If you aren't getting any results after a few months then either it isn't working or your progress is extremely slow (which might be the case if you have been training intelligently for many years). I'm assuming in all this that we are talking about AS-free training.

I would think that SD will help slow the need to increase volume but, like everything else, it will become less and less effective over time. Eventually, I suppose, the only way that it'll remain effective is if you SD long enough to lose muscle and then spend the cycle gaining it back only to lose it again on the next SD. I might be wrong about this but there has to be a limit to progress without drugs.</div>
Couldn't have said it better myself!

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(Joe.Muscle @ Aug. 22 2007,14:51)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I agree with Lol.

But it goes against what we are taught .....I think

For example I have addes 40 pounds of muscle over 13 years....and I did it all on a split routine.

Now HST the last couple of years has been awesome...and my body looks different and feels WAAAYYYY better b/c of HST but my bodyweight is about the same.

So I would fit in that category of maybe split training with more volume....but I just don't want too...I love fully body routines too much

But maybe...just maybe I have too?

But that can be argued with Bryan routine.

I am almost 100% sure that he stick around 30 to 36 reps per his last routine.

So if it good enough for him...which I think he has been more dedicated to bodybuilding than me then it should work?

?

Plus Bryan is so damn smart that if he thought that splits were better I would think...not sure....but think he would advecate it???</div>
I have ideas on compromises which could help.

Example: 4 days per week upper/lower split, higher volume per body part (which is obviously much easier when you get to devote a whole day to only half the body). If you want to make load progression more or less the same as HST, you could try something like...

SD as per normal
3 weeks of 10's (6 total sessions per minicycle, as per usual)
3 weeks of 5's
Another SD
Repeat

The above would be a very good and cautious compromise of the sort of idea I'm talking about.

 

[Lol]

Some good points there Russ.

I was quietly hoping that Bryan might chime in and mention that he was intending to cover some of these issues in his HST book. I am still hoping that this will materialise at some point. It would be great if he shared his thoughts if the book is still a way off.

 

[RUSS]

<div>
(Lol @ Aug. 22 2007,18:35)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Some good points there Russ.

I was quietly hoping that Bryan might chime in and mention that he was intending to cover some of these issues in his HST book. I am still hoping that this will materialise at some point. It would be great if he shared his thoughts if the book is still a way off.</div>
Well I'm glad you got the chance to read it , I ultimately felt uncomfortable with it's agent provacateur &quot;air&quot; , and how this could be misconstrued by noobs and guests - so I felt it best to delete it...Thanks for your kind words though!

 

[Joe.Muscle]

<div>
(mikeynov @ Aug. 22 2007,07:28)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(Joe.Muscle @ Aug. 22 2007,14:51)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I agree with Lol.

But it goes against what we are taught .....I think

 

For example I have addes 40 pounds of muscle over 13 years....and I did it all on a split routine.

Now HST the last couple of years has been awesome...and my body looks different and feels WAAAYYYY better b/c of HST but my bodyweight is about the same.

So I would fit in that category of maybe split training with more volume....but I just don't want too...I love fully body routines too much

But maybe...just maybe I have too?

But that can be argued with Bryan routine.

I am almost 100% sure that he stick around 30 to 36 reps per his last routine.

So if it good enough for him...which I think he has been more dedicated to bodybuilding than me then it should work?

?

Plus Bryan is so damn smart that if he thought that splits were better I would think...not sure....but think he would advecate it???</div>
I have ideas on compromises which could help.

Example: 4 days per week upper/lower split, higher volume per body part (which is obviously much easier when you get to devote a whole day to only half the body).  If you want to make load progression more or less the same as HST, you could try something like...

SD as per normal
3 weeks of 10's (6 total sessions per minicycle, as per usual)
3 weeks of 5's
Another SD
Repeat

The above would be a very good and cautious compromise of the sort of idea I'm talking about.</div>
Mikey...what reg target are you suggestion on twice a week?

100 reps per Kelly Bagget recommendation

120 per Christian Thib

ETC...

so that would be anywere from 50 to 60 reps per workout per muscle group.

Maybe less in the heavy 5's IM guessing???

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(Joe.Muscle @ Aug. 22 2007,20:02)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(mikeynov @ Aug. 22 2007,07:28)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(Joe.Muscle @ Aug. 22 2007,14:51)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I agree with Lol.

But it goes against what we are taught .....I think

For example I have addes 40 pounds of muscle over 13 years....and I did it all on a split routine.

Now HST the last couple of years has been awesome...and my body looks different and feels WAAAYYYY better b/c of HST but my bodyweight is about the same.

So I would fit in that category of maybe split training with more volume....but I just don't want too...I love fully body routines too much

But maybe...just maybe I have too?

But that can be argued with Bryan routine.

I am almost 100% sure that he stick around 30 to 36 reps per his last routine.

So if it good enough for him...which I think he has been more dedicated to bodybuilding than me then it should work?

?

Plus Bryan is so damn smart that if he thought that splits were better I would think...not sure....but think he would advecate it???</div>
I have ideas on compromises which could help.

Example: 4 days per week upper/lower split, higher volume per body part (which is obviously much easier when you get to devote a whole day to only half the body). If you want to make load progression more or less the same as HST, you could try something like...

SD as per normal
3 weeks of 10's (6 total sessions per minicycle, as per usual)
3 weeks of 5's
Another SD
Repeat

The above would be a very good and cautious compromise of the sort of idea I'm talking about.</div>
Mikey...what reg target are you suggestion on twice a week?

100 reps per Kelly Bagget recommendation

120 per Christian Thib

ETC...

so that would be anywere from 50 to 60 reps per workout per muscle group.

Maybe less in the heavy 5's IM guessing???</div>
I wish I had the answer to that, but I really don't. I'd say a good place to start on the conservative end might be 30 reps per major muscle group. 50 is ambitious, and would almost undoubtedly have to be decreased towards the end of the 5's.

 

[Joe.Muscle]

Im confused???

30 reps at twice a week?

What happened to the right now effect?

I am missing something? I thought we were looking at taking say the example of 90 reps and instead of doing that with 3 sets of 10 over 3 days we were going to go do say say 45 reps per workout with 2 workouts a week...hence the same reps but more Right Now?

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(Joe.Muscle @ Aug. 22 2007,20:40)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Im confused???

30 reps at twice a week?

What happened to the right now effect?

I am missing something? I thought we were looking at taking say the example of 90 reps and instead of doing that with 3 sets of 10 over 3 days we were going to go do say say 45 reps per workout with 2 workouts a week...hence the same reps but more Right Now?</div>
50 reps might be doable, but I'm not sure you could scale up to 5 RM doing it without exploding or having really, really long workouts.

30 total reps per muscle group per session is already well over how most people are doing HST, which is why I suggested that as a very conservative guideline. That will obviously feel like quite a bit by the time you'd approach ~5 RM.

 

[Joe.Muscle]

So that leads us back at square 1 with standard hst then???

I was thinking twice a week was better for the right now effect.

Sorry to make something so easy hard!

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(Joe.Muscle @ Aug. 22 2007,21:02)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">So that leads us back at square 1 with standard hst then???

I was thinking twice a week was better for the right now effect.

Sorry to make something so easy hard!

</div>
Why is this leading us back to standard HST?

The most common form of HST I've seen is 1 set of 15s, 2 sets of 10s, 3 sets of 5s. That's an average of ~15-20 reps per muscle group per session, and ~45-60 reps weekly.

What I'd be suggesting as a safe guideline to experiment with higher volume would be 30 total reps per major muscle group twice a week for a total of ~60 reps weekly. Yes, the total reps weekly isn't that much more than normal, but the acute volume is significantly higher.

That's kind of the whole point of this, not rewriting the book in terms of how HST is handling load progression or SD, just figuring out ways of getting more of an acute effect for people with a good amount of training age.

 

[Joe.Muscle]

Got ya!

I understand now!

Thanks for the clarification...I was under the understanding that 30 reps may not be enought for the right now!

 

[mikeynov]

<div>
(Joe.Muscle @ Aug. 22 2007,21:22)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Got ya!

I understand now!

Thanks for the clarification...I was under the understanding that 30 reps may not be enought for the right now!</div>
I honestly have no idea. If those were max-stim reps, I would suspect it might well be, as the cumulative effect of reps in that style seems to be more straining.

Unfortunately, the lack of good data out there for dose/response as it relates to training age makes this all guesswork. As I posed to that Martin guy, how do we even know that we've done enough in the right now to grow?

As another side thought, I'd like to see HST go in the direction of abandoning formal sets/reps altogether and using more straight load/reps guidelines ala cluster HST or max-stim. I think that represents a step in the direction of true &quot;hypertrophy-specific training.&quot;

 

[RUSS]

<div>
(mikeynov @ Aug. 22 2007,20:17)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">What I'd be suggesting as a safe guideline to experiment with higher volume would be 30 total reps per major muscle group twice a week for a total of ~60 reps weekly.  Yes, the total reps weekly isn't that much more than normal, but the acute volume is significantly higher.

That's kind of the whole point of this, not rewriting the book in terms of how HST is handling load progression or SD, just figuring out ways of getting more of an acute effect for people with a good amount of training age.</div>
I totally agree with this and think a lifter who had taken 3x/wk as far as it could go would absolutely begin to progress again . In my mind the major indicator of training age isn't load numbers or time in the trenches so much as duration of the stress/adaptation cycle that is most useful in determining &quot;training age&quot; , if I'm correct , it would only be logical that at some point frequency would have to be manipulated either by splits or reduced TB frequency to continue to experience optimal gains. IMHO of course...

 

[TunnelRat]

<div>
(RUSS @ Aug. 22 2007,19:48)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I ultimately felt uncomfortable with it's agent provacateur &quot;air&quot; , and how this could be misconstrued by noobs and guests - so I felt it best to delete it...</div>
I was helped by your remarks also. It seemed to be a positive addition to the discussion rather than a negative sort of questioning.

 

[RUSS]

<div>
(TunnelRat @ Aug. 22 2007,21:50)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(RUSS @ Aug. 22 2007,19:48)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I ultimately felt  uncomfortable with it's agent provacateur &quot;air&quot; , and how this could be  misconstrued by noobs and guests - so I felt it best to delete it...</div>
I was helped by your remarks also. It seemed to be a positive addition to the discussion rather than a negative sort of questioning.</div>
thank you sir.

 

[Fausto]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">The most common form of HST I've seen is 1 set of 15s, 2 sets of 10s, 3 sets of 5s. That's an average of ~15-20 reps per muscle group per session, and ~45-60 reps weekly.

What I'd be suggesting as a safe guideline to experiment with higher volume would be 30 total reps per major muscle group twice a week for a total of ~60 reps weekly. Yes, the total reps weekly isn't that much more than normal, but the acute volume is significantly higher.</div>

Mikey

I have tried the 30 reps during the 5's and could not keep it up, it may be doable with a very simple program, 4 or so major exercises, but really at least for me 6 x 5 just got too much.

The whole idea of writing this as an add on to HST because of one's training age is a good one IMO, as truly speaking you need higher volume after exhausting all other possibilities, but it too has its limits as you say.

50 - 60 is waaay out of my league, then again I'm not german...so.