OneCrazyMofo
New Member
This is my first post on the HST forums. I’ve been reading here for a few days, and I’m impressed with the community overall. Everyone seems very helpful and supportive of each other, and there are a select few ‘experts’ that are active and help out the newer guys, which is always appreciated.
I just started learning HST principles a couple of weeks ago, and after discussing it with a good friend of mine who is also a personal trainer/bodybuilder, I’ve decided to give it a shot. I wanted to start posting my experience as a first timer going through the program to help other people who may be in a similar situation decide if it’s right for them, and also to keep myself motivated and on track.
I’ve always been very athletic. I’ve played just about every sport you can imagine, and I’ve trained specifically for certain sports at certain times in my life.
Lately I’ve been training for size with more traditional bodybuilding principles (pyramid rep schemes, lower reps, heavy weight, compound lifts, training to failure, negatives and forced reps, supersets, resting 7 days between splits, etc..). I’ve gained some size and strength for sure, but I feel like I’ve hit somewhat of a plateau, and since HST focuses primarily on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (which is what I want), the idea/concept was immediately attractive to me.
I’ve never been a big guy by any means. I would categorize myself as a 60/40 ecto-meso. I’ve always been very lean and it’s hard for me to add weight, but really easy to trim down, although over the past couple of years I think my metabolism has slowed down some. Currently I’m hovering around 192 pounds at 5’11”, with about 15% bodyfat (estimate based on electronic Omron fat loss monitor, not entirely accurate but I plan to get out the calipers soon). I also want to get exact body measurements as well. I’ll post those when I have them.
Bench press is typically my weakest lift. During a couple of recent pyramid training cycles, I was using almost the same weight on shoulder presses as I was on the flat bench, but it’s gotten a tad better during my most recent training period. Currently I’m working out with 185 on flat bench for work/heavy sets, usually 5-6 reps. I have no idea what my 1rm might be.
I would say legs are my strength. I’m currently squatting 405 for 4-5 reps going to parallel. I haven’t gone below parallel in years because of a torn mcl (football injury), and not wanting to put too much pressure on my knees. Admittedly this may be psychological, but my thoughts have been “why risk injury?”.
To some of the experts here, what (if any?) benefits would I get by going below parallel on squats? I’ve seen some guys here mention that they don’t consider only going to parallel a “full” rep. I have no problems going below parallel on lighter weights (225-275) and I never have any pain, but on the heavier weights I feel much more pressure on the joints (naturally), so I haven’t wanted to push it.
Goals:
My goal is to gain overall size/mass in all areas. I’d love to be 210lbs lean, 7-8% bodyfat. I’ve never been that big.
I’m more interested in overall physique and appearance at this point in my life; strength gains would be an added bonus but I have no practical day to day use for hulk-like strength since I’m currently not playing sports. Symmetry and proportion are important, so I’ve tried to design my HST program around these goals.
Proposed HST program:
I want to start with a 12, 8, 5 cycle. I don’t have any joint problems/pain, and as I mentioned my priority for this training cycle is sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Also for the sake of simplicity and time constraints, I want to do 3 full body workouts per week instead of splitting into the AM/PM format. So my first week of 12s would look like this:
Incline Press x 2 (slight incline)
Bent over row x2
DB shoulder press x1
Lateral raises x1
Rear raises x1
Lat pulldowns x2
Dips x1
Squats x1
Romanian DL x2
Barbell curls x1
Tricep cable pushdowns x1
Shrugs x1
Calf raises x1
This would give me a total of 17 sets per workout.
I'll be doing abs and 20-30 minutes of steady state cardio on off days.
Any critiquing/suggestion is welcome. I placed priority on the upper body lifts because I feel that’s where my weaknesses are, so I moved squats and DLs to later in the workout to try to avoid fatigue before getting to the incline bench and shoulder lifts.
I want to finish off with a few isos to enhance overall development of my arms, traps, and calves. If I rest 2 - 2.5 minutes between sets, I should be able to do this routine in an hour.
What do you guys think?
Also, how should the routine progress when I go into the first week of 8s, and then 5s?
I’m going to start on Monday to find my 12rms if there are no glaring problems with my setup.
Hopefully I can post measurements later today for a reference point.
I just started learning HST principles a couple of weeks ago, and after discussing it with a good friend of mine who is also a personal trainer/bodybuilder, I’ve decided to give it a shot. I wanted to start posting my experience as a first timer going through the program to help other people who may be in a similar situation decide if it’s right for them, and also to keep myself motivated and on track.
I’ve always been very athletic. I’ve played just about every sport you can imagine, and I’ve trained specifically for certain sports at certain times in my life.
Lately I’ve been training for size with more traditional bodybuilding principles (pyramid rep schemes, lower reps, heavy weight, compound lifts, training to failure, negatives and forced reps, supersets, resting 7 days between splits, etc..). I’ve gained some size and strength for sure, but I feel like I’ve hit somewhat of a plateau, and since HST focuses primarily on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (which is what I want), the idea/concept was immediately attractive to me.
I’ve never been a big guy by any means. I would categorize myself as a 60/40 ecto-meso. I’ve always been very lean and it’s hard for me to add weight, but really easy to trim down, although over the past couple of years I think my metabolism has slowed down some. Currently I’m hovering around 192 pounds at 5’11”, with about 15% bodyfat (estimate based on electronic Omron fat loss monitor, not entirely accurate but I plan to get out the calipers soon). I also want to get exact body measurements as well. I’ll post those when I have them.
Bench press is typically my weakest lift. During a couple of recent pyramid training cycles, I was using almost the same weight on shoulder presses as I was on the flat bench, but it’s gotten a tad better during my most recent training period. Currently I’m working out with 185 on flat bench for work/heavy sets, usually 5-6 reps. I have no idea what my 1rm might be.
I would say legs are my strength. I’m currently squatting 405 for 4-5 reps going to parallel. I haven’t gone below parallel in years because of a torn mcl (football injury), and not wanting to put too much pressure on my knees. Admittedly this may be psychological, but my thoughts have been “why risk injury?”.
To some of the experts here, what (if any?) benefits would I get by going below parallel on squats? I’ve seen some guys here mention that they don’t consider only going to parallel a “full” rep. I have no problems going below parallel on lighter weights (225-275) and I never have any pain, but on the heavier weights I feel much more pressure on the joints (naturally), so I haven’t wanted to push it.
Goals:
My goal is to gain overall size/mass in all areas. I’d love to be 210lbs lean, 7-8% bodyfat. I’ve never been that big.
I’m more interested in overall physique and appearance at this point in my life; strength gains would be an added bonus but I have no practical day to day use for hulk-like strength since I’m currently not playing sports. Symmetry and proportion are important, so I’ve tried to design my HST program around these goals.
Proposed HST program:
I want to start with a 12, 8, 5 cycle. I don’t have any joint problems/pain, and as I mentioned my priority for this training cycle is sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Also for the sake of simplicity and time constraints, I want to do 3 full body workouts per week instead of splitting into the AM/PM format. So my first week of 12s would look like this:
Incline Press x 2 (slight incline)
Bent over row x2
DB shoulder press x1
Lateral raises x1
Rear raises x1
Lat pulldowns x2
Dips x1
Squats x1
Romanian DL x2
Barbell curls x1
Tricep cable pushdowns x1
Shrugs x1
Calf raises x1
This would give me a total of 17 sets per workout.
I'll be doing abs and 20-30 minutes of steady state cardio on off days.
Any critiquing/suggestion is welcome. I placed priority on the upper body lifts because I feel that’s where my weaknesses are, so I moved squats and DLs to later in the workout to try to avoid fatigue before getting to the incline bench and shoulder lifts.
I want to finish off with a few isos to enhance overall development of my arms, traps, and calves. If I rest 2 - 2.5 minutes between sets, I should be able to do this routine in an hour.
What do you guys think?
Also, how should the routine progress when I go into the first week of 8s, and then 5s?
I’m going to start on Monday to find my 12rms if there are no glaring problems with my setup.
Hopefully I can post measurements later today for a reference point.
