First w/o today and a little confused

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david_diesel

New Member
I started 15s today and was surprised to find that I had difficulty performing incline bench press for 2 sets of 15 at a weight which is 20 lbs less than my 15RM.
My 15 RM is 175 so I started with 155. I was only planning on using bench press for 3 of the six workouts (the other three use dips). Is this common to see this much of a strength decrease. My SD was 16 days long. What should I do when I need to bump the weight up? Use smaller increments? I'm concerned my 15 RM is going to be lower than what I tested at.
If I'm understanding this correctly it shouldn't matter what the RM is as long as the weight continues to increase? But I was very close to failure on the second set. As a matter of fact I did 12 reps, paused and pelted out the last three 10 seconds later. Please advise..
 
First off - let me get this clear. If you did a set of 15's, and then another set after that and got 12 reps, then that isn't bad at all even if it wasn't your rep max - you could have been tired that day, or may have not taken at least a minute rest between the sets.

Second, if this is your first day, and your 15RM is 175, then why are you doing 155? The first day should be around 70% of your RM weight. Try re-setting your weights to that percent and increase from there.

-Colby
 
David

Second set need not reach the 15 mark at all :D

You can even opt to drop it altogether if need be.

Now as Colby says, why are you doing it at 20 lbs less, is that your appointed weight for that day? If so you could have been tired.

Is your carb intake OK before training? That too could have been a culprit.

Try keeping a sports drink close by when training, it helps nicely by upping your carbs when needed.

Anyway, as mentioned do not worry about the second set, set 1 = work set, set 2 = metabolic set or extra/bonus.
 
I agree with colby2152 and Fausto. The second set doesn't always have to reach the prescribed number of reps. Try to get 15 reps in the first set and do not worry too much about the second.

It is strange, however, that this happened during your first workout, when things should be pretty light. It is probably too much too soon. As colby suggested, you should start with lighter weight and take it from there (175x0.7 = 122.5).

During the SD, except for the muscles, the CNS "deconditions" too. That means that most probably there will be strength losses. However, you regain your strength fast enough and in the end you may actually be able to reach your tested 15RM during your last workout in this rep range. Whenever I start a new cycle after a long SD, during the first workout I am like "I will never be able to reach my 15RM, I feel so weak", yet by the end of the second week the weight feels normal.

Bottom line, start with a lighter weight and increment from there. I believe that you will finally reach your previous 15RM, it's just that you need some time to re-adapt.

Cheers,
Dimitris
 
Darn

Dimitris is right!

I skipped that or misunderstood your question.

You have to start with a lighter weight 175 should be reached at the end of the 15's as it is from what you said the 15 RM.

So it will either be 122.5 as Dimitris puts it or 70% of your 15 RM, or take it 5 pounds at a time, it all depends on how you have set up your w/o.

150/155/160/165/170/175 yep that is two weeks and if that is the mistake you have made then it all makes sense
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you have just come from SD and now tried to perform the 15 RM straight off, body says no, mate....you can't do that, too much for me try again!
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Guys
Thanks for all the input so far. I guess I had a few things confused. I'll touch on all points mentioned.

This is my first HST cycle ever. I am following the example in the article. This has me doing bench press only three times during the 2 week rep range. The other three workouts use dips for chest. Should I drop the dips and just use bench press instead?

Secondly, I was under the impression that you find your RM, use it on the last workout and increment down from there. Thats why I was using 155 on my first workout. (workout 1 = 155, workout 3 = 165 workout 6 = 175) Fausto, you mention this as being a mistake? So instead it should be 122.5 and increment from there? Call me dense but I'm not sure I'm understanding the incrementation principles here.
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Finally, in the article it says that during the 15s you are supposed to use 2 sets per excersise, is this not true? I think I'm really confused now, I thought I understood this whole thing, now I'm not so sure.

My nutrition is probably the most accurate of this whole program. I painstakingly mapped out 7 meals/day (300 protein, 300 carb, 85 fat) with a good dose of carbs right before I workout.

I really appreciate your feedback on this guys.
 
I'm trying to get my head round the numbers because I work in kgs (and drive on the left hand side of the road, awkward buggers aren't we?!
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) but I use an alternating routine too and therefore increment at 5kgs a time - that's just over 10 pounds so by my reckoning your starting weight is fine assuming that your 15rm is correct.

It might be that you're just not used to sding and are finding it tough for that reason - I sometimes find every session tough as my conditioning increases along with the weights, sometimes I find the first few sessions easy, I think that has a lot to do with the length of my sd. When I am finding it tough it means that I wouldn't be able to handle my 15rm on the first week back but I can by the time its my 5th or 6th session so if you're struggling a bit now it doesn't mean that you won't be able to handle it when you get to it...and on a side note that's 80kg for your 15rm on incline bench? I'm impressed!

As for whether to alternate or not, personally I much prefer it (dips and inclines are my two chest pressed two) some people prefer one exercise as it means you are controlling the increasing load more exactly and alternating may interfere with 'neural learning' (jvroig may be able to expand on that a lot better than I can....!).

You're right, it doesn't matter if you hit 15 reps on your 15rm day at all...just stop when the reps slow down.

You aren't 'supposed' to use a particular amount of sets, you basically want to do as much volume as possible as long as it doesn't stop you training frequently and you probably want to ensure that you don't reduce the number of sets you do as you go along. I do one set for 15s and 10s and 2 for 5s, however I use a 6x a week programme and would probably do 2 sets if I was going 3 x a week.

Hope my rambling helps!!

Cheers

Rob
 
Hey David,

I wouldn't drop dips altogether, keep them in there along with incline bench. You can alternate between them as you mentioned, or even perform both of them in the same workout (3x a week), depending on your exercise tolerance and your goals.

About the incrementation part, I think you got it right. You find your 15RM, which will be used in your last workout in this rep range, and then you work back from there. This way, the weight should be steadily increasing with each workout towards your predetermined RM. However, from what you described, it seems that you need to start with a lower weight. The first workouts in each rep range don't usually feel so hard.

Finally, you aren't necessarily supposed to do 2 sets per exercise during the 15's. Some people do this, others have opted for 1x15, 2x10, 3x5 and there are other options too. The general guideline is "do as much as you can", as long as this doesn't interfere with your frequency.

Hope this helps,
Dimitris
 
Thanks for all the replies guys. I'm headed to the gym for my second workout. Hopefully this will go better. Actually bench press was the only movement that suffered. All the other lifts were right on target. I'm not too sore, my legs were the most sore but today they seem ok.

Robefc...Thanks for the kind words on my 80kg accomplishment. :)
 
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