Hi all
I have been lifting for about three years. The last year and a half or so has been met with progress but also stumbling blocks ( ie injuries ) that have caused me to "tweak" my HST routine. Let me explain. I hope this doesn't turn into a 350 page novel.
I am first and foremost a martial artist. I no longer compete but I still try to train ( martial arts training ) with high intensity. I am 38 and have been involved in martial arts since my preteens. I never really touched a barbell until a few years ago. A few years ago I noticed a significant drop in my speed. I was never really strong but I was always fast. Whatever I lacked in strength I made up for in speed and now it seemed that I was losing it. So now I am condemed to being weak and slow. I bought a book called "Warrior Speed" by Ted Weimann. This book basically said that weight training increased your speed. I was sold. Bought some weights and a bench and started going at it. I didn't noticed any increase in speed. But I started getting bigger and I liked it! Suddenly I wasn't worried about my speed anymore.....I wanted to look like a male cover model!
Anyhow...a year or so went by. A freind told me about a weight training program called Max OT. I applied it to only a few of my exercises to see how it worked out for me. After a couple weeks of doing it, I began to notice pain in my joints. Mostly my wrists and my left elbow. The elbow pain scared me because I felt it mostly on my bench press and I lift alone. What if my elbow gave out on a heavy bench press with no spotter?? I decided to take some time off from lifting.
During my time off I discovered HST on the internet. I decided to give it a try. All was going smoothly until I got to the second week of the 5 rep cycle. My wrist pain, and worse yet, my elbow pain returned. I also suffered a painful foot problem that didn't have anything to do with lifting, but lifting seemed to agrivate it big time. So my strategic deconditioning went on a little longer than I planned.
I decided to do HST again. But I decided that my joints just do not agree with heavy weight and low reps. I figured I would have to change things a little. I would leave out the 5 rep phase and increase the 15 rep and 10 rep stages by one week. Once I reached my 15 rep max, I would stay there for one week, possibly trying to make it to 16 reps on a couple of exercises during the last workout of that week. I would do the same thing once I reached my 10 rep max. Then for the last week, I would add just a couple pounds ( literally ) to the bars and get as many reps as I could.
So...to date I went through one HST cycle using the standard 15,10, and 5 scheme; and one cycle using only 15s and 10s but doing one extra week at their maxes and then adding just a couple pounds at the end of the 10 rep max for one week. I have just started my second cycle using only 15s and 10s and I have had no elbow pain at all and just a very small amount of wrist pain on curls during the end of the cycle.
I am very happy with it so far. Good gains and very little joint pain. But I figured I would run it by the experts here to make sure that I am still following sound HST science. I seemed to remember reading something that Bryan said about not tweaking HST, but I would rather tweak it a bit than have my elbow give out during a bench press with my 5 rep max. Ouch.
Any comments??
I have been lifting for about three years. The last year and a half or so has been met with progress but also stumbling blocks ( ie injuries ) that have caused me to "tweak" my HST routine. Let me explain. I hope this doesn't turn into a 350 page novel.
I am first and foremost a martial artist. I no longer compete but I still try to train ( martial arts training ) with high intensity. I am 38 and have been involved in martial arts since my preteens. I never really touched a barbell until a few years ago. A few years ago I noticed a significant drop in my speed. I was never really strong but I was always fast. Whatever I lacked in strength I made up for in speed and now it seemed that I was losing it. So now I am condemed to being weak and slow. I bought a book called "Warrior Speed" by Ted Weimann. This book basically said that weight training increased your speed. I was sold. Bought some weights and a bench and started going at it. I didn't noticed any increase in speed. But I started getting bigger and I liked it! Suddenly I wasn't worried about my speed anymore.....I wanted to look like a male cover model!
Anyhow...a year or so went by. A freind told me about a weight training program called Max OT. I applied it to only a few of my exercises to see how it worked out for me. After a couple weeks of doing it, I began to notice pain in my joints. Mostly my wrists and my left elbow. The elbow pain scared me because I felt it mostly on my bench press and I lift alone. What if my elbow gave out on a heavy bench press with no spotter?? I decided to take some time off from lifting.
During my time off I discovered HST on the internet. I decided to give it a try. All was going smoothly until I got to the second week of the 5 rep cycle. My wrist pain, and worse yet, my elbow pain returned. I also suffered a painful foot problem that didn't have anything to do with lifting, but lifting seemed to agrivate it big time. So my strategic deconditioning went on a little longer than I planned.
I decided to do HST again. But I decided that my joints just do not agree with heavy weight and low reps. I figured I would have to change things a little. I would leave out the 5 rep phase and increase the 15 rep and 10 rep stages by one week. Once I reached my 15 rep max, I would stay there for one week, possibly trying to make it to 16 reps on a couple of exercises during the last workout of that week. I would do the same thing once I reached my 10 rep max. Then for the last week, I would add just a couple pounds ( literally ) to the bars and get as many reps as I could.
So...to date I went through one HST cycle using the standard 15,10, and 5 scheme; and one cycle using only 15s and 10s but doing one extra week at their maxes and then adding just a couple pounds at the end of the 10 rep max for one week. I have just started my second cycle using only 15s and 10s and I have had no elbow pain at all and just a very small amount of wrist pain on curls during the end of the cycle.
I am very happy with it so far. Good gains and very little joint pain. But I figured I would run it by the experts here to make sure that I am still following sound HST science. I seemed to remember reading something that Bryan said about not tweaking HST, but I would rather tweak it a bit than have my elbow give out during a bench press with my 5 rep max. Ouch.
Any comments??
