HST without the psychology

[DennisRB]

I just read "HST as by Lyle". In this article it says the commonly suggested HST sets and reps are a compromise between HST principals and the psychological needs of BB's to keep lifting heavy. I have been doing the suggested 2 week blocks of 15 -10 - 5 and extension of 5's or negatives where possible.

I agree a compromised version is needed if HST is going to spread as many people can't accept that unless they are going flat out, they mustn't be getting any gains. A friend commented on my noticeable size gains and I talked him into HST, but he gave up because it felt too easy.

Its also suggested that workouts should be done within 36 hours and the 48 hour suggestion is a compromise

However, some of use know HST principals are real and don't care about perceived intensity. I think those of us should have access to the 100% no bullshit suggested version HST with no psychological compromises.

 

[Peak_Power]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">a compromise between HST principals and the psychological needs of BB's to keep lifting heavy</div>

I just read the article, he didn't say BBers need to lift heavy, but that they feel they need to do HIT style training to failure and lifting heavy weights all the time. HST promotes lifting heavy (after the 15s and 10s) for as long as your joints can handle it.

It actually took me a while to realise that he was defending HST, not insulting it. He has a point about HST being a compromise between all those factors, but it works. Once you understand the principles you can tweak it yourself to suit your own needs, but Bryan himself said he follows a program which is pretty much identical to the vanilla program he wrote for everyone. Same with the guys like Boris he trained for pro comps (although the AAS made them stop at 8RM cause they were getting so strong).

Working out every 36 hours is a great tweak if you can manage it, but as Bryan constantly says in his posts, HST is about principles, not a workout routine. The principles he promotes are not compromises, they are principles in their own right. Hopefully I'm not putting words in Bryan's mouth by saying this..

 

[9to5lifter]

I have to say that is a GREAT article. It clearly demonstrates how much thought Bryan put into putting together what is known today as HST. It clearly explains also that HST is really a set of principles rather than arbitrary numbers about reps, sets, weeks or whatever. What is more, it clearly shows that the perceived level of &quot;intensity&quot; is a big lie when it comes to hypertrophy and actual, physiological adaptations. Intensity was used as a measurement of a workout's effectiveness way back when people did not really know how the muscle actually grows. Now we know and we should use this knowledge to better our training instead of blindly defending old, ignorant &quot;methods&quot; or &quot;techniques&quot;.

I could say a lot more about this, but I'll just quote Lyle.
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">But the principles stay the same. And I contend that they are as optimised as they can be (optimised within the context of a number of competent goals) towards hypertrophy.</div>

Regards,
Dimitris

 

[quadancer]

There was a news blurb on my internet Emag (Arcamax) a couple weeks ago that talked about how the NASA scientists tried to evaluate how muscles grew so they could do something about muscle wasting in the astronauts. They even set up a gym with human lab rats in a controlled study...the result was almost identical to HST principles!!!
Failure suffrage not needed!

 

[DennisRB]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">
I just read the article, he didn't say BBers need to lift heavy, but that they feel they need to do HIT style training to failure and lifting heavy weights all the time. HST promotes lifting heavy (after the 15s and 10s) for as long as your joints can handle it.</div>

What I read into parts of the article was that because traditional BBers feel the need to lift heavy, he compromised the suggested routines so that BBers would not think it was weak (otherwise they wouldn't like HST, just like my friend the quit because it felt too easy compared to what he was used to). BBers hate lifting light weights. It seemed like he was saying that even better gains might by had lifting lighter weights more often.

All I am interested in is getting big, and I would LOVE to do it with less effort. And it seems that the original suggestions were purposely aimed at making it feel more &quot;intense&quot; than it should be just so BB's wouldn't feel that HST is soft.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">

So why 2 weeks? Ties into psychological issues. Bodybuilders are notorious for not liking to work sub maximally (look at how many idiots on the HST board comment that the yare going to follow the program but still want to work to failure).

He had to find a balance between what *might* be physiologically optimal while still fulfilling the psychological needs (and anyone who thinks that psychological requirements are equally critical in program or diet design is a true theorist who doesn't know anything about human beings or how to train them) of bodybuilders to work to failure. They don't like to work at low effort levels, which a 4 or more week cycle would require. So he settled on 2 weeks. They have to start less sub maximally, can use larger weight increases (fulfilling other psychological needs) and hit a RM every 2 weeks. A compromise to try and optimise two different variables.
</div>

I understand the principals behind HST. And I know it is NOT a routine. However, if you want to use HST principals, you must set up a routine which incorporates the principals. But how to best implement these principals is not easy.

Things like, how many reps for how many weeks, with what weight increases and SD periods are not covered anywhere besides the original routines. After reading that article it has become apparent that these suggested numbers were not based on max hypertrophy alone, but were compromised so that BBers like my friend wouldn't feel that it was to easy.

For example, Its seems like it would be better to train every 24 hours (since anabolic effects ware off after 36 hours), but if you done that you would have to halve the amounts of sets to keep volume the same to avoid overtraining. And that would freak some BBers out since the workouts would be so easy.

This is what I am getting at. It appears the principals can be applied in better ways if you ignore the psychology. The thing is, I don't know enough to make a routine that ignores the psychological needs of old BBers and focuses on HST alone. So it would be awesome to see some suggested routines from the experts which ignore the needs BBers to &quot;feel intensity&quot;.

 

[jvroig]

SD right. When you are deconditioned just so you are responsive to the lightest weight you want to use (although in real life, it would be the opposite, and pretty much you'll be doing an educated guess: SD enough then try to estimate the lightest weight you think would be ok.), start your cycle.

The RBE boogyeman isn't super fast. So starting from the beginning of the cycle, you can start repeating workouts (meaning no increments between some workouts) right from the beginning. This will effectively extend your cycle easily from 8 (standard) to 16 weeks. You can go even more, since even regular cycles often go beyond 8 weeks since we extend it as long as we feel the 5's or negs are still worth it. Depending on your setup, you can go 16, or 20, or whatever.

This simply follows two simple &quot;hypertrophy laws&quot; (not really laws, merely some scientific observations that pretty much hit the nail on the head)
1.) RBE is pretty slow, and even if you increment once per week, it's not that bad. Unless you are chugging on a weight for months, you aren't wasting your time as long as you are progressively loading in the big picture (which is the cycle, remember?). In fact, even undulating periodization has been shown to be no less effective than linear. This is pretty much for the aforementioned reason: what matters is that in the big picture of the entire cycle, you should be progressively increasing your load (simply put, at the end of the cycle you should be lifting more weight than when you started).
2.) The longer the cycle, the better, as long as you manage your fatigue well, and you don't do that macho-crap about doing too much. The longer cycle is better simply because studies have shown that the longer (and more regular) the muscles are exposed or remain in an environment conducive to hypertrophy, the better. (Simple meaning: consistent training is better than sporadic).

Aside from that, the rest are pretty much basic for all lifters: eat right, rest right.

Of course: compounds rule. Focus more on moving more weight in big lifts than being a bicep/leg curl queen in healthclubs

(tongue-in-cheek, don't get offended)

Such a cycle will mean you would probably get stuck longer with weights that are lighter than you would want to lift.

Since I'm not The Bryan, there's probably more mojo you can do.

Regards,
-JV

 

[Fausto]

If I can join in at this stage of the conversation, I quite agree with JV, RBE is not such a boogeyman that we need to be scared of, to be aware...OH YES...but if you really listen to your body...and maybe a little hlep from the guys around here, you'll do just fine!

As for the psychology, well...many of us...and I mean many...have gone beyond the normal HST parameters, tweaking, testing and finding that &quot;sweet spot&quot; that we all aspire to achive.

I find HST great because of that, we can in fact ignore the phylosophies and psycologies of getting stuck in a rut, however the principles are where it all centers...and as long as we respect that we will keep on adding value...and muscle...and knowledge to this already rich forum.

I think Bryan was extremelly clever in getting some knowledgeable people on board, and then getting them to &quot;buy into the HST&quot; ideals...eventually the knowledge base became good enough for him not needing to be here so often...and popping in every so now and then, answer a thread of two which are of interest and may need his expert opinion and...rest in the nkowledge that the forum takes care of itself!

 

[DennisRB]

Hey thanks for the replies guys

I'm sick of trying to explain HST to people. I have given up. Why is it so hard for people to believe! I can understand why Bryan went to so much trouble to make HST appear more intense than in needs to be. BBers freak out if that aren't maxing out ever time they lift something.