Our Progress On Hst!

S

ShreddedCyborg

New Member
I've run a few cycles of HST over the past 6 months and have had the opportunity to train with a few of my friends on the program and would like to share the results and my thoughts. I train mainly for strength but still do bodybuilding style lifting

My lifts Before and after 3 cycles of HST (fullbody 3 day/week training): BW 198-203 lbs
Front Squat: 185 x 5 - 220 x 5 (+45 lbs 1RM) this is my weakest lift so I had much progress to make!
Bench Press: 305 x 1 - 325 x 1 (+20 lbs)
Deadlift: 405 x 1 - 425 x 1 (+20 lbs)
Dumbell Row: 125 x 5 - 140 x 5 (+15 lbs)
Standing OHP: 200 x 1 - 225 x 1 (+25 lbs) I've always had strong shoulders, this routine got them freaky strong! There's more but I don't want to make a huge list......

So from my experience this is one of the best strength training routines I have ever done, even though it is considered a hypertrophy routine. It turns out this routine is even more effective for less advanced trainee's like my friend who made some huge gains.

His progress in 8 weeks on HST:
Back Squat: 135 x 10 -250 x 3 (+ about 80 lbs 1RM!)
Deadlift: 185 x 5 - 265 x 5 (+80 lbs)
Bench Press: 135 x 8 - 205 x 3 (+ about 50 lbs 1RM)

I trained with two other guys and saw similar results: Very significant strength increases in a very short period of time. I have never seen results like this on any other routine I have done.
The most important thing i've learned about HST so far is how incredibly effective it is for beginners, in fact I will be so bold to say that every beginner bodybuilder/strength trainer should try HST as their first routine. That's how good it is!

Hope this is good motivation!
 
Awesome news! One quick question, how did you handle your buddy's progression when he was going so fast?
 
Your friend's bench shot up. Almost as strong as mine :(. I've got a friend who's been on strength program like SS for a year and half now and he's not close to that number.

How big is your friend?
 
adpowah said:
Awesome news! One quick question, how did you handle your buddy's progression when he was going so fast?
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He developed some elbow pain towards the end of the routine, he bought an elbow wrap which seemed to help. Also his right knee was buckling on the heavy squat days so I recommended he focus on 'pushing' his knees outward which helped get rid of that. One of his shoulders was also getting a bit sore. We are taking a week off so that should help him recover, we'll see how things go on the next cycle once he gets all of his 1RM's into the spreadsheet

TangoDown said:
Your friend's bench shot up. Almost as strong as mine :(. I've got a friend who's been on strength program like SS for a year and half now and he's not close to that number.

How big is your friend?
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He's the same size as myself, 5'10" 205 lbs but with higher BF. Yea I hear this complaint all the time about SS.... People make solid gains on squats and deadlifts but struggle with bench. I'm not really sure why that is, but it doesn't seem to be the case with HST
 
The issue w/SS's bench program is;

a) Too much volume - pecs, delts and tri's are tiny. Far too much volume, too soon for a novice/early intermedaite.

b) The almost complete absence of upper back work. Bench relies on a massive upper back, and starting strength has only mild amount of deadlift and when considered in a 'working load' context, next to done at all.
 
I set a 20lb PR in a few months on bench just from following vanilla HST. As soon as I transitioned to strength-based programming for bench, I hit a wall. So I guess, at least anecdotally, HST is pretty good for bench progress. Could be the difference in work capacity, or could be form breakdown at high % of rep max that doesn't happen when working in the sub 5RM range. Don't know. But HST works. If it wasn't, we wouldn't be here exalting its principles.
 
Jester said:
[...] and starting strength has only mild amount of deadlift and when considered in a 'working load' context, next to done at all.
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I was actually talking to a friend of mine about this yesterday while waiting for class, but in regards to SL 5x5, which is basically the same program as SS. He pointed out that the proportion of squat to deadlift volume is 10:1, meaning that when someone has completed 150 reps of squat, they've only done 15 reps of deadlift. SS uses 3x5 squat, but the same modality for deadlift, so the for SS is 10:1.6.

Even moreso, I think SS doesn't have any direct back work at all as Rippetoe has people doing cleans instead. At least SL has Pendlays. Still, you end up with a lot of people finishing SS/SL @ 5x5 with decent squats, deadlifts maxes only a bit higher than their squat maxes, and very little back strength.
 
When in reality, back work should be your primary focus, then legs, then the pecs and other bro muscles.
 
Hey all, figure I'll post this here just because this thread is inspiring me to go with HST. I'm a returning lifter coming back from a layoff and starting off at novice strength levels. I never got strong in the first place however because I always used crappy splits without much rhyme or reason. I love the research behind HST and the principles it promotes, but I could never see how it could work with low strength levels. I am just curious how you would add weight so fast like that if you don't work beyond your starting maxes until the very end of a cycle? Do you just add 80 pounds suddenly to your squat, and is it possible to make even that much of a strength gain using submaximal weights? Sorry if I worded this poorly, but I'm just unsure whether a beginner would change weights used during a cycle or not.
 
IronTerminator said:
is it possible to make even that much of a strength gain using submaximal weights?
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If you're a beginner, yes. You're learning movement patterns, so coding comes real fast and you get a lot stronger.

Otherwise, all programming is done with sub-maximal weight because they tend to follow some sort of periodization/progressive overload methodology. Even if you were doing Strong Lifts 5x5, which isn't a perfect program by any means, you're not lifting your true 5RM because there's no way you can hit 5 sets of that.

What are your numbers?
 
TangoDown said:
If you're a beginner, yes. You're learning movement patterns, so coding comes real fast and you get a lot stronger.

Otherwise, all programming is done with sub-maximal weight because they tend to follow some sort of periodization/progressive overload methodology. Even if you were doing Strong Lifts 5x5, which isn't a perfect program by any means, you're not lifting your true 5RM because there's no way you can hit 5 sets of that.

What are your numbers?
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Well right now my maxes are as follows at a bodyweight of around 162,

Bench- 185x5
Squat- 205x5
Deadlift- 375x5

And that makes sense as far as the submax weight thing, but the main difference with most beginner programs is that the progress working past your old rep maxes is more gradual. I know that the loads get heavier in a sense over a cycle of HST, but they never move beyond the initial maxes until the end. I don't doubt the program works, but as someone who has always trained to failure (foolishly) on every set it's just hard for me to get at first. I'm definitely psyched about getting back into it with HST though now that I see the encouraging progress of others and the awesome information on this site.
 
@IronTerminator I bet you could see some fast growth in your squats if you gave them a little focus. Based on your other numbers, it's unlikely that strength is holding you back, it's probably technique, mobility etc.
 
Yeah, well I guess it's all just semantics anyway. Thanks for the replies, I will hopefully add my results to this thread in the future.
 
adpowah said:
@IronTerminator I bet you could see some fast growth in your squats if you gave them a little focus. Based on your other numbers, it's unlikely that strength is holding you back, it's probably technique, mobility etc.
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Definitely, I'm just now finding my right form for the squat. One of the reasons for the layoff was because I pulled my lat muscle badly doing squats of all things, and it was due to improper form. Got a powerlifter to look at my form and help me out a week ago.
 
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