Hi. Is this the area where there are no dumb questions? 
i'm making my second foray into HST. my first experience with it was around 2005 i think. i can't even remember why i went away from it (though i'm starting to quickly see my challenges with it again). but now that i'm back to the sites and the forums i'm remembering how MUCH information there is and how complicated it seems to be to me. i'm a 53 year old hardgainer with very poor bodybuilding genetics - 170 lbs at about 20% bodyfat ... and on top of that ... bad joints (knee/shoulder). i apologize if the answer to my questions are somewhere on the forum but i couldn't find them.
1) i'm confused about how the progression goes. is the goal just continuous progression throughout the 4 cycles and the reps decrease every 2 weeks? for example (let's say this is dumbell bench on an A/B setup - so dum bench every other workout): 5, 10, 15 (15 reps - 2 week cycle 1) , then 20, 25, 30, (10 reps - 2 week cycle 2), then 35, 40, 45 (5 reps - 2 week cycle 3), then 50, 55, 60 (negatives - 2 week cycle 4) (?)
a) of course, personally, even if i started at 5 pounds like in the example, i'm not going to be able to get that high with my weights. so if i cant achieve continuous progression, can i even do HST since i'm never going to be strong enough for continuous progression? b) Is it possible to increase the reps instead of the poundage (and keep weight constant)? so in the example: 2 week cycle one becomes 5 lbs - reps 5 then 10 then 15; 2 week cycle 2: 10 lbs with 5 then 10 the 15; 2 week cycle 3 15 lbs with 5, 10, 15; 2 week cycle 4 20 lbs with 5, 10, 15 reps (?). there's progression but it doesn't appear to be the correct type of progression (?)
c) if i calculated the maxes and all, i would be starting every exercise with negative poundages (?)
2) also, what happens on the next overall 8 week cycle after strategic deconditioning? let's say the answer above is yes, continuous progression is the goal and one could achieve that. where do the reps and weights go? on the original example above, after achieving 60 on the negatives on 2 week cycle 4, where would you start after SD? would you go back to say 10 on the first set of 15's (slightly higher than the 5's you started with on the previous 8 week cycle) and then go back up, theoretically ending at 65's for the last negatives?
3) Also, since i have bad joints, i'm not going to be able to go negative and 5 is probably a bit too "heavy" (relatively) for me as well. can the reps all be shifted higher than the 15, 10, 5, neg (like 25/20/15/10 or even 30/25/20/15) or does that defeat the whole purpose and theory behind HST?
4) ironman talks about an approach where the positive is performed in 1-1.5 seconds and the negative is slowed down to about 7 seconds with the theory being an emphasis on the eccentric movement and thus more cellular damage, but with less stress to the joints as a negative. could that approach be substituted for the negatives part of the overall 8 week cycle? however, to do that the weights would have to be decreased from the previous 2 week cycle instead of increased (theoretically the 5's weights would have to be reduced for that approach not increased for a pure negatives approach) (?).
5) could volume be used as a progression variable? slowly increase volume over the 8 week cycle instead of, or mixed with, weight progression (or even reps progression)?
5a) relatedly but separate, would it be of any value to split the body into upper and lower, workout 6 days a week, and increase the volume somewhat since you're only working half your body at a time? or is that asking for trouble with overtraining for a 53 year old hardgainer?
6) has there been any adjustments to the approach/theory since 2005?
7) so, it's not "all about the pump" like some (arnold being one of them i believe) said?
well, that's alot of questions, and hopefully not overly stupid, annoying, or redundant questions.
HST seems very confusing to me and there seem to be a lot of challenges for me personally (?).
thanks!
Steve
i'm making my second foray into HST. my first experience with it was around 2005 i think. i can't even remember why i went away from it (though i'm starting to quickly see my challenges with it again). but now that i'm back to the sites and the forums i'm remembering how MUCH information there is and how complicated it seems to be to me. i'm a 53 year old hardgainer with very poor bodybuilding genetics - 170 lbs at about 20% bodyfat ... and on top of that ... bad joints (knee/shoulder). i apologize if the answer to my questions are somewhere on the forum but i couldn't find them.1) i'm confused about how the progression goes. is the goal just continuous progression throughout the 4 cycles and the reps decrease every 2 weeks? for example (let's say this is dumbell bench on an A/B setup - so dum bench every other workout): 5, 10, 15 (15 reps - 2 week cycle 1) , then 20, 25, 30, (10 reps - 2 week cycle 2), then 35, 40, 45 (5 reps - 2 week cycle 3), then 50, 55, 60 (negatives - 2 week cycle 4) (?)
a) of course, personally, even if i started at 5 pounds like in the example, i'm not going to be able to get that high with my weights. so if i cant achieve continuous progression, can i even do HST since i'm never going to be strong enough for continuous progression? b) Is it possible to increase the reps instead of the poundage (and keep weight constant)? so in the example: 2 week cycle one becomes 5 lbs - reps 5 then 10 then 15; 2 week cycle 2: 10 lbs with 5 then 10 the 15; 2 week cycle 3 15 lbs with 5, 10, 15; 2 week cycle 4 20 lbs with 5, 10, 15 reps (?). there's progression but it doesn't appear to be the correct type of progression (?)
c) if i calculated the maxes and all, i would be starting every exercise with negative poundages (?)
2) also, what happens on the next overall 8 week cycle after strategic deconditioning? let's say the answer above is yes, continuous progression is the goal and one could achieve that. where do the reps and weights go? on the original example above, after achieving 60 on the negatives on 2 week cycle 4, where would you start after SD? would you go back to say 10 on the first set of 15's (slightly higher than the 5's you started with on the previous 8 week cycle) and then go back up, theoretically ending at 65's for the last negatives?
3) Also, since i have bad joints, i'm not going to be able to go negative and 5 is probably a bit too "heavy" (relatively) for me as well. can the reps all be shifted higher than the 15, 10, 5, neg (like 25/20/15/10 or even 30/25/20/15) or does that defeat the whole purpose and theory behind HST?
4) ironman talks about an approach where the positive is performed in 1-1.5 seconds and the negative is slowed down to about 7 seconds with the theory being an emphasis on the eccentric movement and thus more cellular damage, but with less stress to the joints as a negative. could that approach be substituted for the negatives part of the overall 8 week cycle? however, to do that the weights would have to be decreased from the previous 2 week cycle instead of increased (theoretically the 5's weights would have to be reduced for that approach not increased for a pure negatives approach) (?).
5) could volume be used as a progression variable? slowly increase volume over the 8 week cycle instead of, or mixed with, weight progression (or even reps progression)?
5a) relatedly but separate, would it be of any value to split the body into upper and lower, workout 6 days a week, and increase the volume somewhat since you're only working half your body at a time? or is that asking for trouble with overtraining for a 53 year old hardgainer?
6) has there been any adjustments to the approach/theory since 2005?
7) so, it's not "all about the pump" like some (arnold being one of them i believe) said?
well, that's alot of questions, and hopefully not overly stupid, annoying, or redundant questions.
HST seems very confusing to me and there seem to be a lot of challenges for me personally (?).
thanks!
Steve
