Review My Hst Program

Are you saying Blade only uses myo reps when the activation set is for 15 reps and higher?

Are your numbers for reps on the activation set or subsequent total myo reps spread out over several sets? What activation ranges do you do? How many reps in subsequent myo sets and at what rest periods?
 
O&G, yeah Borge now only recommends myo reps for higher rep ranges and only for specific situations. Here are a few quotes from his blog:

"I use high reps Myo-reps to reactivate hypertrophy during certain training phases/periods, in advanced lifters: http://articles.elitefts.com/training-articles/reignite-progress-with-new-science/"

"Anyway, I have told you over and over, that IF and WHEN I use Myo-reps in a set-up it has one of two purposes:
1. Reactivate satellite cell response in advanced lifters, optimally 24hrs prior to a heavier workout
2. As added volume in the lower loading ranges (50-60% of 1RM), using isolation exercises such as leg extensions, where the heavier loading ranges are comprised of e.g. squats at 80% of 1RM and unilateral work (split squats or lunges) at 70% of 1RM."

"So if you use the same weight ie 5-10 rep weight, and you do the same volume in total ie 40 reps, will it matter if you do straight sets or rest pause?

Yes, it matters. I don’t use rest-pause on heavier loads. Read Menno Henselmans’ and Brad Schoenfeld’s review paper on the topic. Short answer: 2-3mins between sets is optimal."



The numbers from my last post are a quote from Borge's old myo rep articles in Norwegian (circa 2008-2009?) and refer to the reps after the activation set. Later, he pushed more for the auto-regulation aspect
 
Thanks for the info FoF. I still do the "old style" myo reps and they seem to still be working great even after a year of myo reps and 57 years of lifting. If I stall out, I will think of changing. On a side note, I have found that the auto regulation method is too taxing on my body since I still stick with high frequency and, therefore, must stay away from failure or risk over training or injury.
 
One should not overcomplicate things. The muscle doesn't have a mind of its own. It's not busy thinking up ways to f*ck up your strategies.
As long as you sense some kind of fatigue you will do just fine and your body will adapt and grow. It's not needed to go to failure at all. When I think of my program of last year (gaining around 7 pounds of muscle and this was counted after a cut following a bulk), I've never been even close to failure, if I would really push it, I might have grinded out maybe 3 or 4 or even 5 reps more. I grew just fine without it. Going close or to failure would mean you need the rest of the week to recover as you would have messed up the muscle completely. Which would be highly ineffective for hyperthrophy as your frequency would drop to maybe once a week for the same muscle.

Even so my gains have been great, this years program is completely different from what I did last year. Why? Because I like variety to start with, doing 3*8 three times a week just gets me bored, plus I found my workouts to be too long in the end. The main reason I'm doing this myo reps with ultra low rest even on my 5's is because they are amazingly time efficient! You get all the workout you need in half the time compared to doing straight 3*5 sets with regular 2 minutes rest in between.
It keeps you alert and energetic. Big thanks to Old&Grey for pointing me to these myo reps.

My gains are great so far and my strength goes up. Every workout, every exercise moves up in weight.
 
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Jester, I think you asked that of Mojo but I am happy to report my gains too. In the past year I have gone from 69 to 70 years of age. And those gains are permanent too, even if I quit lifting tomorrow. :)
 
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What numbers are you looking for Jester? Numbers are irrelevant when Lifting. How are they going to help you reaching your goals?
 
Old&Grey,

In your previous posts, you have covered volume, doing myoreps 8 and 12 DUP style with resp 5*2 and 4*3 if I recall correctly. You have indicated working out almost daily or up to 6 times a week, which covers your frequency. Correct me if I'm wrong here.
What about your intensity? Do you use something in the lines of around 35% of 1RM, given that you train daily? I refer here to the frequency project in the above article where elite lifters used somwehere around 70 - 75% of 1RM to do 3 to 6 reps (a weight you could normally do for 8 to 12 reps).

This would mean that, when raising frequency, you could basically keep the same myo-rep volume, but use half of the intensity. Instead of keeping the intensity, but halfing the volume. Or did they, in case of thje frequency project halfed bith the volume and the intensity. If I read correctly (english not being my native tongue) it looks like they did the latter.

How have you handled this? What is your take on things?
 
@Mojo77,

From a conversation I had not so long ago with O&G he advised the following

"I usually start each cycle at about 75% of my max for that particular rep range. That is enough to get me full muscle recruitment on the last 3 or 4 reps of the activation set which is all I need to then start the myo reps which all the reps are under muscle recruitment if the rest time is short enough. I adjust the tempo of the activation set so that it is with one or two reps of failure whether at the beginning of a rep cycle at 75% of my max or at the end of a rep cycle when I am using weight roughly equal to 100% of my max. So my first session is at a pretty slow tempo, say 1,4 (concentric, eccentric) while the last set of that rep range is at or near a 1,1 tempo. That makes for a very intense workout which is too much for beginner lifters."

Hope this helps!!
 
That about sums up my approach. If I get to the end of a planned cycle and still feel like I should continue, I add in 1/2 reps, stopping midway through the eccentric rep for about one second and then continuing, slowing tempo down, adding another set of myo reps, adding one rep to each myo set, etc. This allows me to continue my progressive overload without adding weight. That allows me to postpone my SD without over training. My body tells me when it is time to take a week or two off.
 
mickc1965, O&G,

Thanks for your replies. That is pretty high intensity given the frequency. In the frequency project, the lifters also used around 75% of 1RM, but they did less work with it, and no myo reps I believe.
Over the week I average 75% as well, but I would not be able to recover from that intensity on a daily basis. It must be that with training age, this combo of volume and intensity is something you get used to?

It would be interesting to see how your results evolved if you would drop intensity down to around 60 to 65% of 1RM and performing that load with your current volume and frequency. Relating to the frequency project, this should still give you good results.
It is sad however that I didn't find more info on the exact program lay-out they used for this project.

If anyone would have more details about it, it would be really nice if they could be posted here
 
@Mojo77,

If you want to train every day then I would recommend that you reduce your current daily volume by 50% so the weekly volume remains the same, then gradually increase the daily volume over time as and when you feel you can recover sufficiently - for the record I train AM and PM 6 days a week with 2 sets per exercise and my set up is as follows

M / W / F - AM is Dips and Pendlay Rows - PM is Squats and Calf Raise
T / Th / S - AM is Overhead Press and Chins - PM is Deadlifts and Shrugs

Currently I only do two sets per exercise and train between 20 and 30 minutes per session, but it has taken a while to get the balance correct between volume and frequency!! Last cycle I used myo-reps (and DUP) but it became a little intense whilst cutting (for holiday), still managed to use myo-reps up until the end of week 3 (of 5 week routine) but reverted back to 'normal' sets for the last two weeks but still managed PBs on every exercise.
 
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This cycle I am trying something a bit different. Still HST, DUP and Myo reps but:

1. Week1-2 Four weekly full body workout split over 4 days. 75-80% of rep max.

2. Weeks 3-6 Three weekly full body workouts split over 6 days.85-95% of rep max.

3. Weeks 7-? Two full body workouts split over 6 days. 95-100% of rep max. Increase myo reps or myo sets as I feel like I could do more.


This allows me to increase work load and intensity without over training. I use a workout consisting of 6 exercises that change over 4 workouts. I also split my workouts into 2 sessions on work out days so no w/o is more than 20 minutes long.

Next cycle I may add in 6 weekly full body workouts over 6 days at the beginning for 1-2 weeks. Obviously the volume will be lowered and load will probably be about 60-65%.
 
mickc1965, O&G,

Very interesting programming there. Since I feel I'm still in the beginnerstage I will stick myself to working out three times a week full body as I do now for quite some time. When I reach an advanced stage however, and my anabolic window would drop down to around 12h I will certainly be interested in training 6 days a week.

Which makes me wonder, I see in your set ups that you still hit every muscle group roughly every other day. However, with an anabolic window of around 12h as an advanced trainee, shouldn't you be hitting each body part daily with of course appropriate volume and intensity? Given the repeated bout effect I read about, this would seem more optimal for hyperthrophy
 
Mojo77 said:
I see in your set ups that you still hit every muscle group roughly every other day. However, with an anabolic window of around 12h as an advanced trainee, shouldn't you be hitting each body part daily with of course appropriate volume and intensity? Given the repeated bout effect I read about, this would seem more optimal for hyperthrophy
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I don't disagree but while 'cutting' a full range full body workout six days a week maybe too much for a 50 year old natty lifter, however my routine I believe covers pretty much all the body every day with the exception of shoulders, chest and calves

Legs - Squats on M / W / F and Deads on T / T / S - I do deadlifts for legs but obviously a significant carry over on back
Chest - Dips on M / W / F
Shoulders - Overhead Press on T / T / S
Back - Pendlay Rows on M / W / F and Chins (and deads) on T / T / S
Traps - Shrugs (and deads) on T / T / S
 
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How many times per week you should work each body part is directly correlated to, among many other factors, the intensity of the work out. Generalizations may work for the "average" population but not for any one specific person.
 
Old and Grey said:
2 hours of training? No such effective program exists for hypertrophy probably because you are taking excessively long rest periods. This would be a 40-50 minute program for me and I am 70 years old. My current program averages 28 sets (including myo sets) and I split it into AM/PM @ 20 minutes each.
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True, time and intensity are very important! Chop that time
 
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