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There are only three concepts that are truly unique to HST. 1) The concept, and research indicating, that mechanical load, rather than neuromuscular fatigue is the primary trigger of muscle hypertrophy.
2) The concept that muscle tissue grows unabated in the face of continued loading. In other words, if you load a muscle, it will begin to grow and finish growing even if the load is never removed. This flies directly in the face of the common belief that full recovery is critical for optimal muscle growth. Think of skin being able to tan even while still in the sun light.
3) The acknowledgement of the "repeated bout effect" and the incorporation of a strategic way of overcoming its growth inhibiting effects (i.e. Strategic Deconditioning)
Everything else is just using sets and reps to load the tissue.
Everybody has been doing that since they began lifting weights (Romans were first to systematize it similar to the way we do it today). One will notice however that these three points of differentiation have a significant impact on the planning of ones "sets and reps".
A brief summary of the implications must suffice for now:
1) If progressive load, rather than chronic fatigue, is the primary stimulus for tissue hypertrophy, it isn’t necessary to “train to failure” if hypertrophy is the objective. This makes the practice of “adding more weight only after you can do more reps” terribly inefficient if muscle growth is the goal. It also refutes the logic of the “muscle confusion” practice, which is primarily a neurological phenomenon.
2) If muscle tissue is designed to grow even while the loading stimulus is still present, loading (i.e. training) should be undertaken much more frequently in order to maximize the stimulus. Create a high strain “environment” for the tissue to adapt to, not just occasional assaults.
3) Because the tissue becomes resistant to further load-induced growth as part of its adaptation to being loaded, growth will eventually slow dramatically and/or stop. If continued growth is the objective the tissue must be allowed to return to a more sensitive state before continued growth is to occur from loading. This is called Strategic Deconditioning (SD). This is often mistaken as “rest”, which deals with the CNS. Rest is designed to allow adaptation to “catch up” to the stimulus. SD is just the opposite. It is only concerned with the mechanical properties of the tissue. Rather than allowing the tissue’s adaptive resources to “catch up” to your training frequency, SD attempts to push the tissue in the opposite direction, effectively making it unfit to endure frequent loading. As you can see, periodic rest increases ones fitness, by allowing “recovery”, whereas SD decreases one’s fitness by allowing adaptive changes to reverse themselves.
