If anyone has tried both HST and EDT, which did you find more effective for muscle growth?
There is a pretty long thread on HST, in which most of the people report favorable responses. Ditto with EDT. You should read those as a starting place, if you haven’t already.
I haven’t tried EDT, but I am very sure that it would be more effective (at least in my case) than HST. I tried HST a while back and it was a disaster. I gained fat and lost muscle. There have been some other HST-hating people out there as well. I haven’t heard anything but good about EDT, though. (Unless you count the bitching about unreal soreness.)
Personally, I think that if you’re a newbie or extremely over-trained, or if you have some other similar special circumstance, HST could provide some real benefit. In these cases I would recommend HST. But if you’re an advanced trainee with good nurtrition and a sound “fitness base”, then I would have to go with EDT.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the input, char. Nope, not a newbie, and not overtrained. What I’ve started doing is this: I’m doing strength/power training for 2 or 3 months, then doing hypertrophy for 2-3 months, continuing to alternate, hoping for the best of both worlds. I just finished my first real strength cycle and have started a generic hypertrophy routine. Just trying to find the best way to achive hypertrophy.
I’ve been following EDT for the last few months and have to say that it is the best program I have been on. I’ve tried 5x5 (which i’ve found works well too) and various others, but have not seen the results that I have with EDT. While on EDT my BF has dropped almost 2%, I put on ten pounds, and increased my arm size by almost and inch and my legs have grown. I know I sound like a used car salesman but I really like this program and as long as you have a good diet I think you will be very happy with EDT! I have not tried HST but just wanted to voice my support for EDT.
Right now, I’m trying EDT twice a week with strength training twice a week. Anyway, HST and EDT are doing similar things: making you do more and more work each time. With HST you are cycling to max weights with each rep phase at the end of two weeks. EDT makes you increase the amount of work you do by beating a rep goal or adding weights. Either way, if you stick with the program and alter your diet depending on how much work you’re doing, you should get good results. The mistake would be to never cycle the intensity and go all out every workout. This is where neither program or any program for that matter would yield results.
Go to the HST board for information. Haven’t tried EDT so i can’t say anything.
I agree with gmm that the basic principle (progressive overload) is the same with both programs. However, you have understand that with HST you’re going to have easy workouts for at least one week out of two, whereas with EDT you’re going to be pushing yourself from the beginning.
As I said above, in my case with HST this was a disaster as I lost more during the easy weeks than I gained during the hard ones. But again, I think that the systematic detraining built into HST would be of benefit to someone who was, to use MM’s famous phrase, chronically over-trained.