Well Char, since you’re such a nice guy (no pun intended,seriously), i’ll do this for you.
I’ve been training for two years. Before i started HST i was doing a pretty tradicional bodybuilding split, hitting everything once a week and using a similar volume as i use in my HST routines, around 9 sets for large bodyparts and around 6 to smaller. I made good gains on this routine but on the last 3 months i wasn’t progressing at all. I didn’t train to failure that often on my second year of training and found that i felt much better avoiding it and also grew more. My diet isn’t much different from then, i just have around 300-400 kcals more, on a 40% fat,35% carb,25% pro split, with a total of 4600-4800 kcals per day. My weight before HST was 79.5kg, at around 13-14% bodyfat. These numbers are not to be taken too seriously as i use a bio impedance device that they have at my gym, still, it’s pretty consistent with itself, so i believe it does track changes reasonably well. Anyway i never lost my abs completely out of sight, so i guess i was around those values. Of relevance i also the fact that in the previous months i had been at 83 kg at a similar bodyfat. I went on a diet and did too much cardio and lost a lot of muscle (any cardio is too much for me, live and learn…).
At the end of April i started My first cycle of HST, after the nine days decondicioning, at 79,5 kg ~13% BF. This first cycle was, more than anything, a learning experience and didn’t go to well, the intensity was too high most of the time, RM’s were overestimated, and i trained too often doing 6 workouts a week ,each with 9 sets and by week number two i felt burned out and resumed to tradicional 3 X week full body sessions. Despite this i ended this cycle after five weeks at 82 kg (a 5 pound increase) with a very small increase in BF, so i still was around 13-14%.
I started my second cycle at 81,5 kg after doing 12 days decondicion. This cycle i did tradicional HST style, 3 X week, mostly compounds, 14-16 sets per workout. I was eating 5000 Kcals a day and started suplementing with creatine.
For the record, here is the routine:
Squat or deads X 2(depending on rep range).
Bench press X 2
Dumbell chest fly X 1
BOB rows or on pulley X 2
Weighted pull ups X 2
Standing barbell military press X 2
Calf raises on smith machine X 2
EZ bar biceps curl X 1
This cycle was donne cycling the reps weekly, 15,12,10,8,5,5 (like the previous one). At the end of this cycle, after 6 weeks and a half, i reached my heaviest weight at 87 kg at 14-15% bodyfat, a good amount of this wieght is water weight from the creatine, but still, these are impressive gains.
I then went on a diet phase were i kept doing the 3 X week full body workouts, but dropped the reps and kept increasing the weights. I broke every record in all my lifts, but as strenght never was a priority will not go into that.
I am now at around 84 kg 11% bodyfat. Unfortunatly i experimented with empty stomach 10 minutes HIT sessions during my diet and lost way too much weight (read muscle). ALso realized that cardio while dieting makes lose muscle fast adn as soon as i ditched it all my muscle waisting problems desapeared.
I am now at the beggining of week two of my third cycle and am hoping to reach 200 opounds before next summer.
Phew!! This was the longest post i ever typed!! Char-dawg, you owe me one.