I have been doing a lot of research on Hypertrophy Specific Training, but most of the articles, posts, and results are from a long time ago (about 2003). It’s really interesting and I am in my week of strategic deconditioning before I start the routine. Has anyone tried it? My only thought as to why not many people have tried it is because it is such a shot to your ego if you follow it exactly as prescribed.
I have not ran HST,but I run a Full Body program which is also 3x a week.The primary difference being I am doing higher volume/more number of sets and strictly staying in the ~5 rep range on compounds,with ~8 rep range for isolations.
My experience of Full Body 3x a week has been for at least 1.5 years out of 1 year and 9 months or so of training. I can tell you that you will get much more strength development than size, but the strength development is great and very aggressive.
Also, look at “Alpha’s Work II”. He also runs Full Body 3x a week on his own protocol…the guy is insane…benches 500+,squats 600+ etc. I’m not quite there,but in under 2 years of training I have gotten a 300x4/3/3 bench and 400+ squat on Full Body training. It works!
[quote]ed.svec wrote:
I have been doing a lot of research on Hypertrophy Specific Training, but most of the articles, posts, and results are from a long time ago (about 2003). It’s really interesting and I am in my week of strategic deconditioning before I start the routine. Has anyone tried it? My only thought as to why not many people have tried it is because it is such a shot to your ego if you follow it exactly as prescribed.
The 15’s workouts can be a huge blow to the ego. I did HST nine years ago and vomited my PWO shake during a 15’s workout. In another workout I had to sit down and not move suddenly because I was on the verge of vomiting my shake.
Full body training isn’t bad per se, but it has its drawbacks which have been discussed ad nauseum.
The 15’s workouts can be a huge blow to the ego. I did HST nine years ago and vomited my PWO shake during a 15’s workout. In another workout I had to sit down and not move suddenly because I was on the verge of vomiting my shake.
Full body training isn’t bad per se, but it has its drawbacks which have been discussed ad nauseum. [/quote]
The 15’s workouts can be a huge blow to the ego. I did HST nine years ago and vomited my PWO shake during a 15’s workout. In another workout I had to sit down and not move suddenly because I was on the verge of vomiting my shake.
Full body training isn’t bad per se, but it has its drawbacks which have been discussed ad nauseum. [/quote]
Okay so I’m posting after workout number 1. I am pretty sore, and the workout was way tougher than I expected. The light weights were very challenging to go slow and still get 15 reps, especially on the second set of an exercise. The strategic decondition definitely did the trick. The whole time I was thinking, I can’t believe i have to do this again in 2 days! And with heavier weights…
I messed with HST a few years back…was hell on my nervous system and I had to stop by week 3. Psychologically…no chance I could follow this program. Good learning experience though
All right guys, I made it through 6 weeks of HST without any major modifications.
I made sure that I did not zig-zag in weights ever.
I also modified the sets as the reps got lower.
2x15 3x10 4x5.
Body weight increase of 3 pounds (192)
Arm increase of 1/8 inch (16 5/8)
Neck increase of 1/2 inch (15 3/4)
Quad increase of 1/2 inch (23.5)
Calf increase of 1/4 inch (14.75)
Waist increase of 1/4 inch…whoops
Chest increase of 1/4 inch to 44.75
Shoulder increase of 1 inch to 52.5
I have been training for 8 years straight, so these small gains are somewhat hard to come by nowadays.
The next two week are dedicated to negative only training to really tear down the muscles. Since I don’t have a partner, I will be doing 2 up 1 down method of negatives.
P.s. I thought I would love to change to a split after HST, but I kinda really like it now.
I did get stronger on bench press, rows, pushdowns, shrugs, face pulls, and curls.
Workouts got tougher and tougher towards the end of each rep cycle, but I still hit all of my maxes, and then added a rep or two for some exercises. I think that has to do with how accurately you measure your maxes. Do not over estimate too much.
-My joints feel just fine. I sometimes have elbow and clavicle problems on other programs, but I think that the workload being spread out over a week helped, as well as only having 2 weeks of super heavy 5’s.
The 2 up 1 down method is a way of doing negatives without a partner. You have to get creative though for some muscle groups. Machines work best. You just lift the weight with two hands, and lower it with one hand. Lift again with two hands, and then lower it with the other hand, and keep going. Pick a weight that is 120% of your max for one arm. This is an awesome intensity boosting technique.
I also thought of starting a cycle but I am really unsure regarding fatigue build up.
If you regard more “modern” approaches like 531 or HLM,DUP training-the tendency goes over to vary the workload within the weelk: You raise the intensiy over 3 session and then start over but with a bit heavier weight.
In HST you build up over 6 sessions and then reduce the load again (if you zig zag.)
So for some that could already be a short overreaching cycle.
In this regard: Have you tried short wave cycles-undulating load too?
Like: 2x15 one session 3x10 next session 3x5 last session and repeat with heavier weight?
I thought of the exact same thing! I probably will try that one day.
It’s just a little different than HST because HST is a build up within the week. The intensity increases every workout. You might start out doing 85% of you 15RM and build up to 100% of you 15RM in only two weeks.
If you did 15’s on Monday, 10’s on Wednesday, and 5’s on Friday it might be tricky to progress in intensity every week. Although I think it would work if you weren’t worried about training to failure often.
If you do that program definitely let me know how it goes!
Well i can already give you a feedback because I did HLM training this style the last 2 years.
I personally did sets across. So same weight for all working sets. The weight was chosen that the last rep of the last set was the last possible one (perhaps one grinder left).
I did:
1.session 3x5 4min rest
2,session 2x15 1 min rest
3.session 3x8-10 2min rest
I did 2 sessions the week. So a full rotation lasted 10 days. Then repeated with more weight or reps.
This went good until each day was rotated about 5 times. This usully meant a increase about 5kg per exercise.
Then I switched to only one heavy working set per day. (So max weight day for 5´s then 15´s then 10´s rpeeat)
This usually got me a added 2.5-5kg increase. But not in all exerices.
Were I messed up the whole thing in following is diet,the heavy day and transition periods.
Goin near failure on lighter sets is a whole different animal than on lower rep sets. I always had trouble progressing on the heavy day because on starting too heavy.
In the transition periods I was too proud to take 75%of of each day and start ramping up to the top weights because that would have lasted quite long when done for each day and I didn´t wanted to be far away from my weight so long.
Also remember that the sets across are always lighter than your rpm for that zone.
So my ramp up weeks got shortended and I didn´t progressed.
Then i played arounf with H/L days but never got the response when doing a simple HLM template.
Worrying about that the light (2x15) and medium (3x10)days are too light is probalby unnecessary. When coming to the heavy 3x3-5 day the weight is nevertheless about 85-90%of 1rpm. Thats heavy enough for strength gains anyway and spur progress on the other days.
