I think that there is a difference between the depletion and supercompensation cycle used by bodybuilders, and the slow but constant myofibrilar hypertrophy that comes from frequent but non depleting strength “stimulation”. Stimulating the muscles from a strength perspective but keeping reps to 5 or less, or even 3 or less upregulates the motor units, it “gently” deforms the tendons causing thickening, it forces the nerve rates up, it causes a little micro damage which gets the immune system to clean out damaged proteins, promotes blood flow, and even helps recovery from the last workout, but it does not deplete the muscles’ energy reserves or cause catabolism of muscle proteins for energy which is basically a traumatic event requiring 5-10 days to recover from. So if you use a hfst approach you could still use a high rep approach once every 5-10 days (maybe once a week), but the basic recovery cycle from a strength activation workout is 24-48 hours.
Maybe an occasional extra day off to make up for a build up of microtrauma makes sense, but I’ve found that I get nothing from 1x per week training, some results from 2, and better results from 3 (and even more if I limit the volume).
The two “standard” approaches that have worked long term for me have been, 3x per week in the strength/strength hypertrophy range of 1-5 reps per set, about 6-20 total reps per movement. For example, 4 x 5 at 75%-80%, 5 x 3 at 80%-85%, 8 x 1 at 85%-95% on 3 different days (if I go to 4 then one should be 5-10% lighter).
The second approach which I may alternate with this for 2-4 week stretches is 2x per week, one day strength, like before and one day of a ramp followed by 2-3 hard sets in the 60-75% range, maybe a week at 60, 65, 70 and 75.
I am thinking about doing something in-between now, one day of strength, cycling between 4 x 5, 5 x 3, and 8 x 1 (at about 75, 80 and 85-90% of a true max), one day of a ramp followed by 3 hard sets in the 60-75% range, and then a third strength day but using about 90% of day 1 weights. You could do this on a 6 day two way split or on a total body routine using 4-5 exercises, or on a total body a and b where you flip flop a, b, a, on week 1 and b, a, b on week 2. By the way, I currently would not do sets of more than 5 if I am not eating at least a maintenance level of calories. If reducing cals, stick to high frequency with multiple sets of 1-3 at 80-90% of your capacity.