Just wondering if anyone had followed through with a full HST cycle or two as outlined by Bryan Haycock and what your findings were. I got through about a week and a half before I started second guessing the use of my time and dropped the routine.
Been through almost 5 cycles with great results each time. If you were only a week and a half into it, what did you expect? You got to perhaps the 5th workout of the 15 rep range. The 15s are included to increase lactic acid production. This keeps connective tissues healthy and increases the functional capacity of the muscles. You may see some growth due to increased glycogen and fluid, but the real growth ocurs when you get to the heavier weights. Hypertrophy has nothing to do with how hard you think you are working. It has to do with using a given load to cause sufficient damage to the muscles to cause the hypertrophic response. This depends on the condition of the muscle at the time the load is applied.
After the short time you actually tried it, you really have no way to tell if it’s good or bad. Steve
A whole week and a half??? Wow, you’re a patient dude. You didn’t look like Ronnie by then?? Oh well… That routine sucks big time.
Sorry about the sarcasm, couldn't help it.
Do a search and you'll find some stuff.
I gained around fifteen pounds in two and a half months of HST, with minimal fat gain. Great program.
I would have to agree with Steve’s comments. After 1 1/2 weeks, you really didn’t give it a shot. I have not tried the program, because I have some issues with the underlying assumptions; however, from what I have read, it appears that many people have found that the program works.
I’m about to finish my first cycle, and I’m not really that impressed. I haven’t made much of a gain in muscle mass. I have gotten slightly leaner, but I’ve also lost a ton of strength. I think the problem with the program is that it has you doing too many workouts far below an appropriate intensity level to be beneficial. For example, the last workout in the two-week cycle of 15RM has you actually working out with the most weight you can do for 15 reps. That equates to about 60-65% of your 1RM. But for the two weeks leading up to that point, you’re working out with much lighter weights that are about 50% of your 15RM or about 10-20% of your overall max. And this is true of the weeks where you do 10 and 5 reps. So how can that be effective? I understand the reasoning behind the program, and I thought it would work better. And no, it wasn’t my diet. I was eating more calories and more protein while doing the program. I think this program is giving results to people who were severly overtrained. Thus, the lower volume and lower intensity elicited a growth response. But for everyone else, there is a good chance they will make minimal progress, as did I.
Cliff,
Today was my last set of the 15’s. Monday are start the 10s. It’s too early to really tell my results. I’m gonna post my results when I’m done. I am curious, because I wasn’t overtrained and I actually started after a week and 1/2 break from weight lifting. I’m also doing the T-Dawg diet with this diet in attempt to tone up. In two weeks I’ve lost 3 lbs, which I believe means that I haven’t loss any lean muscle mass. I think that this might be a good program with some 4-AD or Mag-10. Any thoughts? Does anybody reading these postings have the complete details of EDT training. I’ve searched on here but have found incomplete info. Thanks.
Today was my last day of 15’s. So far I love the change of pace associated with my switching to the HST method. I am 6’ 190, pretty lean. I am trying to gain as much as I can out of this, so I boosted the protein to 300grams, and increased my calorie intake heavily. The second week of ten’s I plan on taking 2 servings of Mag-10 a day (following the suggested cycle).
Natedogg, I’ve been looking to start HST in a couple of weeks, but I’m a bit skeptical, and your post brought up some relevant objections. First, what are your standard training protocols? I am currently in the middle of Poliquins 1,6,1 protocol, and I tend to stick with similar routines, so do you think that I may be one of the non-overtrained people who finds HST too unproductive? Also, is it a possibility that your fiber make up makes HST protocols unproductive? If you’re fast twitch dominant, the lower intensities that HST has you training at would probably not do anything for you, until you get to the last workout in each rep bracket. Just a thought. Anyone out there with a possible answer?
I am finishing my first week of negatives only
workouts. In fact at 44 years of age I simply could not bear to go through todays neg only workout. I am simply too beat. My joints are quite stiff, knee and elbows. As far a muscle size increases, I am sort of ambivilent in terms of results. I am actually disapointed in the results. I have gained some additional bodyfat due to the carb protien pre and post workout drinks. Caveat- My protien intake has not been as high as I had thought, and if bill roberts is correct in his 400 gram recomendations then I am way off. My next cycle of HST, I will not do the 5 rep two week cycle, I will up the reps to 7 or so for 2 reasons. My weights used during the 5 rep cycle were crushing my joints, also the time under tension using 5’s may not be optimal. I will alternate negative and regular workouts during the 2 week neg phase. All negative workouts are killer’s.
Everyone, thanks for the feedback. (Even the sarcasm!) My hesitation is just a mental struggle in breaking with “tradition.” I’m sure there are more than a few lifters out there who didn’t even lift an eyebrow at the HST routine because it conflicted with their beliefs.
I’m going to start the routine again and follow it through this time. Just gotta get past that nagging voice in my head that says I’m wasting my time.
Out of curiousity, those of you who have seen positive results from HST, what routine were you following before?
Well, what can I say? Other than it’s the most effective program I’ve ever done? AND…I don’t really understand why people even question any of its principles, since we’ve all done one of them…just never all at once put together in context. Keep in mind, I’m a personal trainer…I write for norwegian Muscle Media…I’ve done WSB…Poliquin…Ian King…I know Supertraining by heart… and you now what? They’re all right! Just not in context… Reading all the research and REALLY thinking about it…makes it all come together, and I guess there’s no other conclusion than to use one or more HST principles in your program designed for hypertrophy! Mind you, I’m no newbie - all 260lbs 6-7%bf 6’ of me (competing this year BTW). So you’ve tried HST, and it didn’t work for you…aaaaaawwww… Why don’t you try sticking to a program for longer than 1 week? Or even eating more (you won’t believe the calories you need from full-body workouts). Or…really, I don’t care if people don’t use this program - use some Ronnie Coleman/Arnold Swarzenegger program, I’m sure you’ll beat me in a couple of years (or never)…
Oh yeah, forgot to mention…It’s all about “intensity”! As in 100% effort AND “Super Ultra Mega Mass 5000”. That’s why you don’t grow. COME ON, Nate! You mean to tell me that this program won’t work since you don’t go to failure all the time? You’ve been here reading Staleys, Kings, and Tates stuff too long to say anything resembling that bullshit… IMO… 
I think the key to the program is the detraining period. After all after the detraining period what you’re trying to do is get a muscle to respond to a low level stimulus. In order to get my muscles to get any response from 50% of my 15 rm load I would probably need to stop training for a good month.
Kelly, the 15’s are there for a purpose other than hypertrophy. You could skip them.
HST works fine. I was making some gains before i started it and 4 months latter i still make much better gains from HST than from tradicional split routines.
Personaly, i also don’t care if people use it or not, but people that don’t get any results from it are , in my opinion, probably doing something wrong. For example, the calories that had me growing on other programs , aren’t enough on HST, and my previous mantainance KCals are now my diet Kcals. Just a thought.
I did the first two week cycle of HST, and saw better than average results, even on the 15s. I think that hitting body parts 2-3x a week is the way to go. Mostly I saw added leg and arm development–I figure HST hits arms most.
The problem, though, is that HST is boring as shit. I think that full body is great if you’ve been out of the loop, but it’s just no fun. I mean, I spend as much time moving between racks and loading plates as I do lifting. My bet is that an EDT (e.g., super high volume) approach would be better, but I have yet to try.
Blade, do you use HST year round or do you alternate with it with a higher/lower(EDT/5X5)volume type programs?
Blade if you’re really 6’, 260 lbs and at 6-7% BF, then do you really attribute your progress to any given training routine, or to androgen/GH usage? Just curious.
Well, it seems like every time an HST thread comes up, restless and I are there, arguing about it. 
But I have to take issue with his statement that people who don’t see gains on it are doing something wrong.
I tried HST and, far from not eating enough, actually gained fat on the program. So obviously insufficient calories was not an issue. Also, I followed what Bryan H. said to the letter, and don’t think that I was doing anything else wrong.
I have asked people on other HST threads to post their previous training histories and stats (i.e., training age, what program you were doing before you started HST, how long on that program, whether you felt overtrained, diet info, etc.) when they post their HST results. But so far very few have.
In general, I agree with Nate Dogg (or maybe he was agreeing with me 
) about HST being a good program for people who are overtrained and not so good for people who are in better condition but not OTed. There have been a lot of people posting who have said that they experienced great gains - and I think that’s great. But there are others who have had very bad results with the program, and you don’t hear from them as often. I’m asking people to post their results, good OR bad, and their training histories, etc. in an effort to try to figure out what the correlation is. So I’m going to start a new post specifically for that purpose. Then everyone will have a nice reference (assuming that people contribute to it) to look at and maybe we can all learn something from it.
Char-dog you said that on the HST program you gained fat? I’m just curious as to how a weight training program would make a person gain fat. I thought that gaining fat would be diet related more than anything? Did you radically change your diet when you started the HST program?
Hi Blade - notice that you aren’t posting on AE anymore either. Glad to see you are still around the boards and making great progress with HST.