HST Results AND training, etc. background

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
21

Well since it was requested; Age:21 (22 in sept.) height: 5’6.5 weight: 172-174 I believe Years training: 4. When I began HST I was ready to quit after the first two sessions of 15’s (See the post where I go berserk). I’ve come to the conclusion that I just do not like high reps and feel better going heavier. I decided to lay off the 15’s and rerouted the program doing 1 week each of 12’s, 10’s, 8’s, and 5’s. This proved much more beneficial. At the time I was a little above maintenance cals (around 2500 on average) using Massive eating food combos. I wound up with a 2-3 LBM gain after my first cycle, so I decided to take a week off and plan an HST centered around movements from the “Exercises You’ve Never Tried” series. I posted the routine and it can be found using the oh-so-dreaded-by-newbies search. This cycle has been one of the most fun and challenging in my 4 years of training. The first two weeks I used a combo of Androsol (left over) and Ergopharm’s 1-AD (got a bottle for free so whatthehelled it), I also upped cals by about 250-300 a day (all this while working in a camp program all day, 5 days a week). I am now on my 5’s week and extremely happy (I love 5’s, I’m never leaving this rep range, ever ever ever). I’m finishing up the 1-AD (eh, okay stuff) and have had a nice gain in LBM (I’d say about 3-4 lbs.) while dropping a few bf points. Overall I am quite happy. Following my recovery week I plan to try Chad Waterbury’s “More Can be Better” protocol with some K-bell work thrown in. I want to continue to lean out as I’ve got a major bulking cycle planned for the late fall (See Trev’s hairswidth precise protocol post on the whole thing). I am also intrigued by the Chucky Poliquin Diet post, and may play around with that in the coming weeks. As always, should be interesting. In other MBE news, I begin my personal trainer job in two weeks. Fun for all. Lata.

MBE: " Waiting for GROW Bar dispensers since 1988."

-Eric

22

Just wanted to say “thanks” to all who answered my question. It did help. On to a bit more research!

23

40 yrs old, training solid for 25, 6’3"-220lbs at start of hst, with 2 more 5rep w/outs left still 220. To give hst a fair crack I didnt change anything so the lack of change regarding body comp. can be proof that as in Chars case I cant report anything to get excited about. However as with some of the other posts I did notice an improvement in leg size but only during the 2 weeks of 15s…this period was also an incredibly demanding part of the cycle 18 sets took 1hr 15mins ‘blowing out of my ass’ (Brit expression) the whole time. EDT had that effect but even less result (challenged endurance not growth).
Conclusion Going to try another cycle leaving legs to the end of w/o to see if I can get the same growth in shoulders.
Gray

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I finished my first cycle, and I’m really not that impressed. I didn’t gain any muscle mass and my bodyfat actually stayed about the same. I may have gotten slightly leaner (~1%), 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 w/o going to failure. 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.

Prior to HST, I had been doing some lower volume workouts and had taken some time off from the gym. I think that if I had followed EDT or something with higher volume, I would have made better gains. My fiber make-up is definitely not fast-twitch (I sure wish it was), so it wasn't the higher reps that caused a lack of success. I think it's the low intensity and low volume that I stated above. I also found the workouts too easy until the last day or two prior to working out with my max weight for each repetition bracket (15, 10, 5, etc). I even started adding some exercises at the end of my workouts because I felt that I wasn't really doing much. So for me, HST wasn't a good program.

I don’t usually train to failure and HST doesn’t have you training to failure either. But the intensity levels are far too low to elicit a hypertrophy response. Working out with 10-20% of your 1RM won’t cause much muscle growth. I understand all the reasoning and principles behind HST. That’s why I thought it was a good program and decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, it didn’t work as well as everyone says it does.

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To all of you who did not respond to HST favorably, I have a question. Did you really take the entire 9-12 days completely off between finding your maxes and starting? Not 5 or 7 days, but the full 9-12? This is a crucial part of HST.

To address Nates concern about too many days at submaximal weights I will say that the level of conditioning present in the muscle when the load is applied will determine if the load will be effective in eliciting a hypertrophic response. If the muscle is conditioned to the same or a higher load, it won’t respond. The muscle needs to be adequately deconditioned for the lighter loads to work. Steve

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hey I recently visited Greece. While I was out there since I could not speak the language I soon was Board,(no places to train either) with nothing to do. I found a book were I found your current issue of Testosterone. I have been working out for over 10 years consistently, and have experimented with a lot of muscle altering suppstance’s, and let me tell you if I had your magazine then I would now be a monster. I was getting pretty burnt out with trainning, but after reading your mag(the first thing I read cover to cover in two years)I have a new out look on training new excitment Project huge is in the works.
Thank’s for the good useful information, I will be checking in frequently
I am 27 years old 5’-7’’ 190 pound and plan to start the mag- 10 program

New reader Mike

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Yes, I did the deconditioning as instructed by HST. I also followed the training almost exactly as specified on the HST web site, using the same exercises and using two sets per workout. Sorry, it didn’t work for me. Thought it would, was excited to try it since it was so radically different than anything I’ve done. I put everything into it, and it just wasn’t enough. I’m following some of Don Alessi’s advice at this time to work on some imbalances that HST reinforced. So I’ll be going back to a higher volume routine using weights that are in the 65-90% of 1RM range, which should be more ideal for hypertrophy and also strength.

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Just bumping this back up again, 'cause I know that there are more HSTers out there with results to post. Remember, we’re looking for hard data here, not just “it seemed to work okay”. Thanks!

29

Time for another round o’ results…!

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Yes, I am also having good results with HST. I am on my second week of 5’s of my first “cycle” if you will. What I have to recommend is something that Poliquin refers to as the “unloading principle”. What I do is the last two workouts (per rep range) I cut the volume in half. Don’t really have time to get into details but I think that it works very well with this program and makes it much more likely that you will be able to keep increasing weight, workout-to-workout. Has anyone else come up with any derivations of the program?

31

I’m in the second week of the 10 rep stage. I’m too busy these days to keep close track of cals and BF, but I’ve been trying to lean out a bit. I was 172 at a height of 5’7" at the start, and now I am 168. As far as muscle gains, I did not expect any, since I am dieting down. However, I feel I have not lost muscle mass.

My diet is based on hunger. Not scientific, I know, but it is not a priority in my life right now. I eat an omelet of two eggs and some cheese for breakfast, and don’t eat anything until lunch. I take that time to drink my coffee, to avoid the carb/caffeine combo which may result in high blood sugar in combo with high insulin. I take some carbs in the form of bread with a sandwhich at lunch. at dinner, I eat pretty much what I want. I make sure to get one big protein hit a day, whether at dinner time or at lunch. The rest of the time, I keep protein in the 20 gram per meal stage. If I feel that my protein intake was too low during the day, I drink a shake (about 40g protein) before bed.

I found that two sets for every muscle group to be too much (in volume and time) so I only do one set. I do two sets for biceps and delts, because I’m trying to prioritize them.

I find HST to be a good lifestyle routine. I have a full time job and school, so I feel drained if I follow the usual “work the muscle group till fried” routine. I don’t really feel fatigued until the last couple of workouts on HST. My gut feeling is that this is a good workout during a dieting stage. A normal workout that really works the crap out of a single muscle may not allow the muscle to recover properly while cals are restricted. Then the paradox is, a workout that works well during a diet, should work even better when cals are upped.

Sorry if my post lacked hard empirical data. I hope it had some value in providing a personal account. Later.

32

Anyone else try this?

33

I have been doing primarily HST for 18 months now with some 5X5 interspersed. I will be finishing my 10th cycle next Friday. Results have been great. I use rep schemes of 12, 8, 6, 4 and strictly compound movements. I was stagnated for years using the traditional approach of 12 to 20 sets of each bodypart once per week. Waterbury’s program are somewhat similar to HST.

34

I love resurrecting the dead, especially char dawg. :slight_smile:

Anyway, Bryan Haycock wrote this on his forum today in explanation of what HST is trying to accomplish and I thought that perhaps someone here may appreciate seeing it. If, not, just skip over it.

"I think in order to understand why HST is the way it is, one must read the research. All the research does is explain why certain things have worked in the past and why other things are simply tradition.

The research that led to HST looks at why and how a muscle is able to adapt to mechanical overload. In light of this current research it becomes apparent “why” lifting weights builds muscle, not simply that it does. Not only that, but it also allows one to separate the role of the nervous system from the role of the muscle tissue.

Recovery issues are about the CNS. A muscle will grow with a constant load applied without any kind of break or rest or unloading. All of the strategies that we use to accommodate the limitations of our CNS are just that, ways of accommodating the limitations of the CNS. Don’t confuse them with the actual stimulus and pathways that cause the tissue to hypertrophy.

It is a given that under normal circumstances you can’t completely separate the stimuli for size vs strength. You are mistaken if you think I am saying it is all or nothing. But until people realize that the neurons of the CNS and the sarcomeres of the muscle tissue are not one in the same, confusion will continue about what stimuli is causing what.

If you prefer neither to consider the research, nor to put it to the test, that is your, and everyone else’s, prerogative. I have always said that most weight lifting routines contain one or more methods specific to hypertrophy, and as such they will make you grow to the extend they adhere to the physiological principles of overload induced hypertrophy. If that is enough for you, I support you 100%. All I want is for people to reach their bodybuilding goals.

I have written extensively on how HST is different and why. In the end, HST puts emphasis on mechanical load as the primary stimulus for growth. This is justifiable in that mechanical load IS the primary stimulus for growth in a steroid-free lifter. Progressive and frequent (if not constant) loading are KEY to hypertrophy.

Now, if you are concerned with strength and performance, you must adjust both frequency and monitor fatigue. These necessities have led to a strategy called periodization. Periodization is a method of manipulating training variables to facilitate CNS function and adaptation. After all, strength is neurological issue. Yes, the cross sectional area of the muscle fibers is a limiting factor, but the greater variable in any individual’s strength is the extent to which their CNS has been “trained” for maximal activation and coordination.

Now, I seriously doubt that I have addressed shakeel’s concerns in this post. The only real arguments against HST are related to the research upon which HST is based. If the research is wrong, HST is wrong. Additionally, if I have interpreted the research wrong, HST is wrong. How do you come to a conclusion as to the validity of HST then? You must first judge the research. Investigate it. Try it. Question it. Weigh the evidence for or against the author’s conclusions. Of course you can always question the premise as well. The other way, and I have said this many times, is to apply the principles outlined in HST to your own training. If something happens, ask why. Go back to the research and compare it to your experiences in the gym. If you grew, what does the research tell you about how and why you grew. If you didn’t grow, what does the research looking into muscle hypertrophy tell you about why you didn’t grow.

I can promise you one thing. The answers to both these questions are there if you are willing to explore what we know about muscle tissue. You can read all day about what people “do” in the gym. But it won’t bring you any closer to knowing what you should be doing in the gym to reach your goals. The history of weight lifting is based on the hit-or-miss experiences of those who have gone before. This is fine. I simply say, now use what science has to show us in order to make sense of their experiences. Only by doing this will we be able to reduce the amount of error in current methods of weight lifting used to build size or increase strength."

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Age:23 (at time)
Training age: 10
Previous program: (immediately prior) traditonal bb type split

Diet: Massive eating, 4200 cal/day (calculated with rough bodyfat estimation- caliper with inexperienced technician)

HST Results: Not sure on exact dates- summer 2002. Starting weight=195 lbs with ~12% bodyfat. Finishing weight: 201lbs with ~12% bodyfat.
Approximate gains: ~6 lbs muscle

Routine: 1 set each: Squat, deadlift, db bench press, dips, bent over rows, wide grip pulldowns, Rotary shoulder, OHP, calf raises, db curls, overhead tricep extensions.

Supplementation: Surge, protein supplement, vitamin/mineral supplement.

It was summer and I had a light school load. Played basketball 1-2 times a week, nothing seriously intense or long lasting.

Second cycle was during school, only gained 1 lb mass over the stressful qtr, which is more than I usually gain. During the quarter is usually damage control- just trying to keep what I have.

Been focussing primarily on strength since.

36

I love resurrecting the dead, especially char dawg. :slight_smile:

[Read in quavering British voice] I’m not dead…

37

BTW, just to give a response to what Bryan wrote:

It’s all fine and well to say go to the literature and look stuff up. And I’m all for increasing one’s theoretical knowledge. But at the end of the day, what’s important is what works in the gym, not what’s on paper.

Here, with HST, we have a perfect example of a program that gives great results for some and shitty results for others. Of course, no program works for everyone, so that’s to be expected. But that just goes to show that theory is fine, but doesn’t apply to all trainees the same way all the time. AR loves this program; I can’t stand it. And yet, we have very similar bodies and training backgrounds.

Anyway, my purpose with this thread was to gather HST feedback in one place, and to see if there was some sort of common factor that would tend to explain why some people had great results and others didn’t. So far, I haven’t seen what that could be. But keep the feedback coming. :slight_smile: