Here's my HST

Well I is back from vacation and ready to train again in earnest. The cruise was pretty nice, I think I must've eaten between 7-10K calories/day For those of you who have never cruised, there's buffet food basically 24/7 and when you sit down for the formal dinner you can order as many and as much as you want. For example, just about every night I ordered 2 appetizers, 2 entrees (like crab legs and beef tenderloin, or salmon and grilled pork chops). I had dessert every night and to my chagrin I found out I like 'girlie drinks', like strawberry colada's

Anyway, I took the entire week off from lifting; the ship did have a gym but mostly it was either guys trying to pump up before heading out to the sundeck, people spinning furiously working off the previous night's tour de gorge or fitness fanatics who just can't take a week off.

(Also, at least 80% of the people on the cruise by my estimation were borderline obese - by the end of the week I have to say I think I was one of them.)

So I had always planned to run HST primarily for the high reppers to get some conditioning in and help bring my joints up to par. I didn't test any of my 15 or 10 rep maxes, I just guesstimated conservatively since I have no confidence in my conditioning. Although after doing this workout I'm not sure how workout 1 of 6 is supposed to feel since the weight is pretty light even for 15's. I worked up a good sweat and was breathing pretty hard so my conditioning sucks! Oh well - onto the numbers:

Workout 1 of 6 (15 reps)

Squat
Bar x 15, 135 x 15 (est. 15RM 185)

Easy, might've undershot it although the legs were buring a little around rep 11. Plus I'm being pretty careful with my back. Before I left I did a pause squat with 275 just for fun then stupidly tried to get some reps in so I sped up a little; I didn't say tight enough at the bottom and re-aggravated my injury. Not horribly but enough to call it quits for the day. Vacation didn't help it as much as I'd hoped, though.

Reverse lunge w/BB
65 x 15 (est. 15RM = 95)

Had to take off my oly shoe on my back leg since bending my foot kind of hurt it. Again I had some burning going on

Flat DB Press
55 x 15 (est 15RM = 80)

Too easy; will bump these

Dips
BW x 15 (est 15RM = 45)

No problem but was breathing hard on these

BB row
85 x 15 (est 15RM = 135? Maybe too low)

Too easy; will bump these.

Reverse grip pulldown
90 x 15 (est 15RM = 150 or so)

Humiliating being on this machine

Standing dumbell press, alternating
35 x 15 (est 15RM = 45)

Yikes I was burning on these. Gym only has up in 5 increments. Probably I'll switch to barbell, but I liked the alternating aspect.

Good Morning
75 x 15 (est 15RM = 135)

Mostly for my back; hammies started feeling worked at the end of these

Power Shrug from hang
185 x 15

Threw these in just for fun. Pretty tired by now; Plus after GM's and doing these from the hang I was ready to stop.

It's a lot of exercises! But it's only 1 set for now and I was kind of excited to be back in the gym. Anyway, I feel pretty good; my back feels better after working out, and maybe it's my imagination but I feel slimmer already I really don't enjoy these high reppers but all in all it wasn't too bad.

Next time I'm going to split up the exercises into a circuit, so I don't do 2 exercises for a bodypart in a row. When I hit 10's I'll probably do 2 sets and when I hit 5's I'll go to 3 sets I think. I may also drop some exercises or move them around a bit. We'll see.

Welcome back Jim! Glad you enjoyed the cruise! Are you going to cut a little now, or just hit the weights and let it all jiggle around into the right places?

Welcome back. The holiday sounds like it was relaxing and it's good to have another chubbins around.

Are you going to post your bodyweight progress?

Good to see you back. Cruises . . . damn. Sounds fun, and fattening by all accounts.

I'm looking forward to seeing you run HST. I've heard good things about it. No question, going into 15s will wipe you out if you're not used to 'em. LoL 5s are easy.

HST is fun. Circuit style HST is a KILLER. I've done it and it's rough the last few weeks, but definitely worth it. I'll definitely be following along.

Good luck and enjoy!

Thanks for the kind words all.

AB: I'm going to cut my calories a bit, probably eliminate a meal at nighttime. I don't really have a laser focus to cut, though, as I'm more interested in just conditioning/joint health. Even my 'muffin top' belly that showed up during the cruise isn't enough motivation

BW: Yesterday I weighed 210 at the gym in t-shirt and underwear but I don't trust Bally's to keep the thing calibrated. I weighed 203.5 when I weighed myself on our scale at home. I suppose it'd be good to provide a weekly weigh in for accountability sake.

PB/FBC: I hope I can stick with these 15's for the entire 6 workouts . I tried 15 rep circuit style before after I had run a couple DF 5 x 5's and quit after the first workout lol

Workout 2 of 6 (15 reps)

Cirucit 1
Squat
145 x 15 (+10)

Did a warmup with the bar first then jumped right into it. Feeling fast and easy until I felt a twinge in my back on rep #11 or 12; I think I got lazy and lost some tightness at the bottom. I gotta keep my focus, I think this is the problem with high reps sometimes.

Flat DB press
60 x 15 (+5)

Pretty easy again.

BB row
95 x 15 (+10)

Can't call these JS rows since the 25's don't reach the ground with my back parallel. Maybe my arms are too short (or I'm not flexible enough)

OHP
70 x 15

Switched from db's to BB. I est. my max is around 95 but these were pretty easy.

GM's
85 x 15

Just concentrating on form, especially with the twinge earlier.

Circuit 2
Reverse Lunge w/BB
75 x 15 (+10)

These really leave me knackered. After I do 15 w/one leg I had to take a break before starting the other leg. I also did these in my socks, FWIW.

Dips
10 x 15 (+10)

Did these piston like, didn't really lock out at the top but went all the way down.

Reverse Pulldown
100 x 15 (+10)

No problems, easy stuff. I think I got a pump in my biceps but can't be sure

I did these thingies where you do kind of a front raise with thumbs up, then arms out to the side, then rotate the thumbs back and retract the scapula and pull it down. Can't remember the name.
3 x 15

Power Shrug from hang
195 x 15

Easy, more like cardio.

All in all I like doing these 15's in Circuit 1/2 fashion. I'm fresher for the lunges and scapular stuff then when I ran it by bodypart, although the lunges still kicked my ass.

Also, one of my friends said he's not used to seeing me run around the gym like I was, as opposed to sitting in the squat rack for an hour lol

I found that the 15's were more of a mental challenge - I was so sick of using piddly weights that I didn't want to finish week 2

Just don't forget wehre the squat rack is.

BTW, is that the exercise that Travolta was doing in Saturday Night Fever?

Guinness5.0 said:

I found that the 15's were more of a mental challenge - I was so sick of using piddly weights that I didn't want to finish week 2

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Yeah these weights are sorry. And I agree the mental approach is totally different than higher intensity stuff. More of a 'please let this be over' than a 'god I hope I can do this'.

blut wump said:

Just don't forget wehre the squat rack is.

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Funny thing is I did my rows, OHP, and GM's from one of the benchpresses. That's how light the weights were that I could walk it out and the squat rack was being used for curls or something.

Basically I was a Moron at the Gym

blut wump said:

BTW, is that the exercise that Travolta was doing in Saturday Night Fever?

Click to expand...

Anyway, I'm just doing it for shoulder health lol