HST Observation--From an Old-Schooler

[Atomic Punk]

I would hate to think that I'm not open to different methods of training, even though I am a straight-setter, and heavy-basic guy, for the most part. I have to say though, that after reading a little about this HST Training Routine, that to me, it looks like what I used to consider as a "maintenance routine". In other words, instead of breaking up muscles into specific days, in order to focus a larger routine on them, you are instead doing a couple of sets for each muscle group, each routine, a few times per week.

Tell me how my thinking is wrong please. How is this not a simple maintenance routine?

 

[Backlash]

Due to the progressive load. You increase the weight every workout.

 

[Atomic Punk]

Due to the progressive load. You increase the weight every workout.

Gotcha. Are there any experienced lifters here using it, and finding decent results in the process?

 

[lavi]

casualbb seems to advocate it, but you might consider him to be just a casual bodybuilder

 

[Debaser]

I would hate to think that I'm not open to different methods of training, even though I am a straight-setter, and heavy-basic guy, for the most part. I have to say though, that after reading a little about this HST Training Routine, that to me, it looks like what I used to consider as a "maintenance routine". In other words, instead of breaking up muscles into specific days, in order to focus a larger routine on them, you are instead doing a couple of sets for each muscle group, each routine, a few times per week.

Tell me how my thinking is wrong please. How is this not a simple maintenance routine?

The key to muscle growth is progressive load, not exercising it into oblivion until it "feels" trashed. HST uses this, coupled with the fact that most muscle adaptation (growth) ceases by 48 hours time, to come up with the theoretical fastest way to grow. In other words, they're hitting each muscle group 3 times as often as you are (or anyone doing a once a week routine) and thus should grow nearly 3 times as fast.

 

[majutsu]

My wife does it. And several law enforcement and college track types like it. I think it's great for non power-lifting, non-competing women. And it's very good for those who want the benefits of weight but have other physical responsibilities.

Also, in addition to your understanding, there are also the two week phases of 15-reps, 10-reps, and 5-reps. So there's a rep cycle. Also, say your last 10-reps bench max was 135, then you would shoot for say 140 for 10-reps on your last workout day of the 10s period. Your bench would start at a sub-maximal weight on the first day of 10s, so that you can increase the weight by 5 lbs every workout, to peak at 140 on that last day. So there are also weight cycles in each rep phase. So there are rep cycles, and weight cycles, as well as whole body 3x a week.

I like to keep the rep and weight cycles, break the whole body in two Arnold style, workout every day, but HST style in rep and weight cycles. I call it hybrid HST

I'm doing Westside now. But it's surprising how much HST can teach you about what really works and really is necessary for muscle growth.

 

[wend]

(I dig it, btw. I'm seeing considerable progress.)

On a side note, my first round I sort of skipped that 15-rep two-week cycle. I'd been doing about 13 reps for most of my exercises (with a typical bb split), and 5x5 for the military press and bench (which I really wanted strength gains in, fast), so I thought it'd be okay to start off with 10 reps. Well, it turns out that those two weeks are key to the overal success...they're for lactic-acid production, to toughen up the tendons so they can handle the rapid increase in resistance later on. I ended up with tendonitis from shoulder to thumb in my right arm. (Ouch!) I had to take my two-week deconditioning period a week early.

Now I'm nearing the end of my first week of 15 reps. My muscles are sore in a way they haven't been in a while...not like they've been injured, just like they've been really used. I miss feeling like a strong chick in the gym, but I know that in a month or so I'm going to be able to lift even heavier, this time without injury.

 

[casualbb]

Most people write off HST because they're too lazy or entrenched in their ways to understand it. I'm not saying anyone here is guilty of that; rather, that's what I tend to run into when people are seeing the program for the first time. It's so radically different from most of what else exists that people go "3x/week? Sub-failure? BULLSHIT!"

HST is based on the way muscles have been observed to grow.

Think to most programs you've seen. Most of them throw around some science-y terms to make it sound legitimate, but have you ever seen any references to peer-reviewed experiments in medical journals? Have you seen references at all?

Back when bodybuilding was in its infancy, we didn't know enough to create a medically correct program. Science just wasn't there yet. So bodybuilders just did whatever and used steroids to get big. Now we DO know, but people have been doing the same thing for so long that they don't want to hear it. There are two types of people who generally do HST: those new to the game, because they haven't invested their time and sweat into sub-par routines, or extreme-old timers, because they're frustrated and want more drug-free growth.

Anyway, that's my spiel. The keys to understanding the program are in the sticky post.

 

[wend]

Sometimes in the gym I get the feeling that one or two of the bodybuilders there (who look like they've been doing it for a long time) are thinking I must be an idiot. I mean, benching and squatting on the same day?

But I figure the results will speak for themselves.

 

[c3bodybuilding]

This type of routine seemed to work wonders for Steve Reeves (who was clean. last comp. was 49), and Reg Park. They did brief, 3x a week full body training. It was a lot like HST. Then again, they only won a few titles here and there....

Seriously though, it WORKS. Believe it or not, a lot of those once a week, 'bombing' routines are just crap spread from the magazines. Everyone used to hit things at least twice a week up until Flex started saying otherwise around 95 or so. Somehow it became a twisted fact that you could only make progress that way. But if you were to look back, it was always about brief, frequent training. Guys like Park, and even Arnold (he recommends brief 3 days a wk in the gym, full body workouts in his education of a bodybuilder) thrived on them. The mags have always added or made crap up that confuses people. Read a board like Robby Robinson's or Ironage.us. They will tell you how Joe would come into the gym and make up bullshit stories about their routines, how they would do 30 sets a body part, 2 hours in the gym twice daily, etc. Now he does the same things, only he claims once a week is now the way to go. Anway, I've rambled on long enough lol just read up on the old school routines, hst, dc, etc and you will see it all really WORKS.

 

[goofball]

Also, keep in mind that HST is a set of principles, not a specific workout scheme.

 

[BigBadBootyDaddy29]

I have to chime in on the once a week mindset that people get trapped in. Somewhere back in the 90's Joe Weider needed new shit to keep selling his magazines, so he started saying so and so does this, this is so and so's split, etc.......It was all once per week bombing routines.

The majority of guys in a gym for some reason think it is the only way to train. When they ask "what are you training today?" and they don't hear something like "Back", "Chest", "Back and Bis", "Shoulders and Hams", they are shocked because they think the only way to grow is to hit each bodypart once every 7 days and work it to total destruction putting no more emphasis on a squat than they do a leg extension. In actuality, the reason they don't get the desired results is because of this mindset.

Look at this too. the only guys who get ANY results from once a week bombing are guys on AAS, they are the ones who gain 50lbs on a cycle because they simply hold their pump from workout to workout (thats ALL Weider bombing does is give you a pump, nothing else). Then they finish their cycle and lose 60lbs because this type of training simply doesn't work. AAS should finish off a physique and put strength athletes over the edge, and once you stop, you shouldn't lose much if you train using the theory of progressive resistance.

People at most gyms think my methods are unorthodox, I do a lot of 5x5, a lot of Bill Starr stuff, some Westside, a lot of Olympic movements, and I think more in terms of movements than I do bodyparts and muscle groups. People see where I am at in terms of size and strength, so they don't knock what I do because it has obviously worked for me, but on the same note they are all either too stubborn, lazy, afraid, or some combination of the three to try something different.

Some guys will say all the pros in the magazines do this or that so that must be the way to go...News Flash.....The guys in the magazines are paid for a photo shoot, as part of the deal, the magazine can say whatever the hell they want about the guy's training methods.....it is all a marketing scheme.

If everyone trained on whatever routine, but focused on progressive resistance as opposed to just blindly trying to get a burn or pump, they would get solid, basically lifelong results, but some guys are too set in their ways to stop doing the crap workouts in the rags.....seriously, who the fuck ever got anything out of a cable crossover? let alone 5 sets of them.

The only hope is for literature like MILO to become more widespread, Planet Muscle is a shot of reality and Jeff Everson is coming out with Speed-Strength-Sport, Ironman is a decent magazine also......But as long as FLEX and Musclemag dominant news stands, it is what people will be fed and it is what they will hold as gospel. Remember those old Charles Atlas ads??? Well, thats all Muscle tech ads are, just an updated version of what people keep falling for over and over again.

 

[casualbb]

My personal pet peeve is when people succumb to the mindset of "X and Y won't always work. Different things work for different people. Some people will grow on this, some on that."

Sigh...

 

[Singleton]

I have some qualms with HST that I would like solutions for.

1) I get bored of having to do a set number of exercises. Some days, it's great, others, the volume is too high, others, I feel like I'm understimulated.

2) I like flushing sets, even in the 5's. I like to do, for example, a set of crossovers with a light weight for 15-20. Feels great, good for blood flow to the muscle, and helps stretch the fascia. If your juiced, the extra blood flow could really help, I think.

3) Weight is too low for most of the program. I get no growth and lose density until I get to the 5's, at which point I grow. I like to extend the 5's and build on strength. Feels good to lift heavy.

4) SD.

I don't think there' s anything to do about No. 4. It's a significant part of HST.

Sorry for being so unscientific. It's just about personal feeling, really.

 

[BigBadBootyDaddy29]

Different credible routines work for different people. As long as the routine is sound and is based on increasing the number of reps you perform with a weight or the weight you perform for a number of reps, it is fine. Whether it is Volume, HIT, 5x5, HST, DC, Westside, whatever....if it is based on progressive resistance it will work, some work better than others for different people, but they all work.

CasualBB, I don't know if your response was directed to my post of not, because I was not saying there is only one correct way to train but I stress the words credible and sound routine because I really do feel that coming into the gym and blindly pumping away 20-30 sets of useless exercises you see in a magazine just to try to feel a burn and feel demolished is a foolish waste of time because progress is what gives you strength and size gains and you cannot monitor progress on a pumping/flushing routine.

I never fail to see there is more than one way to skin a cat. I think that was Mike Mentzer's problem, he was an intelligent guy, and a sound thinker, he sought logic and reason, and he did a lot in terms of exposing how shitty a lot of people were training, but he just wouldn't acknowledge that other methods besides his were solid, and I hope I didn't come across that way.

 

[casualbb]

CasualBB, I don't know if your response was directed to my post of not,

It wasn't

 

[ironman1966]

hst and old school training is the way to go, to me training each bodypart only once a week is pure crap i tried it and it did not do a dam thing for me, then i started doing 3 fullbody workouts a week, then i strated getting stronger and bigger something that didnt happen when i trained each bodypart only once a week . as far as the bodybuilding magazines of today they all suck except for ironman magazine, if you want to read some really good magazines on bodybuilding read the old school bodybuilding magazines from the 40's and 50's and 60's , you can find these on www.ebay.com . also you can order steve reeves book building the clasic physique the natural way at www.stevereeves.com . old school bodybuilding is the way to go .