Repair and prepare - my journal on the road back to 5x5

[anotherbutters]

It gets better. The squat hip belt instructions begin with "Congratulations! You have just purchased the finest product available for doing hip belt squats".

 

[nelmsjer]

That's messed up. Sorry to hear about that. I think I would have thought along your lines... "I should be able to lift at least what I back squat". Interesting.

 

[anotherbutters]

It's no big deal. I could persevere, but I don't think I'll get much out of it and by the time I do, I'll probably be ok to back squat. I expected it to be unusable and ordered just in case it was ok, so it's no great loss.

G5.0 - don't feel guilty at suggesting it. You found the link that I wanted!

 

[DZLS]

Here's what my rows look like:
http://media.putfile.com/PRows225

I'm not nearly as close to parallel as I thought BTW.

with rows, is it beneficial to allow the weight to rest on the ground, or to take the weight on the decent and hold it at the bottom position...?

 

[DZLS]

just finished reading through the whole journal...

big ups to AB...! most people in your situation would have just quit and walked away or made excuses to not continue...

i applaud your efforts, and hope you can get that back straightened out real soon...!

i'll continue to follow your progress...

 

[anotherbutters]

Thanks DZLS. Hope you're not disappointment when I make my excuses for skipping tonight's workout then I've just got in from work and it's time for bed.

I'm thinking of giving HST a go, whilst I'm slowly cutting. It sounds interesting and looks like a solid routine. I don't like the idea of Strategic Deconditioning, but I doubt anybody does. It'd be interesting to hear from anyone who's run HST a few times and tried it with and without SD. Last time I took time off, it was more like Strategic Decommissioning.

My problem at present is not wanting to load my back. That said, I spent the weekend bricklaying, carrying bags of sand and cement around, mixing mortar, etc - all stuff that's good for the back . I've been so busy, I haven't really noticed whether my back's better or worse.

Anyway, assuming I'm not squatting, deadlifting or OHP'ing, and that I don't have access to dumbbells, how can I set up HST? Exercise selection is fairly limitied to flat/incline bench, supported rows, pullups/chins, dips, hypers/reverse hypers and abs. I'm also limited to a certain extent on the intensity front, since I'm not strong enough to add 5lbs on every bench/row session unless I start off at a trivial weight.

I was thinking of a bastardised routine, based on the same HST principle of increasing the intensity at every session and reducing reps to accomodate the extra weight. I'd start off at a weight that I can do about 15 reps at, then add 1kg/2.2lb (my smallest increment) at every session, reducing the reps when necessary (but before failure). The HST website says that the only reason for 15's, 10's and 5's is to make it easy to explain, so I assume my version is perfectly reasonable. I'd work my way down to 5's or maybe triples over a 6 week period.

Thoughts?

 

[Introspective]

Have you seen a physician about your back ? maybe even get a new chiropractor.
And ask your doc to get you an x-ray.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

You're supposed to be using pretty light weights with HST. Also, you can repeat a weight for two workouts to make larger jumps. Example:

Flat Bench 10 RM - 200 x 10

Six workouts per rep block (2 weeks of 15's, 10's, 5's) - M/W/F then M/W/F again. On the second Friday, you'd hid 200 x 10. You can drop back 5 lbs. a workout, so the first day would be 175 lbs. x 10.

OR you can drop back 5 lbs. every other workout and the first workout would be 190 lbs.

You could also make 10 lb. jumps (larger incretments) every other workout. Supposedly the larger jumps are more conducive to hypertrophy.

Plus, some zig-zagging of weights is allowed.

Also, exercise selection is no different with HST than any other program. Compounds will be the driving force of your size and strength gains. Throw in some isolation work during the 5's. Early on, the compounds will suffice.

SDing isn't 100% necessary according to a lot of people on Lyle's board (www.bodyrecomposition.com), but the HST guys still go by it. I don't see it as such a bad thing, as week off can do good, especialyl after heavy 5's and/or negatives. Run the program with it the first time, then try it without afterwards if you wanna do it again. Time off is good for healing. The old-school lifters used to do something similar, except it was upwards of a month off at a time.

Hm. Ramblings.

 

[anotherbutters]

Ramblings, but good ones

Ok, here's the HST plan. I'm going to base this around bench, supported rows and military. I know military loads the back, but it's feeling a lot better and I think it's up to it. I'm not going to start squatting yet, but I want to see how some OH pressing goes. I'll scatter some hyper, reverse hyper, chin and core work around, but they're all pretty much bodyweight exercises.

I'm not going to test my 15, 10 and 5 rep maxes because I want to follow a slightly different rep scheme. I've slotted my approximate 3 rep maxes into the final day and simply worked backwards from there, to get this table (in kg):

Reps	Bench	Rows	Military
15	40	30	26
15	42	32	27
15	44	34	28
12	46	36	29
12	48	38	30
12	50	40	31
10	52	42	32
10	54	44	33
10	56	46	34
8	58	48	35
8	60	50	36
8	62	52	37
5	64	54	38
5	66	56	39
5	68	58	40
3	70	60	41
3	72	62	42
3	74	64	43

So 15 reps on week 1, 12 reps on week 2, etc. The weight goes up on every workout: 2kg on bench and rows, 1kg on military. All the weights look pretty reasonable, but I'll try 1 set of the first 15 rep workout later to see how it feels.

I'll start next week. This week's a bit fubar with missing yesterday's workout and I won't have time for tomorrow's workout because I'll be at the chiro after work. I ought to give him up. I don't think he's doing anything for me these days.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Try to hit a constant number of reps throughout the entire cycle. If you do 2x15 during the first week, do 2x12 + 6 during the second. People get shook up by this, but the body doesn't care how organized your training is. Do 12 + 12 + 6 or whatever you need to do in order to hit 30 reps. Obviously by the 5's and 3's, you won't be hitting that same number, but you also won't need to, due to the increase in load. Basically, try to keep workload relatively the same. Load is the most pertinent factor in gaining size and strength, but work plays its part as well. Load + Work = Greatness

I like your plan, though. It's almost like an "instinctive" HST cycle.

Let 'im down easy, man.