This is basically a roundup of some thoughts I’ve had about HST, and the results I’ve had tweaking the program slightly to accommodate some other training styles. This is partially for my own reference and to keep track of things (add epic thursday midday boredom to that list too), but I also thought I’d share some of the things I’d learnt. This is going to be long, and I’m not sorry 
To add some context, the HST cycle that I’ve just completed was the 4th cycle I’ve done. The previous three were done a few years ago with varying degrees of adherence, but none the less I saw some good results.
First of all some general HST housekeeping.
For those that don’t know, Hypertrophy Specific Training is a 3 day a week, 6-8 week cycle that includes 3 rep range phases consisting of full body workouts. 2 weeks at 15 reps, 2 weeks at 10 reps, and 2-4 weeks at 5 reps. Rep maxes are calculated for each phase prior to starting. The original program advises 1-2 sets for the first 4 weeks, and then either 3 or 5 sets of 5 for the remainder. I’ve always done 2x15 and 2x10 as I prefer the volume. I also prefer 5x5 for the same reason, but this is less important (iirc Mark Rippetoe prefers 3x5). In each phase the load is increased per workout to a pre-established rep max. Traditionally, rest times are kept around 1-2 minutes.
Cardio is optional, but if you do it you need to take it easy. No HIIT, for example, just some nice short steady state. Make sure you eat enough; it’s not uncommon for appetite to increase. Also remember that the whole point of this program is to grow, and you will do provided you follow the basics.
The rest can be read here (also useful as I’ve probably made minimal sense so far):
http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/hst_index.html
This goes over the general set up of the program and the theory behind it all (worth a read).
Here is a FAQ which covers most questions I could think of:
http://www.hypertrophy-specific.info/iB_html/uploads/HST_Faq_book.pdf
Also worth mentioning is Benny’s training log which is a great example of how it’s done and includes a good sample setup
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18218442
Ok onto the meat of this post.
As of last summer I started dabbling in powerlifting. I don’t take it too seriously, but I’m enjoying it as a hobby for the time being. Competed in my first comp last November which was good fun *cough*I came second in my weight class*cough*. However because of focusing on powerlifting I found that I lost a bit of mass in places. This could probably be avoided by employing smarter training strategies, but regardless I decided I’d quite like to mix things up with a higher volume routine now and again. HST is an obvious choice because it’s worked well in the past, but I wanted to add some of what I’d learned about strength training into the program. I did this knowing I would lose some of the hypertrophic effect of the program, but I hoped I’d see some additional strength results.
Usefully, HST already employs things like submaximal loads and progressive overload, which made my job a lot easier as such things are useful tools in strength training. Here is what I did.
I kept the same basic exercise setup that I’ve used before, which was to split the routine into A and B workouts (got the idea from Chongwarrior/Bison). This means doing each workout 3 times in each 2 week phase; light, medium and heavy (typically only with a 5kg difference though). I would also cut out all isolation exercises for the 5 rep phase as I’d done before, and make the 5 rep phase last for 4 weeks or 6 A and B workouts.
A Day (15s and 10s)
Squat
SLDL
Incline DB bench
Pullup
Dips
HC2PP
Calf raise
B Day (15s and 10s)
Front squat
SLDL
Bench
BOR
Seated Arnold Press
CGBP
Bicep curls
Calf raises
And for the 5s:
A Day
Squat
Pullup
Dips
HC2PP
B Day
Deadlift
Bench
BOR
Shoulder press
Now come the changes. The first is fairly obvious and I’d probably recommend that every HST cycle should include it. Make the final workout of each day (“A” and “B”) in the first two phases slightly heavier than your tested rep max. For my A and B day setup, this means that the second workout for each day in the phase is just under my pre-established max, and the third day is slightly over (e.g 15 rep max for squat tested at 120kg, I then set my 1st workout at 112kg, 2nd 117.5kg, 3rd 122.5kg). This means you’re hitting a PB every two weeks, which is nice. However, as per the original program, it’s quite important that you don’t ever fail on an exercise.
Other than that the 15s were left alone. This phase is really important for conditioning the body so I wanted to make sure it was still doing it’s job, so rest times stayed as low as possible. The 10s however, were treated to far more aggressive weight ramping. Instead of getting a 2.5kg pb, I’d aim for 5kg or higher (so a tested max might be put on the second workout). The last time each exercise was executed in the phase the first set was sometimes increased by a small amount but regardless of this, the final set was always increased to the maximum I thought I could do without failing. These changes obviously came at the expense of rest times, which sometimes ended up at 3-4 minutes. In normal HST the rest times are kept low to increase hypertrophy, so this was a conscious trade off. I’d say I definitely ended up sacrificing some size gains, but I was more than happy with the higher PBs. Another thing to note is that with normal HST it’s not really that important to hit PBs, the most important thing is to progressively increase the load. This has the same hypertrophic benefit even if the load is below your max (or so the theory goes).
The phase that underwent the biggest change was the 5 rep phase. Here rest times went out of the window, but actually it wasn’t about going crazily heavy at first. Here comes some strength training geekery. Contrary to what seems obvious, the best strength gains are not found by training at a high % of your 1 rep max. For example if your bench 5 rep max is 100kg, training with a sets of 5x~100kg will most likely see your 5 rep max stay where it is (something which I see all the time). Similarly, training with you’re 1rm will provide very little benefit, and will actually serve to overload your CNS and can even make you weaker. At the very best it’s a great way to injure yourself. Instead, what you end up seeing is the majority of strength coming from training at around 70-80% (some more info here: http://gubernatrix.co.uk/2010/08/does-lifting-more-always-mean-you-get-stronger/). This also means you shouldn’t be going anywhere near failure; just because the weights are lighter, DON’T do more reps. Additionally, every single rep you do should be performed explosively (only exception being very light warm-ups if you are a little tight somewhere), making sure to fully contract all the relevant muscles. All too often strength nuggets (genuine powerlifting parlance right there) are missed by not performing the concentric portion of the lift as fast as possible. The same can be said for form; there is very little point in performing the rep at all if the form is crappy. The last point can not be stressed enough as part of the benefit of training at lower percentages is that you are training your entire neuro-muscular to execute better (think about all the smaller supportive muscles as well), which ends up being wasted if you’re training it in the wrong directions.
So with this in mind I started the 5 rep phase very light for the deadlift, squat and bench, while the other exercises followed a more standard progression. For the first two weeks this meant I was basically doing speed work and it felt painfully light. If the weight wasn’t being shifted fast enough I lowered it (for some reason I was generally quite slow after the 10s), taking into account that I wanted the reps to be fast for at least two weeks worth of workouts (3 of both A and B). But as I got towards the 4th and final week I started to increase the weights more aggressively. Interestingly, I found that the speed stayed quite high right up until the end. The second to last session of each day was still quite fast, which was great. On the final session, I decided that I was going to ramp up to what I guessed my new 5 rep max was, increasing by 5kg with each set.
Unfortunately at this stage my shoulder injury ruled out heavy benching, but squat and deadlift were due for a beasting.
Remembering there were going to be 6 workouts for each exercise, the weights went roughly as follows (all 5x5. I’m using a “*” to designate what were effectively speed days):
Squat: 157.5kg*, 162.5kg*, 167.5kg*, 172.5kg*, [175kg far too easy, ramped to 185kg], [ramped to 190kg]
Deadlift: 170kg*, 175kg*, 180kg*, 185kg*, 190kg, [ramped to 210kg]
Bench: 85kg*, 90kg*, 95kg, 100kg, 105kg (not completed; sore shoulder), [not ramped :’(]
Here’s what happened to my PBs.
As of November 22nd last year, my 1rms were 120kg bench (although this was a double, damn you shoulder), 210kg deadlift, 200kg squat (already an increase of 30kg from 3months prior). I didn’t really calculate my 5rms going into HST because they were going to start so low, but they were around 110kg bench, unknown deadlift, and about 170kg squat.
The 5 rep max hit at the end of HST (4th Feb) were: unknown bench (not tested due to injury, but probably not much different), 210kg deadlift, 190kg squat. It’s even possible the squat number is higher, but I wasn’t happy pushing it without competent spotters around. This puts my projected 1rms way past my old PBs, ~235kg and ~215kg respectively.
I’m not suggesting that anyone try what I did, but you are more than welcome to. It’s worth pointing out that it’s entirely possible that I would have had similar or even better gains from training differently (mostly considering that I'd recently added 30kg to my squat with a different program), but compared to how I’ve done HST in the past this method is definitely better for strength. My brother (djdom56) did the same program as me and saw equally good strength increases while putting on some decent mass (although I forget his actual numbers). I’d say that I actually lost a small amount of lean mass that I put on at the beginning of the cycle, but this doesn’t bother me (and it’s possible it was just glycogen stores). I’m going to run this exact program again at some point, partially because this time it was interrupted by Christmas and New Year and a couple of injuries. In hindsight I probably should have chosen more gentle increments for my bench, but who knows.
Next up for me is testing my new 1rms next week (which I’ll post in here for reference) and then I’ll move on to my new and improved (hopefully) powerlifting program.
To add some context, the HST cycle that I’ve just completed was the 4th cycle I’ve done. The previous three were done a few years ago with varying degrees of adherence, but none the less I saw some good results.
First of all some general HST housekeeping.
For those that don’t know, Hypertrophy Specific Training is a 3 day a week, 6-8 week cycle that includes 3 rep range phases consisting of full body workouts. 2 weeks at 15 reps, 2 weeks at 10 reps, and 2-4 weeks at 5 reps. Rep maxes are calculated for each phase prior to starting. The original program advises 1-2 sets for the first 4 weeks, and then either 3 or 5 sets of 5 for the remainder. I’ve always done 2x15 and 2x10 as I prefer the volume. I also prefer 5x5 for the same reason, but this is less important (iirc Mark Rippetoe prefers 3x5). In each phase the load is increased per workout to a pre-established rep max. Traditionally, rest times are kept around 1-2 minutes.
Cardio is optional, but if you do it you need to take it easy. No HIIT, for example, just some nice short steady state. Make sure you eat enough; it’s not uncommon for appetite to increase. Also remember that the whole point of this program is to grow, and you will do provided you follow the basics.
The rest can be read here (also useful as I’ve probably made minimal sense so far):
http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/hst_index.html
This goes over the general set up of the program and the theory behind it all (worth a read).
Here is a FAQ which covers most questions I could think of:
http://www.hypertrophy-specific.info/iB_html/uploads/HST_Faq_book.pdf
Also worth mentioning is Benny’s training log which is a great example of how it’s done and includes a good sample setup
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18218442
Ok onto the meat of this post.
As of last summer I started dabbling in powerlifting. I don’t take it too seriously, but I’m enjoying it as a hobby for the time being. Competed in my first comp last November which was good fun *cough*I came second in my weight class*cough*. However because of focusing on powerlifting I found that I lost a bit of mass in places. This could probably be avoided by employing smarter training strategies, but regardless I decided I’d quite like to mix things up with a higher volume routine now and again. HST is an obvious choice because it’s worked well in the past, but I wanted to add some of what I’d learned about strength training into the program. I did this knowing I would lose some of the hypertrophic effect of the program, but I hoped I’d see some additional strength results.
Usefully, HST already employs things like submaximal loads and progressive overload, which made my job a lot easier as such things are useful tools in strength training. Here is what I did.
I kept the same basic exercise setup that I’ve used before, which was to split the routine into A and B workouts (got the idea from Chongwarrior/Bison). This means doing each workout 3 times in each 2 week phase; light, medium and heavy (typically only with a 5kg difference though). I would also cut out all isolation exercises for the 5 rep phase as I’d done before, and make the 5 rep phase last for 4 weeks or 6 A and B workouts.
A Day (15s and 10s)
Squat
SLDL
Incline DB bench
Pullup
Dips
HC2PP
Calf raise
B Day (15s and 10s)
Front squat
SLDL
Bench
BOR
Seated Arnold Press
CGBP
Bicep curls
Calf raises
And for the 5s:
A Day
Squat
Pullup
Dips
HC2PP
B Day
Deadlift
Bench
BOR
Shoulder press
Now come the changes. The first is fairly obvious and I’d probably recommend that every HST cycle should include it. Make the final workout of each day (“A” and “B”) in the first two phases slightly heavier than your tested rep max. For my A and B day setup, this means that the second workout for each day in the phase is just under my pre-established max, and the third day is slightly over (e.g 15 rep max for squat tested at 120kg, I then set my 1st workout at 112kg, 2nd 117.5kg, 3rd 122.5kg). This means you’re hitting a PB every two weeks, which is nice. However, as per the original program, it’s quite important that you don’t ever fail on an exercise.
Other than that the 15s were left alone. This phase is really important for conditioning the body so I wanted to make sure it was still doing it’s job, so rest times stayed as low as possible. The 10s however, were treated to far more aggressive weight ramping. Instead of getting a 2.5kg pb, I’d aim for 5kg or higher (so a tested max might be put on the second workout). The last time each exercise was executed in the phase the first set was sometimes increased by a small amount but regardless of this, the final set was always increased to the maximum I thought I could do without failing. These changes obviously came at the expense of rest times, which sometimes ended up at 3-4 minutes. In normal HST the rest times are kept low to increase hypertrophy, so this was a conscious trade off. I’d say I definitely ended up sacrificing some size gains, but I was more than happy with the higher PBs. Another thing to note is that with normal HST it’s not really that important to hit PBs, the most important thing is to progressively increase the load. This has the same hypertrophic benefit even if the load is below your max (or so the theory goes).
The phase that underwent the biggest change was the 5 rep phase. Here rest times went out of the window, but actually it wasn’t about going crazily heavy at first. Here comes some strength training geekery. Contrary to what seems obvious, the best strength gains are not found by training at a high % of your 1 rep max. For example if your bench 5 rep max is 100kg, training with a sets of 5x~100kg will most likely see your 5 rep max stay where it is (something which I see all the time). Similarly, training with you’re 1rm will provide very little benefit, and will actually serve to overload your CNS and can even make you weaker. At the very best it’s a great way to injure yourself. Instead, what you end up seeing is the majority of strength coming from training at around 70-80% (some more info here: http://gubernatrix.co.uk/2010/08/does-lifting-more-always-mean-you-get-stronger/). This also means you shouldn’t be going anywhere near failure; just because the weights are lighter, DON’T do more reps. Additionally, every single rep you do should be performed explosively (only exception being very light warm-ups if you are a little tight somewhere), making sure to fully contract all the relevant muscles. All too often strength nuggets (genuine powerlifting parlance right there
) are missed by not performing the concentric portion of the lift as fast as possible. The same can be said for form; there is very little point in performing the rep at all if the form is crappy. The last point can not be stressed enough as part of the benefit of training at lower percentages is that you are training your entire neuro-muscular to execute better (think about all the smaller supportive muscles as well), which ends up being wasted if you’re training it in the wrong directions.So with this in mind I started the 5 rep phase very light for the deadlift, squat and bench, while the other exercises followed a more standard progression. For the first two weeks this meant I was basically doing speed work and it felt painfully light. If the weight wasn’t being shifted fast enough I lowered it (for some reason I was generally quite slow after the 10s), taking into account that I wanted the reps to be fast for at least two weeks worth of workouts (3 of both A and B). But as I got towards the 4th and final week I started to increase the weights more aggressively. Interestingly, I found that the speed stayed quite high right up until the end. The second to last session of each day was still quite fast, which was great. On the final session, I decided that I was going to ramp up to what I guessed my new 5 rep max was, increasing by 5kg with each set.
Unfortunately at this stage my shoulder injury ruled out heavy benching, but squat and deadlift were due for a beasting.
Remembering there were going to be 6 workouts for each exercise, the weights went roughly as follows (all 5x5. I’m using a “*” to designate what were effectively speed days):
Squat: 157.5kg*, 162.5kg*, 167.5kg*, 172.5kg*, [175kg far too easy, ramped to 185kg], [ramped to 190kg]
Deadlift: 170kg*, 175kg*, 180kg*, 185kg*, 190kg, [ramped to 210kg]
Bench: 85kg*, 90kg*, 95kg, 100kg, 105kg (not completed; sore shoulder), [not ramped :’(]
Here’s what happened to my PBs.
As of November 22nd last year, my 1rms were 120kg bench (although this was a double, damn you shoulder), 210kg deadlift, 200kg squat (already an increase of 30kg from 3months prior). I didn’t really calculate my 5rms going into HST because they were going to start so low, but they were around 110kg bench, unknown deadlift, and about 170kg squat.
The 5 rep max hit at the end of HST (4th Feb) were: unknown bench (not tested due to injury, but probably not much different), 210kg deadlift, 190kg squat. It’s even possible the squat number is higher, but I wasn’t happy pushing it without competent spotters around. This puts my projected 1rms way past my old PBs, ~235kg and ~215kg respectively.
I’m not suggesting that anyone try what I did, but you are more than welcome to. It’s worth pointing out that it’s entirely possible that I would have had similar or even better gains from training differently (mostly considering that I'd recently added 30kg to my squat with a different program), but compared to how I’ve done HST in the past this method is definitely better for strength. My brother (djdom56) did the same program as me and saw equally good strength increases while putting on some decent mass (although I forget his actual numbers). I’d say that I actually lost a small amount of lean mass that I put on at the beginning of the cycle, but this doesn’t bother me (and it’s possible it was just glycogen stores). I’m going to run this exact program again at some point, partially because this time it was interrupted by Christmas and New Year and a couple of injuries. In hindsight I probably should have chosen more gentle increments for my bench, but who knows.
Next up for me is testing my new 1rms next week (which I’ll post in here for reference) and then I’ll move on to my new and improved (hopefully) powerlifting program.
. I don't know why this happened as I'd only recently done 190kg for 5 reps, I guess something I did during my deload weeks threw me off. 6x6 at the same weight last week was easy. The weights go up this week to 5x5x182.5kg which should be fine, but I'm a little intimidated by the prospect of going for 225kg in 5 weeks!
my shoulder is feeling a little aggravated after mondays session (it was suggested that I was benching too low on my chest, it turns out I wasn't). HOPEFULLY it'll be ok with a bit of rest, I'm going to be gutted if it isn't (3 months of rehab work down the drain...).