The Syla5 Files

Yeah keeping this first cycle reasonable. I think I could have done 110 for 10 but I am focusing on keeping rest between sets to 1 minute to help with conditioning a bit. Next week is the numbers week ;)
 
Looks good mate.

I bet you have a decent idea of how much more aggressive you can be with your maxes next time. There was room for at LEAST 105kg on there.
 
Yeah I am unsure wether I should push for a 10kg increase or not due to each cycle taking 2 months! We shall see I might do 5's for 3 weeks and us week 4 to test new 15/10/5 maxes :).

Diet plans to increase cals, more of a note to self from a reply I made in another thread:

Well I try not to go to excessive on my protien. Check my log for my current diet it's in the first post. I actually upped my fats and uppedy carbs as my protien was fine. Changed from peanut butter to mixed nuts as. Nothing to major really just more brown rice and about 5g more nuts :). Oh and I added good oil back in twice a day. Next adjustment will be more rice, then a 3rd helping of good oil and that should see me at 2600/2900. If I am not gaining weight then I would be shocked!
 
So its time for the 5's. Training in the afternoon today as i hadnt emailed my routine home so good excuse to get in a later session.

The diet control seems to be working to some extent. I weighed in this morning at 11st 1/2lb so over the last week i have managed to drop 1lb ish. I shall stick with this calorie intake for the next week and then up things accordingly.

5's session tonight as follows:

Squats
Pull Downs
Dips
OHP
Calf Press

the weights are less then i ended on last week, however i am hoping to ramp up to close to my current 5 rep pb's (done before any HST prep) by the end of 5's week 3. That should then give me a weeks rest and i will recalc rep pb's and push on through cycle 2! thats where the fun begins.
 
I've never started the 5 rep phase with less weight than I finished he 10s, and to not finish at your PB seems like a wasted opportunity.
 
icecold said:
I've never started the 5 rep phase with less weight than I finished he 10s, and to not finish at your PB seems like a wasted opportunity.
Click to expand...

the 5's will cross over to heavy weight then my 10's by then end of week 1. This is manly due to the smaller gap that i no doubt have between my 15 rm's and my 5 rm's that you have :)

The only reason i will be getting close to my current 5rm's is because it wasnt the 5rm's i setup the cycle with. Basically i fully prepped my HST cycle at the end of my cut, and also I was keeping a little in reserve so that i could bed the routine in through the first cycle.

Squats as an example my 5 rep max from before HST and during bulking was 125x5 or 130x5 somewhere like that.

My prep for HST was 115x5 because i had to be able to do it for 3 sets as well, and wanted to keep a little back. By week 3 of the 5's in this first cycle i should be squatting 122.5x5 for 3 sets, so this will be a pb as far as my HST cycles go, but not as far as all time pb's go. Given that i am 10kg lighter now as well, i would consider 122.5kg pretty good for my first cycle to end on.

So for the big 4 my first cycle should end like this, all weights for 3 sets of 5 reps:
Squat 122.5
Deadlifts 130
bench 75
ohp 57.5

comparing these to my pre cut 80kg bw 1 rep maxes i think its a good end to the first cycle?

dl 155
squat 150
bench 100 (missing inches :(, so 95 if i am being totally honest)
ohp 67.5
 
Whatever the protocol, doing less weight for 5 reps than 10 is being too conservative. I've had to take the same weight a couple of times, and I've never set the increases as high as you might assume they should be, but it should be easy to hit your 5 rep max for 3 sets by the end of the routine. "Easy" is not an exaggeration.

Even on exercises where my weights are lower than some of yours, I wouldn't lift less weight in the 5 rep phase.
 
i thought the progress through each mirco cycle was to build up to said cycles max? as such 5's week 1 for me is lighter then 10's final day, but 5's week 2-3 are heavier by quite a margin.

to make sure i start the 5's cycle on the same weight as the end of my 10's my 5rm would need to be 130, and sadly it was a conservative 115, because at the time of testing and prepping for the cycle 115x5 for 3 was tough!

i am expecting to loose the cross over as i move out of cycle one, but as far the spreadsheet says i am doing it all right, maybe i need to step outside the bounds of the spreadsheet, and do my 10's final day rm's until my 5's cycle tells me to increase weight.
 
Having looked in to it a little more, it appears that this cross over between micro cycles is very common, and known as "Zig-Zagging" and allowing this to happen has shown no adverse effects, and infact is suggested that "zig-zagging" rather then setting up your entire macro-cycle using your 5rm max is generally better.
 
Got any links to back that up? Because it seems to me that your research is flawed.

Doing less weight in the 5 rep phase is not progressively loading the weight, which is a core HST principal.

I can't imagine how zig zagging is better, unless you are forced too on assistance exercises.
 
Tbh, there are quite a few points that I don't agree with in there. It's pretty easy to find evidence to back up any point of view, but the bottom line here is that if you don't need to overlap your weights, you will be missing out on stimulus by doing so.

"Zig zagging" is not progressive loading, if anything it's more like wave loading or undulating loading.

Do whatever you want to do mate, I just think you could push yourself harder. The final day lifts in your videos didn't even look that hard, compared to something like this
...you can see that it's a little bit more like a rep max (possibly too much!).

"Keeping a little back" because you need to multiple sets is irrelevant because you'll be stronger by the time you get to the final lifts, and while I understand you being slightly cautious with "bedding in the programme", you don't want to go too far.
 
Would you suggest I take smaller increments then during the cycle? I am open to suggestion, and did think the dropping to lower weights was a bit strange.

Here is my current calculates 10's and 5's.

10's for squats
Day 2 80x10
Day 4 90x10
Day 6 100x10

5's
Day 1 77.5x5
Day 3 92.5x5
Day 5 107.5x5
Day 7 117.5x5
Day 9 122.5x5

I assume you would suggest the following for 5's, and similar for the move from 15's to 10's

5's Based on a 115x5 Rm

Day 1 100x5
Day 3 107.5x5
Day 5 112.5x5
Day 7 117.5x5
Day 9 122.5x5

I think I am inclined to agree I have been a little cautious going in to this first cycle, soon at the end mind so I can crank things up next cycle, and tune out the zig zagging :)
 
Yeah I much prefer the look of the second option, especially as it gives you the option to go for 125kg (pre cut PB?) as a small increase if your feeling good on the day. It's also more like HST is intended to look, imo.

I'm a very results driven guy, so I know I'd want to see some pay off at the end of an 8 week training block. However, I do agree that it's very important to find what works for you.
 
Yeah 125x5 is Pre cut pb. At the end of this cycle, rather then do 4 weeks of 5's I am going to do 3 and in my 4th week I will do a standard deconditioning week and then I will be upping the numbers for cycle 2, possible by some margin given how easy cycle 1 has been. I am also still sailing upmy bulking diet so hopefully I will hit a nice balance come the start of cycle 2 and that's where the true work begins.

As far as HST goes for me, it's an exercise in gaining size not strength, I plan to put on some good mass, and then jump to a more traditional strength routine for a few cycles to really utilise the benefits of the new mass, aims by Christmas is rep my current rep maxes, let's serif I can do that with just HST. If I can then maybe 3-4 cycles of wendler in the new year will see me setting some nice new rm pb's
 
What's the volume typically on HST? I understand 15/10/5 typically in 2 week blocks, but I don't see mention of sets? I'm guessing as its full body workouts, It's something like 1x15/2x10/3x5? Otherwise you'd be in the gym for bloody hours!
 
15's and 10's it's 2 sets and 5's it's 3. The 15's is more conditioning work to be honest and the only session that takes close to 1 hour is the last session of the second week.
 
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