HST article

[mtex]

Hypertrophy specific training (HST).
traditional training methods usually train a specific muscle group once a week in contrast to HST training total body EOD or daily (weekends off). the concept behind HST is the fact that recovery time of a specific trained muscle group is 36 hours . So with traditional training you spend 2 days growing and half a week in a semi-anticatabolic state. When in fact increased protein synthesis to a given muscle group as well as IGF-1 levels return to a normal state in 36 hours. you are only in an anabolic state for 2 days. according to recent studies recovery can take place even if the muscle is trained in as little as 48 hours.
so to put in laymen terms the theory behind HST is to take advantage of the actual recovery time to promote a higher degree of muscle hypertrophy
one problem bodybuilders face is the fact that muscles can adapt very quickly to the same repeated resistance . For this reason when i come off my bulking routine i will sometimes go into my refined HST program. it gives my muscles a break from the usual heavy loads , stimulates tendon repair - higher reps utilise lactic acid, & changes my routine. when i go back to my bulking routine my joints & tendons feel good & i get a shock from the changed routine & get good results. so in short i use it as a maintenance phase. HST is also good for begginers.

i refined an HST routine to my liking. as opposed to ED or EOD total body, i split the routine into upper body one day & lower body the next. by doing this i could increase the sets of each exercise. i'm 38 & i need my warm ups, especailly my knees.

an example might be (day 1 )
chest: 2 sets incline, 2 sets of decline
back: 2 sets lat pull downs , 2 sets rows
shoulders : 2 sets military press, 3 sets side DB raises

day 2
2 sets leg extentions , 2 sets leg curls, 2 sets leg press or squats, 3 sets toe raises
you could do this 4 days on 1 day off or 5 on 2 off

this is just an example & could be refined. when i was on this i only had one warm up set. if your pecs are warm why do another warm up set when you go to incline? this routine worked very well as a maintenance phase for me

[mtex]

now remember you would be training the same muscle group EOD that is the reason behind the low set range

[mle_ii]

Sorry, I read that article and still don't see why you think that it's for begginers or for maintaince only. About the only quote that I see that might be why is this one "one problem bodybuilders face is the fact that muscles can adapt very quickly to the same repeated resistance" I wasn't sure if this was a negative against HST or about lifting in general. If it's against HST then I don't think it's right. There's nothing that appears to be repeated about it. You are supposed to constantly increase weight each day, each phase and each time you repeat a phase.

[mtex]

LOL, it would be nice if we could increase weight everyday, but in the real world we have platues. the fact is hst ,IMO & most bodyduilders, is not good for bulking. it depends on your goals. to bulk you need heavy weight & lower reps & to target & punish a general muscle group. if you know what hst is then you know that your sets are few & you can only accomplish so much on a low set routine. & muscles adapt to any routine , the point was to switch up your routine or change it completely is a good thing. i intend to do an article on rest/pause routine too. alot of folks dont know what a true rest/pause routine is

[From Zero]

If what you say is true, that HST is not for bulking .. then why is it the acronym for "Hypertrophy Specific Training?"

I know of guys who put on good size with it ...

[mtex]

IMO i doubt someone could seriously bulk from doing 2 sets a day . post your freinds routines & lets see if they are a true hst program. i have never seen anyone bulk too much from doing total body workouts EOD. & thats exactly whet hst is

[mle_ii]

You may be right mtex. At least now I better understand your reasoning. I guess I'll find out in a couple more weeks, though I imagine that I'm not putting on as much bulk as most people here. I swear my body just wasn't meant to do that.

As far as the 2 sets EOD, I don't know what most body builders do each week, but I assumed that they were doing some sort of split routine. So at the end of the week the HST folks might be excercising that same body part more times, ie more sets per week than the split routine folks. I suppose it depends on the split.

Also the reason for doing only 2 sets EOD is that most people couldn't do a full body workout EOD doing more sets per lift. That and it makes the workouts take less time. If I were doing a full body workout EOD doing 3 or 4 sets per body part I'd be taking 2 or more hours probably and I'd be so spent that I couldn't work out EOD.

About increasing the weight every day, I do, but this means that for the start of the phase I have to go down to some smaller amount. Though when I repeat that phase again I should increase it by 5 or 10 lbs. Doesn't seem like that much and considering that I'm only lifting the heaviest the last 2 days of each phase it's not that difficult to push myself knowing that I get to go down low again the next phase. I've actually found that I've increased the amout of weight that I can lift for all of my excercises. Though perhaps I might be able to do this with a different excercise plan, but it seemed to me I was hitting a plateau with my workout before and I also seemed to be more apt to injury doing what I was doing before.

Also with regards to muscle adaptation, I can tell you from what I've experienced in HST thus far my muscles don't appear to be adapting to anything. In fact I just did day 5 of the 10 rep phase and I am sore as all get out. And I have one more tomorrow at my 10 rep maxes. Then I start working up to my 5 rep maxes next week. Perhaps I will hit a plateau, I don't know since I just started it.

Also as far as only bulking on high weight low rep I'm not sure that I agree, though I bet I'm wrong. I thought that muscle increased in size due to needing to adapt to a given stress on the muscle. Perhaps though at the beginning of each phase the adaptation isn't much, or perhaps do to the low weights at the beginning of each phase the muscle adapts to working less and thus each day adding more increases the stress more to cause the muscles to adapt. I have no idea. I can only take people at what they say since I haven't found what works for me yet.

It would be interesting to see what the results for a heavy body builder here would be sticking to the 6 weeks of building up to their 15, 10 and 5 rep maxes.

Thanks for the discussion, I'm always a skeptic of most things new, but I also like playing the devils advocate to see the reasoning behind other people thoughts. Helps me to learn.

Mike

PS. Don't laugh at the weights. But here's the plan I'm doing right now in the 10 rep phase. Current Workout Phase

PPS. One other note, I wouldn't consider myself a body builder, though I'm trying to put on some mass I don't intend to add much more than 10 to 15 lbs of muscle mass. (But then perhaps most people start out with that and end up wanting more and more.) I just want to be more lean and have better definition than I do now.

[From Zero]

Originally Posted by mtex

IMO i doubt someone could seriously bulk from doing 2 sets a day . post your freinds routines & lets see if they are a true hst program. i have never seen anyone bulk too much from doing total body workouts EOD. & thats exactly whet hst is

Never said my friends did it.

I've read good results from guys like Debaser, casuallbb (guys from Elite and Iron Trybe).

Read around. It sounds like a solid training program to me.



I'll post some results when I start to implement it (beginning in about 2 weeks.)

[mtex]

Originally Posted by From Zero

Never said my friends did it.

I've read good results from guys like Debaser, casuallbb (guys from Elite and Iron Trybe).

Read around. It sounds like a solid training program to me.



I'll post some results when I start to implement it (beginning in about 2 weeks.)

ok , so actually you dont know guys that have put on good size from hst. you only know what you have read on a thread & havnt seen. most people dont know what a true HST or rest pause routine really is.

BTW, i have been around for some time , im 38 & i am also a mod here. im not saying you cant bulk from hst, i have tried it , got decent results but never ground breaking results like a good bulk routine. just my opinion

[mle_ii]

Cool, thanks mtex. Good to hear that I will at least get some results out of HST. I only know of 2 people so far that have at least tried it. None have had the great results that you would think you would get after reading information about HST, but the both did get some results.

So for you what was the optimal buling routine? How long did it take to see results? And what results did you see?

Thanks,
Mike