One thing about HST some people might not know...

[Tom Treutlein]

The whole idea of sets and reps being magical is bunk. I'm sure some people know this, but for those who don't and who might be trying HST, don't worry if you can't get your 2x15 on squats or incline bench because the burn is too intense and you start to fatigue after your 9-12 SD period. You can always rack the weight before you actually go to failure (this is recommended on the website), take a thirty second or so break, then unrack it and finish off your set.

If you complete 1x15 on incline bench, take your minute break (low rests are advocated during the fifteens), then go at it again and start to feel really pinned down by the 7th rep, rack it. Don't wait until you can't lift the weight anymore. You want to avoid failure at all costs, considering you'll be training 3x a week.

Take a break about half as long as you would between a normal set (no real reason for that number, just seems like it would give you enough time), grab that weight, and finish the remaining eight reps. If you have to keep racking it, fine. The whole idea is causing enough damage to the muscles over the course of one training bout, not sets. Your body will see all the damage (reps) as cumulative. It doesn't have to be in order. That might help you mentally, to see damage being done as 2x15, but to your body, that's 30 reps with that given weight. That's it. It might take 27 to initiate a growth stimulus in your body. If so, the extra reps weren't needed. A few extra won't kill you though, and it has been shown that extra damage can cause extra growth, but there's always an effect of diminishing returns.

And when you do 30 and you needed 35, or 40, or 31 reps at that weight to grow, guess what? You won't grow. You fell behind your muscle's conditioning curve, as it has become resistant to the weight and you didn't provide enough stimulus to facilitate growth.

Hope that made some sense. I just agree with the whole K.I.S.S. rule, as wnt2b and I discussed in another thread, and realized that people make a big deal of sets and reps. The total damage done to the muscle is what will cause you the growth. SetsxReps is just an organized way to go about doing this.

 

[casualbb]

The whole idea of sets and reps being magical is bunk.

Congratulations! You have ascended to weight training knowledge level 2.

It IS true, for all the noise people make about set/rep combos (5x5, 2x8-10, 3x3, pyramiding) in the end it really doesn't matter!

Let me help you along the way to level 3...

Growth isn't an all-or-nothing response. As an example you say that if one does 30 reps but the growth threshold is at 35, nothing will grow.

Well, things aren't that simple. The best way to think about it is statistically. A given muscle has thousands of fibers, each one at a certain level of conditioning. But there's also the overall level of conditioning to consider.

Oh my god, I thought of a genius analogy. This assumes you know something about physics. Say you have a liquid. The liquid has an average temperature, but down on a micro-level, each molecule can have widely varying kinetic energy. The actual distribution is a bell curve. Well, the only way to heat the liquid is to put in something that is, ON AVERAGE, hotter than it.

So your muscle has this overall level of conditioning and also fibers are in individual condition. When you lift a weight, only some of the fibers bear the load. Any of those fibers that are below some threshold (load/fibers > conditioning) will have a growth response. And then those particular fibers will increase conditioning as well, brining up the average slightly.

Can you see where this gets really complicated? Back to our liquid analogy, the only RELIABLE way to grow muscle is lift something above the average level of conditioning. If you lift something lighter, you might actually grow, as individual fibers can be below the average. But they will quickly be brought up to standard. That's why repeating HEAVY weights is effective so much longer than repeating LIGHT weights. With something far above the threshold, it takes quite a long time to bring up the ENTIRE muscle.

Anyway, this got a tad long-winded. K for you.

 

[casualbb]

crap, You must spread some Karma around before giving it to Tom Treutlein again.

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Good analogy. K for you, if it allows me to.

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

hey, that is a really good analogy. bell curve fibers. light weights just above the threshold of the weaker fibers will make them catch up, but then your curve just got flatter on one end and you need an higher weight to keep above the threshold (average threshold went up). heavier weights will hit above the threshold for more cells. do any weaker cells get left behind though? does the front side of the bell become steeper? im into stat and physics big time.

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Hm...I wouldn't think any cells would get left behind too much. I think they'll be dragged along with the stronger cells. They might always be lagging, but the gap will never get so big that the threshold is enormous.

 

[casualbb]

do any weaker cells get left behind though? does the front side of the bell become steeper? im into stat and physics big time.

If I had to guess I'd say weaker ones don't get left behind. The CNS only recruits just enough motor units to move something, so as you're doing a set and exhausting motor units, it will automatically rotate in fresh ones to keep it up. So there won't be any under-used fibers, theoretically.

As to bell curve... beats me.

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Could it be that some fibers are unused if you don't work yourself to failure/exhaustion? Which is why growth can occur without failure, but once you reach that point, you know you've exhausted all fibers and stimulated every bit of growth you can?

 

[Synpax]

Could it be that some fibers are unused if you don't work yourself to failure/exhaustion? Which is why growth can occur without failure, but once you reach that point, you know you've exhausted all fibers and stimulated every bit of growth you can?

I suspect that CNS issues are involved in failure and that the CNS recovery from failure is longer than the muscle recovery time, meaning it more recovery time for you to again be able to lift beyond your average muscle growth stimulation threshold.

 

[ghettostudmuffin]

LOL.

Failure doesn't mean jack for stimulating growth. Sometimes I wish I could shoot Arthur Jone's for perpetuating his stupid failure myth. There is nothing scientific about it.

You are correct that your body does see it as say 30 reps on the whole, but yet the body is far more complicated than that. Your body will respond to the stress in different ways depending on what loading it was given. 3x10 will not elicit the same response from your body as 10x3. Both will do damage, but the 10x3 will be at a higher intensity level ie., heavier weight will produce more strength increase than size increase, but some size will come with it. 3x10 will not stress the cns as much or the tendons or muscles technically for that matter, but it will cause good growth and moderate strength increase because of the fibers it stimulates. But every one is different and an example is I feel great after 10x3, but feel hammered after 3x10 so even then it's variable based on the person.

We are all made of the same stuff and work the same way, but exactly how our bodies operate is different from person to person. It's like a football field with wide extremes. One person may be on one side of the field and another person on the other side and what works for one won't work for the other.

Different rep ranges effect different muscle fibers. In actuality, low reps between 3-5 using multiple sets will stimulate ALOT of muscle fiber besides strength. Heavy weight powerlifters and olympic lifters are living proof of this provided an adequate level of calories is consumed on a daily basis.

There is no exact set point either that guarantees growth was stimulated or where overtraining will occur. The body is cyclical in nature and so much goes on in the body and so many variables have to be taken into account that it's pretty much impossible to set guidelines that will work for everyone because we all vary so much.

The simplest way and the most scientific way to look at training in based off % of your 1rm, total load lifted in a training session and the time it took to do it.

If you benched 225x10x3 yesterday then you lifted 225-30 times. Total laod lifted was 6750lbs. You lifted this in 40 minutes including warmups.

Next time you are scheduled to bench you can either A. lift the same weight for more total reps B. lift the same weight for the same reps in a shorter period of time C. lift the same weight for more reps in less time D. lift more weight.

Even that is simplistic because it doesn't take into account rep speed, form used on the reps, and variables like what you ate for breakfast and how much you slept the night before and whatever hormonal actions are going on in your body.

Imo, enough scienitifc study has been done to show their is no one size fits all program because there are just toom any variables to take into account. But what works for most people most of the time has pretty much been figured out. Also, training is not K.I.S.S. It's quite complex in reality. Keeping it simple is great, but alot of times you will ahve to get creative and change up your training to continue to improve. Weaknesses have to be brought, exercises have to be switched out, reps and sets changed.

The body is not simple and saying 3x10 every workout done to failure will bring you to your maximum level of strength anddevelopement simply isn't true. Teh body adapts. It get's complacent. It's needs change and progression both at the same time.

Much to learn you still have young padawan.

 

[casualbb]

Dude... at the molecular level everyone DOES work the same.

THe things that can vary by person are
metabolism
hormone levels and response
work capacity
body structure and biomechanical strength
gene expression

for instance, not all plants grow in the same way and sometimes one will inexplicably grow when another won't. But that doesn't mean they aren't all governed by the same principles of light, water, soil etc.

 

[ghettostudmuffin]

Well that's a BIG DUH now isn't it.

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Agreed, Casual.

Ghetto - 3x10 and 10x3 is obviously different if we're talking about a varying load as well. DUH.

The thing is, 30 reps with the same load will elicit the same anabolic response, whether it's done 3x10, 10x3, or 5x6. 150 lbs. on a lift, 30 reps done. That's it. In fact, spreading the volume out throughout the course of a day will cause better qualitative gains in muscle tissue.

 

[ghettostudmuffin]

You care to elaborate on exactly how different reps schemes elicit the same anabolic response using the same amount of total repetitions? Scientific studies would be nice. Not some arm chair theory.

 

[JohnnyCoho]

Personally I think in more general terms;

Ya gotta listen to your body!! What works for some may not work for all. Took me a long time experimenting with HST and other programs to find what works for me. Through trial and error, I've shocked the shit outta my CNS, Over Trained and even had minor injuries ,till I really started listening to my body. With some major back problems I have had to out of neccessity. I never train to failure & do add drop sets and other excercises to my program,..When my body dictates!! When it says, "Quite now!",..I do so.

All this talk about growth stimulas & science drove me a little nuts when starting HST for the first time and made the program extremely hard to understand (As I tell my clients when they ask when it's gonna quite raining, "I'm a guide, not a God!") And its been said in here a million times, "What works for some may not work for all" Everyones got diferent goals and genetics. HST does have some solid science behind it, it seems, but for those of us that dont understand it, it seems a little overwhelming.

Took me 3 cycles of HST to figure it out how it would work for me, and one of the reasons I chose to post a journal on my 4th cycle. Thought it may help others understand what was so confusing for me and thought I could probably get some good feed-back from others more experienced with HST that could maybe translate some of that scientific mumbo-jumbo I didn't understand.

 

[mrplunkey]

Agreed, Casual.

Ghetto - 3x10 and 10x3 is obviously different if we're talking about a varying load as well. DUH.

The thing is, 30 reps with the same load will elicit the same anabolic response, whether it's done 3x10, 10x3, or 5x6. 150 lbs. on a lift, 30 reps done. That's it. In fact, spreading the volume out throughout the course of a day will cause better qualitative gains in muscle tissue.

This may be common knowledge on this board, but here is how it was presented to me (Disclaimer: Yes, I saw this in a training textbook, but no, I do not have a reference).

In terms of equivalent work, here's the formula I use:

Max = (Weight Lifted x Number of Reps Lifted) * 0.03 + Weight Lifted

That's useful to me, because the formula works forward and backwards. This lets me work low and high rep days and even vary reps during a workout (i.e. pyramiding) using that formula. For example:

315 x 1 ~= 275 x 5 ~= 225 x 13

It may just be burned into my head now, but the formula is surprisingly accurate for me. Exceptions include super-high rep sets (i.e 20+) or super-low rep sets where I've never felt the weight. For example, if I've benched 275 x 8 for 6 weeks straight but never bothered to feel 340, the first time I take it off the rack I'd feel my ligaments and tendons streach, probably experience some instant failure, and have to get it pulled off me.

 

[TRUEsoldier]

I like the idea, and it uses RP theories, which are great...
only question is?

I thought the Rep range also affected which type of fast/slow twitch fibers you use, hence the reason that 5x5 routine uses 5x5 to focus on the fast twitch fibers, and then 4 sets of 8-10 to focus on the slow twitch fibers? but that is just what I thought?

awe fuck cant give TT any more karma! sorry bro
Peace

 

[Tom Treutlein]

http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/cgi-bin/ib3/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=13;t=21

 

[guldukat]

The thing is, 30 reps with the same load will elicit the same anabolic response, whether it's done 3x10, 10x3, or 5x6. 150 lbs. on a lift, 30 reps done. That's it. In fact, spreading the volume out throughout the course of a day will cause better qualitative gains in muscle tissue.

I remember you and Casual mentioning something similar to this awhile ago...apropos what or in which thread, I can't remember (hey, it's been awhile )!

I have the same question now that I did then--or, at least, meant to ask then. It's pretty simple:

At what point have you literally spread the volume too thin to elicit the same growth response?

What I mean is probably best explained by example. Say you've got your 150 lbs., and you've only ever done 150x29 in a single workout. Your goal is 150x30 if not more.

However, since it's convenient and you've got the 150 onhand throughout your waking hours, you decide to do singles with it throughout the day, roughly every 30-45 minutes or so until you've got your 30.

So, purely from a growth standpoint, this 12+ hr. "set" is at least as effective as doing 2x15 with the same weight in the span of...oh, 20 min., in spite of the former taking over 36 times longer. (You even indicate moreso, but we'll get to that in a minute.)

You probably see where I'm going with this. Over how many hours could I stretch out the 150x30 before the growth response tapers off? 12? 24? 36? Is there in fact a "red line"?

Second question: what's the best mating of the above with something that'd result in strength gains? How long could I drag out this hypothetical workout before I wouldn't get stronger from it as a result?