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I'm posting this to show that, yes, some pro's do HST training.. Here's a quote from Blade over at the HST board...The guys name is Boris Kleine. There's a pic of him as well as the full thread about this found here: Boris Kleine

This thread is a few years old, but that's not the point. Also, here's some of the weights he pushed back in 2003:

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The following posts have been made by Honeypeck32:

Beginner Mass Building Programs

Exercises :

Squat
Stiff-legged Deadlift
Bench Press
Bent Row
Military Press (seated)
EZ Bar Curl
Lying Triceps Extension
Standing Calf Raise (on board)

Sets : 1x15, 2x10, 3x5, 2 weeks of 5RMs

Ideology Explained :

This is a very bread and butter HST routine, and is perfect for any beginner. There's not too much to explain here, you learned everything you need to know in the first two articles. You'll be doing 1 set for the 15s block, 2 sets for the 10s block, and 3 sets for the 5s block. You'll also do 3 sets for the two weeks of 5 rep maxes. Now for exercise explanations :

Squat - the king of all exercises, you need to squat. Squats will hit all parts of your legs, as well as stimulate growth throughout your entire body.

Stiff-legged Deadlift - stiff-legged deadlifts make a perfect combo with squats. You get more emphasis on the hamstrings, as well as your back, whereas the squats will hit your quads and glutes more.

Bench Press - the bench press is known by some as the king of upper body exercises. You'll be hitting your chest, shoulders, and shoulders mainly. The bench press is a great starter exercise for anyone.

Bent Row - this is a great exercise for your lats, as well as your biceps. This is another compound exercise, which work very well for beginners and advanced lifters as well.

Military Press - the best overall shoulder builder. MPs are another great lift for upper body power and size. You'll be doing them seated to place more emphasis on form, rather than using body momentum to do the lift.

EZ Bar Curl - I like using the EZ bar because it is easier on the wrists. Plain 'ol curls (combined with rows) are all that your biceps need to stretch the sleeves.

Lying Triceps Extension - a great exercise for triceps mass. I like doing these with an EZ bar also, because of the less stress on the wrists.

Standing Calf Raise - great overall calf mass builder. Do them on a board for added stretch.


And there you have it. Don't turn down this program just because it looks simple, IT WORKS! Just because a program isn't super complex doesn't mean that you won't gain well off of it. Sometimes, simpler is better.

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Intermediate Mass Building Programs

Exercises :

Squat
Stiff-legged Deadlift
Incline DB Press
Parallel Bar Dip
Bent Row
Military Press
Partial Curl (bottom to halfway up)
Lying Triceps Extension
Standing Calf Raise (on board)

Sets : 2x10, 2x5, 4 weeks of 5RMs/clusters (10 rep total)

Special methods used :

Cluster reps
Strength test days
Metabolic fatigue sets

Ideology Explained :

Now we're kicking it up a notch, and adding in some new methods. This program is good for those who have done a couple cycles of HST, and are ready to try something new and different. The explanations can be a bit tricky, but you should be able to understand what I'm saying.

The first four weeks are just standard HST, no problems there. You have your two weeks of 10s, and 2 weeks of 5s. The 5RM period is going to be extended, and we're going to be clustering for the most part.

A cluster set is a set in which you take a pre-determined amount of reps, and do small 1-3 rep "clusters" to build up to the desired amount of reps. In this case, you're going to be working up to a total of 10 reps. Once you hit your 10 reps, you're done with that exercise. As for rest in between sets, take as long as you need before you feel ready for the next set. Don't rush this, take as much time as you need. Why do clusters? You'll be able to hit the desired amount of reps with your 5 rep max, but you'll be minimizing CNS fatigue, which can lead to overtraining.

A strength test day is just another word for a 5RM day, and it will determine what weight you use next for your cluster workouts.

After you have built up to your 5RM (end of week 4), you'll be starting with week 5. On Days 1 and 2, you'll use cluster sets and do a total of 10 reps for each exercise (in 1-3 rep clusters of your 5RM). On Day 4, you'll have a strength test day. All you'll do is re-test your 5RMs (keep with 2 sets, 2x5) on every exercise. Then, the following week, you'll cluster on Days 1+2 again, but you'll use the weight from the 5RMs that you just found on Day 3 of the previous week.

Now that you know that, I'll show you what you'll be doing for metabolic fatigue. You will incorporate these sets after the 10s, at the start of the 5s. A metabolic fatigue set is a set of 15 reps, with a relatively light weight. The point here is to get a nice "burn". After you finish the last set for a particular body part, you'll perform a set of 15 reps to get the "burn". You'll do this to add hypoxic stress and increase post workout nutrient shuttling to your muscles. So, once you finish both incline dumbbell press and dips (chest), you'll do a 15 rep set with flat dumbbell flys. The weight should be somewhat heavy, but not extremely straining (ie the weight you would use for a mid-15s HST set). Here's what exercises you will use for metabolic fatigue sets :

Quads - Leg Extension
Hamstrings - Leg Curl
Chest - Flat DB Fly
Lats - Bent Row
Shoulders - Side Lateral Raises
Biceps - EZ Bar Curls
Triceps - Cable Pressdown

Now on to the core program exercise explanations :

Squat - the king of all exercises, you need to squat. Squats will hit all parts of your legs, as well as stimulate growth throughout your entire body.

Stiff-legged Deadlift - stiff-legged deadlifts make a perfect combo with squats. You get more emphasis on the hamstrings, as well as your back, whereas the squats will hit your quads and glutes more.

Incline DB Press - incline bench press will work your upper chest more, and is a great exercise for chest mass, and the appearance of chest mass.

Weighted Dips - this is a great exercise to combine with incline dumbbell press, it will hit your lower chest and triceps hard.

Bent Row - this is a great exercise for your lats, as well as your biceps. This is another compound exercise, which work very well for beginners and advanced lifters as well.

Military Press - the best overall shoulder builder. MPs are another great lift for upper body power and size. You'll be doing them seated to place more emphasis on form, rather than using body momentum to do the lift.

Partial Curl - By going only halfway up, you'll be able to use a much heavier load, while still adding plenty of overall mass to the biceps.

Lying Triceps Extension - a great exercise for triceps mass. I like doing these with an EZ bar also, because of the less stress on the wrists.

Standing Calf Raise - great overall calf mass builder. Do them on a board for added stretch.

There's the intermediate program. You have some new methods implemented, and some minor exercise changes. This is a nice step up from basic HST after you have done a couple of the basic cycles.

Advanced Mass Building Programs

Exercises :

Squat
Stiff-legged Deadlift
Incline Bench Press
Parallel Bar Dips
Pendlay Row
Military Press
DB Side Lateral Raises
Partial Curl
Lying Triceps Extension
Standing Calf Raise (on board)

Sets : 3x5 (3 weeks), 4-6 weeks of 5RMs/clusters

Special Methods Used :

-cluster sets
-strength test days
-loaded stretches
-pulses (metabolic fatigue)

Ideology Explained :

This is a fully advanced HST program. This program is NOT recommended for new HST'ers, or new lifters. We are going to be implementing a bunch of new techniques, and introducing a few new exercises.

You're going to be starting right with the 5s. Since you're starting off with a heavy load, you'll take 3 weeks to build up to your 5RM and start off lighter (instead of a two week rep block like standard HST, this will just be a three rep block). After that, we start using cluster sets and strength test days.

A cluster set is a set in which you take a pre-determined amount of reps, and do small 1-3 rep "clusters" to build up to the desired amount of reps. In this case, you're going to be working up to a total of 15 reps. Once you hit your 15 reps, you're done with that exercise. Why do clusters? You'll be able to hit the desired amount of reps with your 5 rep max, but you'll be minimizing CNS fatigue, which can lead to overtraining. So you'll just be doing a lot of small sets, not going to failure.

Strength test days are just 5RM days, and they will determine what weight you use next for your cluster workouts. You'll just do your 3x5 with your 5RMs, just like good 'ol standard HST.

After you have built up to your 5RM (end of week 4), you'll be starting with week 5. On Days 1 and 2, you'll use cluster sets and do a total of 10 reps for each exercise (in 1-3 rep clusters of your 5RM). On Day 4, you'll have a strength test day. All you'll do is re-test your 5RMs (keep with 2 sets, 2x5) on every exercise. Then, the following week, you'll cluster on Days 1+2 again, but you'll use the weight from the 5RMs that you just found on Day 3 of the previous week. This is the pretty straightforward base, now I'll discuss the other extra "features" that you'll be using this whole time.

Now that you know that, I'll show you what you'll be doing for metabolic fatigue. A metabolic fatigue set is a set of high reps (~15), with a relatively light weight. The point here is to get a nice "burn". You'll do this to add hypoxic stress and increase post workout nutrient shuttling to your muscles. So, once you finish both incline dumbbell press and dips (chest), you'll do a 15 rep pulse (covered next) set with flat dumbbell flys. The weight should be somewhat heavy, but not extremely straining (something you would use for a mid-15s HST set). Here's what exercises you will use for metabolic fatigue sets :

Quads - Leg Extension
Hamstrings - Leg Curl
Chest - Flat DB Fly
Lats - Bent DB Row
Shoulders - Side Lateral Raises
Biceps - EZ Bar Curls
Triceps - Cable Pressdown

Now the type of set that you will be doing for metabolic fatigue, is a pulse set. A pulse is a single rep at the top 3-4" of the particular movement (use judgment, it doesn't have to be exactly 4"), and you do the top part of the movement, with a somewhat slow concentric (1-2 seconds), and a somewhat fast eccentric (1/2 second). Don't let the eccentric part of the lift just be dropping the weight, keep it under control. You'll do 1 set of 15 pulses for each exercise, after that body part has been trained. Pulses provide a little better way to add in metabolic fatigue, because there's not as much stress because of the shortened eccentric time of the lift (because you're only lowering the weight a few inches, not the whole way).

The last thing that you'll be adding in to your advanced cycle is loaded stretches. At the end of each muscle group (or workout, your choice)(after metabolic fatigue), you will perform a loaded stretch. A loaded stretch is taking about 60-70% of what you would use for a 6-8 rep set, and going into the stretch portion of certain movements, and holding a deep heavy stretch for about 45-60 seconds. You will do this to stretch the fascia of the muscle to allow more room for growth. Loaded stretching also has other benefits, you can easily find some of them by searching it on google.com (it is also referred to as extreme stretching, and fascia stretching). Keep in mind that loaded stretches will burn, a lot. If you start to feel any pain whatsoever, drop the weights and call it a day. Loaded stretching can be a very dangerous thing if done wrong. Here is what you will do for each body part (note : extreme stretching is done only after you have done your regular and metabolic fatigue sets for that certain bodypart) :

Quads - Take a moderately wide stance in your legs, and squat down so that you are sitting on the ground. Put your hands on the ground behind you, and lean back until you get a deep stretch. Hold for 45-60 seconds.

Hamstrings - Put your leg up on a bench or bar, and grab your toe. Straighten your leg into a deep stretch, and hold for 45-60 seconds.

Chest - Grab a pair of dumbbells, and lay on a bench. Go into the flat DB fly exercise, and sink in to the bottom of the movement. Sink and get a deep stretch for about 45-60 seconds.

Shoulders - Place a bar on a squat rack at your shoulder height. Put your hands on the bar (shoulder width apart), and flex your lats. Lower your shoulders down as far as you can to the floor, and hold for ~30 seconds.

Back - Hang from a pullup bar as long as you can, using wrist straps so your grip doesn't give out first.

Biceps - Lie down on an incline bench with a pair of dumbbells, and lay your arms down in the stretched position of an incline DB curl. Slowly go deep into the stretch, and hold it for 45-60 seconds.

Triceps - Grab a pair of dumbbells and lay down on a flat bench. Get into the fully stretched position of lying triceps extension (bottom of movement), and go deep into the stretch. Hold for 45-60 seconds.

Calves - Stand on a board on one foot, and sink down into the bottom position of a calf raise. Push on your heel with your free foot to get a good stretch. Hold for 45-60 seconds

Those are the loaded stretch exercises, now I'll explain why I chose the main exercises that I did :

Squat - the king of all exercises, you need to squat. Squats will hit all parts of your legs, as well as stimulate growth throughout your entire body.

Stiff-legged Deadlift - stiff-legged deadlifts make a perfect combo with squats. You get more emphasis on the hamstrings, as well as your back, whereas the squats will hit your quads and glutes more.

Incline DB Press - incline bench press will work your upper chest more, and is a great exercise for chest mass, and the apperance of chest mass.

Weighted Dips - this is a great exercise to combine with incline dumbbell press, it will hit your lower chest and triceps hard.

Pendlay Row - this is like a super-strict bent barbell row. It's just like a bent row, but each rep will start from the floor, and your body will never break 90 degrees (you'll always be bent over at a 90 degree angle, don't move your back any higher than that). Every rep will start dead on the floor, it's not just a touch and go. You'll do this for more isolation, and to make sure that your form is near perfect, and you're using just your lats/arms to raise the weight.

Military Press - the best overall shoulder builder. MPs are another great lift for upper body power and size. You'll be doing them seated to place more emphasis on form, rather than using body momentum to do the lift.

DB Side Lateral Raise - a great exercise to isolate the delts. It's almost like the incline bench/dip combo, but for shoulders.

Partial Curl - By going only halfway up, you'll be able to use a much heavier load, while still adding plenty of overall mass to the biceps.

Lying Triceps Extension - a great exercise for triceps mass. I like doing these with an EZ bar also, because of the less stress on the wrists.

Standing Calf Raise - great overall calf mass builder. Do them on a board for added stretch

Believe it or not, that's it for the advanced program. Right now, you're probably thinking "What did I just read?!" If you're thinking that, go back and read everything again. It's a hard thing to grasp just by reading it once, you'll have to sift through it again and again before you completely know what you're doing. You should see both great size and strength gains from this routine.

Programs for Fat Loss


An extremely popular question that pops up is, "What type of HST routine should I do if I want to lose fat?" Well, it's not about the routine, it's about the diet. The HST training will be the SAME, it's just the diet and cardio that will be different. If you want to lose fat while optimizing the amount of muscle you maintain, you'll still choose any of the HST routines above, but your diet and cardio will be different than that of a person who is trying to gain as much muscle as possible.

That's some very good information Anuj! Glad this got revived!

In regards to an HST routine for fat loss, I'm in the middle of working one up...That at least fits my needs. The only real guidelines I can see with fat loss is to keep the reps high and rest between sets under a minute. As you can see, I'm basically describing a circuit training routine based off of the HST principles. IMO, a 5 rep mesocycle isn't a optimal option because you're a) on a restricted diet, and b) working so heavy will not drive up your heart rate as the higher reps would. I'm reading some material now that has the mesocycles set at 15/12/10/8..Two weeks apiece. Now that's some ball bustin' shit right there.

BTW, the aforementioned is exactly what I'm planning on doing for my cutting phase starting in April. Doing a full body three times a week for cutting leaves a ton of room in-between for cardio (HIIT). :17:

thanks...

like i mentioned in my journal... i'm feeling sick of splits and want to shift back to full body routines again....

Totally understandable...I'll give you this one!..But be careful of which program you pick because I'll give you shit if you change it out any time soon! Plus, you got to figure that if your days are restricted in the gym, full body has to be the smartest route to take. If you miss a day, it's managable because you worked the whole body the previous day. :240:

YES... YES....

no.. no... with full body routines there is no way i can change.. i'll keep it like chad waterbury's "waterbury method" with many more sets...

but, yes... full body routines rule... i cant do this shit split thing any more... its draining me...

i'll come up with a routine and post it here to hear your version of how it is... just give me some time - like 10 minutes max... i think i have it figured out...

ok.. so i've come up with some more info regarding HST...

thought it might be useful to everyone here....

Rep Speeds

Basically, during the 15's the reps should start out slow and then speed up as you feel the burn begin to kill your strength. After all, the whole point is to flush the muscle with lactic acid.

During the 10's you should go slower when the weight is light. That way it will still be difficult to complete the set. As the weight gets heavier simply increase the tempo to ensure that you complete the set. BE careful not to get too sloppy though. It will do little good to use momentum to move the weight during the 10s.

The first week of 5's should be slow on the way down but still pretty explosive on the way up. Then as the weight nears your 5 rep max you will have no real control over how fast you move the weight. It will generally go slow simply because it is so heavy.

During negatives you should lower the weight in about 2-3 seconds. This may seem too quick to most traditionalists. Research has shown that if you go too slow during negatives you don't get the same growth stimulus. it begins to resemble the effect of isometrics if you go too slow. This is one reason why the old principle of "time under tension" isn't so simple as just time. The action of the muscle while under load is very important when trying to produce a specific effect.

Rest Between Sets

The Rest between sets is determined by the amount of time required to regain sufficient strength to successfully achieve the minimum effective Volume. There is not much to it, and you will not see any dramatic results by varying rest periods (within reason, of course)

Overall, rest periods should be around 1.5-2 minutes.

When moving from one body part to the next try to alternate between opposing or antagonistic body parts – commonly known as antagonistic pairing. E.g. 1 set of chest, rest, 1 set of back, rest, one set of chest, rest, 1 set of back, rest etc. This way your chest, shoulders, and tris can rest while you hit your back and bis. After a while you will find your aerobic capacity going up as this closely resembles sort of a power circuit.

You may shorten rest periods on 15s to attain the lactic acid effect - on the order of 30-60 seconds.

Increase rest periods as you get into the heavier, neural ranges - on 5s and negs you will most likely find it necessary to rest on the order of 2-5 minutes between sets.

Also, shorten rest periods earlier in the workout when you are fresh - then progressively increase rest periods as fatigue accumulates towards the end of the workout.

How To Warm Up

Begin with a general warmup – stationary bike, treadmill or similar for 5 mins at low-moderate intensity – just enough to break a sweat. Then do some light, dynamic stretching – arm rotations and similar.

Continue to:

Specific warmups for first exercise of major muscle groups (legs, chest, back)

15s don't really require warm-ups.

10s - 1 set 5 reps @ 70% of working weight on main exercises. Later exercises for same or auxillary muscle groups don't require warm-ups unless you feel you need it.

5s - 1 set 5 reps @ 50% of working weight

1 set 3 reps @ 70% of working weight

1 set 2-3 reps @ 80% of working weight

1 set 1 rep @ 90% of working weight (optional)

Although it looks like a lot, it is low-volume compared to those that use 20+reps on their warm-up sets. The warmup only serves to increase the core- and local temperature, thus elevating various enzymes and activating the neural system, thus making the muscles work more efficiently. Don’t make the warm-ups into a workout of its own. The above should at most require 15 minutes.

The reps should be easy, producing more of an "active stretch" than a strength challenge. You will find that when you train a body part more frequently, it requires less warm up to feel ready to perform.

Training Frequency

The reason HST calls for more frequent training is because the acute anabolic effects of training, such as increased protein synthesis, muscle-specific IGF-1 expression, and other factors involved in modulation of short term protein synthesis, only last for 36-48 hours. There is also mounting evidence of a "summation" effect by exercising while levels of these signals and responses are elevated, as should be expected.

This does not mean that the structural repairs to the tissue have been completed. Research has demonstrated that you can train a muscle before it is fully recovered structurally and not inhibit its ability to continue to recover. So, HST uses this evidence and calls for repeated loading (training) every 48 hours or so to keep the anabolic activity of the muscle high, while trying to stay slightly ahead of the structural recovery curve by constantly increasing the load each workout. Staying ahead of the structural recovery curve is really key to elicit real growth in a person who has lifted for quite a while. Of course, injuries can develop over time if care isn't taken to take time to heal, and prepare the tendons for repeated heavy bouts of lifting (SD and 15s serve this purpose in HST).

"Recovery" can refer to several different things.

1) "Recovery" can refer to the structural repair process of fixing the microtrauma. The damaged proteins can takes several days to be repaired and all evidence of damage removed. Even at the end of seven days after significant muscle damage from eccentric muscle actions, you may still see some small fibers regenerating.

2) Strength - this can be acute recovery as in the necessary time to rest between sets. Or it can mean the days that it usually takes to regain baseline strength after muscle damaging exercise.

So the trick is to have the CNS "recover" just in time to hit the muscle again as the acute anabolic effects are wearing off. That way you can stay anabolic more of the time. Training once every 7 days will still allow you to grow, it just takes longer for the gains to accumulate. Training more frequently is more efficient if your goal is just to get bigger

To understand, you have to consider the total volume over time. A week is easiest to consider, so, over the course of a week, it is the total volume that is important. So 9 total sets for chest can be done in one workout or in several workouts. Both will stimulate growth. However, you will be anabolic more of the time if you can actually create that stimulus more often. In the case of HST, 3 times as often. There is a physiological benefit (acute anabolic effects of training) in doing 9 sets as 3 sets X 3 workouts, as opposed to 9 sets all at once - and then nothing for the next 7 days.

Brian Haycock's AM/PM Program

"Here are the exercises I use:

Squat
Leg Ext
Leg Curl
Straight leg calf raise
Chins (wide and narrow)
Dips
Rows (wide and narrow)
Incline Bench
Lateral raises
rear delt work (dumbells)
Dumbell press
Tri Ext
Curls of all kinds

I'll do some crunches too. As well as stationary bike and once in a while I will jog a bit.

Sometimes I will split things up into AM and PM workouts. If I miss the PM I will simply do it the next day. I don't use a training partner so I only do negatives on Chins, Dips, curls, tri Ext, and rear delt work. I usually do 2 sets of 2 exercises for back.I don't go terribly heavy on Squats and Bench. I guess 25 years has taken a bit of a toll on this less-than-genetically-ideal body. In fact, on squats I will start with 20 reps.

Here's my AM/PM split.

AM
Squat
Incline Bench
T-bar row (supported)
Calf (straight leg)
Lateral raises
Bent over laterals
EZ curls
Tri extensions

PM
Leg curl
Leg extension
Millitary press (lowering no further than top of head)
Chins
Dips
Lateral raises
lying rear delt raises (lie on bench on your side)
DB curl
Tri extension
calf raise

I warm up on the bike for at least 6 minutes with a lot of resistance (break a sweat). I do 2 "work sets" after an adequate warmup on each exercise. On off days I do cardio for 20 minutes twice per day, while I'm dieting anyway.

BTW, I'm currently dieting very low carb during the week and carbing up on the weekends. "