HST Summed Up By Lyle
I'm sure this was posted here sometime before. And I believe Lyle has changed some of his opinions regarding HST (you can find his critisisms of it on this board). But anyway, I found this on mfw:
To sum up what I'm going to write up in detail (I lied, I got started
and went ahead and wrote it here), optimal in any sense is a matter of
competing rate processes. Basically a calculus type of program where
the best you can do is optimimze any one part of the system. Sure, you
can always maximize some other part of the system,
but it's usually at the cost of limiting some other.
For example, you could train at a higher intensity per workout (close to
max), but this will limit your frequency because of both neural fatigue
and increaed
injury potential. Optimizing the systems means finding a COMPROMISE
between all the variables, the combination of intnsity, frequency,
volume, progression that optimizes what you're trying to do.
It's like the old calculus problem of what's the largest area you can
enclose with a fixed amount of fence. You can maximize the long axis
but it will imit the width axis, or vice versa. But neither give the
maximum (optimum) area. Some compromise in long and width axis gives the optimal.
In HST, the goal is to optimize (quite generally):
a. physiological
b. practical
c. psychological requirements
For hypertrophy. That will lead to some compromises in the system in
order to maximize the system as a whole. Becaues there are ways that
you might maximize 'a' but end up shorting 'b' or 'c' (tangent: my
current scheme for dealing with stubborn bodyfat is in that boat, what I
think is phsyiologiclaly optimal is not practical, hence it is not yet
optimized ; I will end up having to forego some of the physiological
optimality to ensure practical utility).
So what are the physiologicla requirements for growth (category a)?
I'm going to ignore the butt simple stuff along the lines of "Pick
exercises that hit the target muscles" that sort of rot. That's all
pretty obvious.
If we simplified the physiologicla requirements down to one requirement
it would be:
1. Stimulate protein synthesis such taht net protein accretion ocurs.
An additional physiological factor is:
1. Don't get injured
That should be obvious: gaining muscle means stimulating the mucle to
synthesize more protein than you're losing over time.
So what does stimulating protein synthesis require.
1. Tension overload: this should be obvious. So why is it
important. As it turns out, tension turns on a different set of genes
than fatigue. The genes turns on by tension overload 'tells' the nucleus
to churn out an mRNA strand that increaes the muscle's protein content.
Even that has further requirements. mRNA only codes protein because of
the action of ribosomes (cellular machines that turn mRNA directions
into proteins).
I adressed this in detail in a thread with Alan McClure. The key
components are this:
a. Exercise increases ribosome activity. After any single exercise
bout, the ribosomes in the trained muscle will increase their activity.
This increase is short term. Based on the data by McDougall (looking at
protein synthesis via tracer research), maybe 36 hours or so. So at 36
hours, ribosome activity in that muscle is back to normal.
b. Exercise elevates mRNA levels coding for wahtever protein the muscle
wants to make. As above, this is short term. Any physiology book will
show that as soon as mRNA levels are elevated, the cell will start
degrading them. So increases in mRNA are also transient.
c. The cell needs adequate energy (the cell 'knows' how much energy it
has by a variety of means including the ATP/ADP ratio and others). This
does tie in with the volume. Something to note is that the body is NOT
good at doing two things at once generally. Losing fat/gaining muscle
is one ; developing strength and endurance simultaneously is another.
Here's one you never hear about, storing glycogen and building muscle
don't generally occur at the same time. Simply, the body can do one or
the other but not both (but some people can do both well and steroids
increase the ability to do both which is why steroids 'let' you get away
with higher volumes). So what does this have to do with the price of
rice in china? In high volume training, you depelte a lot of muscle
glycogen. So when you refeed carbs, they go to repleting muscle
glycogen first, protein synthesis second.
I suspect that the reason that many 'hardgainers' do well on lower
volumes has to do with this. With low volume, they can stimulate
increaess in protein synthesis but do it WITHOUT depleting glycogen so
much that incoming calories go towards glyocgen synthesis. This is
probably a reason taht PL training (low reps don't deplete as much
glycogen since you rely on the ATP/CP energy pathway) works so well for
many as well.
Folks who can store glycogen AND syntheesize protein well (becaues of
genetics or drugs) do fine on higher volumes (Since Raj likes trotting
out what 'others' say I"ll play the same game and mention that Poliquin
says that explicitly in The POliquin Principles, noting that certain
types of training work better for individuals who are better at storing
nutrients in their muscles). They are usually the exception in the
weight training world as far as I'm concerned.
A couple of other issues, the inclusion of an eccentric (controlled)
component. Studies show that eccentrics:
a. cause muscle damage which
1. stimultes local mechanogrowth factor release, involved in both growth
and satellite cell proliferation
2. upregulates both androgen and IGF_1 receptor number in the trained muscle
I'll adress the question of "Why not just do negatives?" below.
Ok, so the above gives us a general schema for training for hypertrophy.
We are trying to optimize the following: tension overload (progressive
at that) along with elevating (ANd keeping elevated) both ribosome and
mRNA levels in target muscles. by combining tension overload
(concentric) with an eccentric component, we also generate the damage
which stimulates local MGF release (and satellite cell activation) along
with increases in androgen/IGF_1 receptor number. We want to do this
without depleting glycogen so much taht incoming carbs (which determine
the cells' energy status and thus ribosomal activity) go to glycogen
storage instead.
Given the short time courses of both mRNA and ribosome activity, this
means training a given muscle frequently to keep levels elevated
constantly (and remember taht that IS the goal of hypertrophy trianing,
keep protine synthesis elevated as much as possible). ONce every 36
hours might be more optimal, but it's not practical for most people
because it requires training at different times of the day. Training
every 48 hours is a compromise based on practical considerations.
Training lower volume every day is another compromise. Bryan has
offered BOTH as possible solutions.
So I've just explained the PRINCIPLES behind low volume higher frequency
training. It's an attempt to optimize teh above variables: progressive
tension overload AND increased mRNA/ribosome levels/activity AND
allowing incoming calories to go towards protein synthesis.
Now, some other considerations. What about failure, for example?
Bryan is adamant about avoiding failure (except for at the terminal
workout of any given rep range). Why? Two words: neural fatigue.
Training to mucsular failure generates neural fatigue far out of
proportion to the muscular stimulus. Empirically, guys going to failure
and beyond need 7-10 days to regain strength production (which they are
incorrectly using as a proxy for muscular recovery). Have them stop one
rep short of failure (a minor decrease in metabolic work) and they
recover more than twice as quickly. early stystems (i.e. Starr's
heavy/light/medium) recognized this. The goal of the light workout was
to give teh muscle 'some' training while allowing overall recovery to
continue. Bryan approahces it by increasing tension linearly for
shorter periods. So intead of H/L/M, you get
lightest/lighter/medium/mediumer/heavy/heavier/. Then backcycle.
Scientifically, this has been demonstrated as well. After a
neurally/muscularly damaging stimulus, strenght is lost for the first 2
days but it is NOT due to the muscular damage. Rather, it is due to
impaired excitation/contraction (EC) coupling which refers to everything
that goes on in between the motor neuron (releasing acetyl choline) and
the actual muscular contraction. The short-term strength decrease from
this type of training is neural NOT muscular. So generating it and then
waiting for strenght to recover (HIT fallacy #375) is limiting the
stimulus to the muscle as the expense of the nervous system. W hich is
fine if your goal is nervous system training, but the goal of
hypertrophy/HST is muscular.
So consider a situation where you trained to failure during your work
sets. This causes too much neural fatigue to let you train again in a
couple of days (or if you do, you have to use lighter loads which
doesn't fulfill the requirements of progressive tension overload which
means you are already undermining your goals). It's also possible that
higher volumes might cause too much damage along these lines which would
ALSO impair your ability to return to the gym and repeat the workout.
Which compromises the goal of increasing (and keeping increaed)
mRNA/ribosome levels. Basically you need enough volume to turn on the
adaptations WITHOUT generating so much neural fatigue or muscular damage
taht you impair your ability to meet the freuqency requirements. I know
that's not the PROOF that Raj wants but that's the PHYSIOLOGICAL
PRINCIPLE behind the set count.
To avoid failure and the accompanying neural fatigue, Bryan suggests
starting submaximally, which *allows* you to add weight at each workout.
This lets you generate the muscualr cahgnes at each workout with
progressive tension overaload (mRNA, ribosomes, etc) WITHOUT generating
the neural fatigue that would compromise said frequency. Again, it's
about optimizing a number of different variables at the same time. You
may not maximize any one variable, but you max maximize the system as a whole.
Ok, now you do hit failure at the end of every 2 week cycle. Which will
generate some neural fatigue and cause problems of EC coupling. But its
followed by a built in backcycle as you start the next rep range at a
submaximal level. As well, it's fundamentally impossible to avoid ALL
neural fatigue and it will accumulate over the length of the cycle.
Which the week off at the end goes a long way towards helping with.
That same backcycle also ties into injuries. Going at max for long
periods is a great way to get a joint injury because your joints and
connective tissue take longer to recovery than your muscles. Every 2
weeks you get a backcycle built into the system. And every 8 weeks you
get a full week off (which has other implications).
Ok, so the next question: why 2 week cycles? Why not longer or shorter?
Is there some magic in 2 weeks? Frankly, no. Bryan picked it as a
compromise. He and I have discussed it and longer cycles would work
just as well (using smaller percentage increases, that sort of thing).
So why 2 weeks? Ties into psychological issues. Bodybuilders are
notorious for not liking to work submaximally (look at how many idjits
on the HST board comment that the yare going to follow the program but
still want to work to fialure).
He had to find a balance betewen what *might* be physiologically optimal
while still fulfilling the psychological needs (and anyone who thinks
that psychological requiremenst are equally critical in program or diet
design is a true theorist who doesn't know anything about human beings
or how to train them) of bodybuilders to work to failure. They don't
like to work at low effort levels which a 4 or more week cycle would
require. So he settled on 2 weeks. They have to start less
submaximally, can use larger weight increases (fulfilling other
psychological needs) and hit a RM every 2 weeks. A compromise to try
and optimize two different variables.
Ok, so that explains the frequency, intensity, progression and non
failure part of it. As well as the 2 week cycle (which is arbitrary,
but is a compromise between physiological and psychological needs).
Ok, what about the rep progresion. Why 15, 12, 8, 5, negatives? 'Why
not' is the answer. Seriously, anyone who thinks that there is a magic
to rep counts is on drugs. Raj will clamor for proof but I can find
guys who get big on any rep count you can pick. Everything from singles
up to 20 rep squats and everything in the middle. You could use 14,11,9
and 6 for all it would matter in the big scheme. 15, 12, 8 and 5 are
commonly used rep ranges in training, hence psychologically easier for
most to accept. Same reason so few coaches use sets of 13 for anything.
It's tradition more than anything else.
But even that's not entirely correct. And it goes back to the injury
issue. As you use continually increasing tension loads (to fulfill the
physiological requirements elucidated above), you start to get
cumulative damage to connective tissue and such (which heals more slowly
than other tissues). Trying to keep adding weight forever eventually
leads to injuries. So you counter "Why not cycle weights differently?"
Becasue that doesn't meet the requirements of progressive tension
overload and the other goals of the system.
By the time you get to the negatives (adressed next), you're pushing
that envelope of injury (although this is highly individual). First and
foremost, the week off will give you some time to heal (on top of
another critical component). As well, starting with the higher reps
gives you more time to heal, jacks up blood flow to the joints, and has
hormonal effects that may help with connective tissue healing and injury.
Personally, I do NOT consider 15 reps an OPTIMAL range for hypertrophy
(for a bunch of complicated neurological reasons I've elucidated before
and this is long enough already). It's a compromise that Bryan decided
on to give connective tissue microtrauma time to heal. And note that
Bryan has said that you only NEED to do the 15's if you feel strain
(joint) injury coiming on. it's not a REQUIRED part of the program
(listening Raj?), but suggested IF you need it. Otherwise start at 12's
which is more consistent with hypertrophy (higher tension) anyhow.
Again, starting back at 15's is a compromise between physiological and
practical (and injury) requirements. But that's part of the entire
system: trying to optimize all the variables that go into things at the
same time.
Ok, negatives and the week off since they are related. If there' a
reason folks stop growing (well, there are lots of reasons) here's the
one nobody every mentions. As you train, your body increases the amount
of connective tissue within your muscular structures. This is geared
towards one thing: decreasing muscle damage from training.
But what did we establish was a REQUIREMENT for growth: muscular damage.
As you train consistently, it becomes harder and harder to generate
that damage. ONe way to keep damage omcing is to keep increasing the
weight, which is already built into HST (you progress from lighter to
heavier over the cycel). Another is with negatives. That's the reason
for their (suggested but NOT required) inclusion. An atteempt to
generate a little last bit of muscualr damage at the end of the cycle as
your body is adapting.
Of course, that has to be considered within the context of the overall
system. If you're already beaten up, or can't do negatives safely,
adding them (again, suggested but NOT required, Raj) is a poor choice.
If you're fine joint wise And can do them safely, they may add to the
program. If it injures you, it's crossed the line of optimizing one of
the variables (don't get injured) and isn't part of it.
Of course, as anybody knows, doing negatives for long periods generates
so much muscular damage (and neural fatigue for a bunch more complicated
neurological reasons that I"m not boring anybody with since I'm not up
to date on them anyhow) that you overtrain. So Bryan suggests (but does
NOT require, Raj) them at the end of the cycle.
Righ before the week off. Which has several goals.
The first is general recover (neural, muscular) after the entier cycle.
The second goal is as important: detraining lets the increaesd
connective tissue go away so that you can get more easy damage when you
start the next cycle.
Taht is, at the end of 8 weeks of continuous training (or wahtever the
exact numbers are), damage is too hard to generate because of increaesd
connective tissue (and the practiacl realities that you can only add
weight for SO long before you get hurt). A week off (strategic
deconditioning) lets some of that CT adaptation dissipate so taht damage
(and hence growth) is easier the next cycle.
You also have to hope that connective tissue adaptations go away faster
(or to a greater degree) than the size increases which is supported by
data (the early de-adaptation to training is neural first). AS well, if
you did the eccentrics, you should have a delayed training effect that
keeps growth going as the connective tissue is going away. Well, hopefully.
The question: is 1 week enough? Some of the data says no, that some of
the connective tissue adaptations are still present weeks or months
after detraining. It might be physiologically optimal to take 3 months
off every cycle but taht crosses practical optimality, not to mention
psychological issues.
Even if it takes 6 months for CT adaptations to go away, that's not
practical for training (train 8 weeks, take 3 months off) because you'd
lose any muscle gained. Nor would it fulfill psychological requirements
because most folks hate being out of the gym even if its better for them
in the long run (Bryan and I have talked about other ways around this,
like very light training because obsessed bodybuilers hate taking time
off). Once again, its a compromise between trying to maximize the
physiological response while taking into account practical and
psychological realities.
And those are the main PRINCIPLES behind HST. Read taht sentence again,
Raj. The PRINCIPLES. That's what this thread is mainly to criticize.
Summing them up more or less:
Non failure and lowish volume to avoid neural recovery which impairs
training frequency which is necessary to elevate (and keep elevated)
mRNA/ribosome levels, an eccentric component to generate MGF release and
changes in receptor number, etc, etc. The low volume also avoids
glycogen depletion which requires that the muscle first replete muscle
glycogen before it can synthesize new muscle. &c &c. It was a multiple
degree of freedom system that Bryan tried to optimize, maximizing all of
the variables without significantly shorting one.
Because you can easily come up with systems that will increase one
variable but at the major expense of another. WAnt to do higher volume
or go to failure? Fine, but the fatigue will decrease frequency of
training which limits mRNA/ribosome activity. Want to do negatives all
the time for maximal damage? Fine, but you're going to get injured, or
get so neurally fatigued that you lose far more than you gain. Etc.
Bryan had to look at ALL of those competing variables to come up with
the PRINCIPLES behind the system. The exact scheme that Raj is
criticizing off of Thinkmuscle is ONE interpretation of those principles
which is mainly for folks who need hand holding. Apparently he still
doesn't understand the difference.
The 2 week rep cycles are fairly arbitrary, Bryan would agree. Someone
who can psychologiclaly handle longer periods working submaximally (like
me) could use longer cycles. 2 weeks is a nice compromise between
getting folks to work submaximally and not having them get antsy
(psychological) about working submaximally.
8 weeks is convenient in that it lets you get 4 progressive rep cycles
(including the 15 rep cycle aimed mainly at injury control) of 2 weeks
apiece (NB: in Supertraining, Siff/Verkoshansky note that 16-18 week
cycles with 8 week mini cycles was 'found' by Russian coaches to be
aabout optimal before al onger time off was necessary). Then a week of
negs (suggsested but NOT required) for a last littel bit of damage
before the week off.
You could set up a 16 week cycle that adhered to the primary HST
PRINCIPLES quite easily. I gave an example for Hella1 for dieting. An
INTERPRETATION of the HST PRINCIPLES for a specific situation.
But the principles stay the same. And I contend that they are as
optimized as they can be (optimized within the context of a nubmer of
competint goals) towards hypertrophy. Individual interpretations get
into other practical and/or psychological issues.
But the physiological optimality is all based on fundamental biological
principles of the human body.
Whew. I'd say that was better than geting laid but I don't have any
frame of comparison. Hopefully it will answer any questions anybody
still has, and explain to Raj what's being discussed here. He's too
busy focusing on trivialities (specific interpretations) and ignoring
the principles of the system.
Lyle
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