Who'da thought this routine would work...

[Neodavid]

Been getting nowhere lately, and even on low set HST, my elbows and wrists hurt (in the 5's where you get heavy).

SO, I figured I'd have to live with it, and do the best with what I got, and thought I'd just do what I felt like, even though it goes against most training principles i've heard.

Monday I did chest and biceps, 5x5, and tuesday I did back triceps and shoulders.

Wednesday I did 10-12 reps, 3 or 4 sets, for chest and biceps, and then the same for back, triceps, and shoulders on thursday.

Friday and saturday I took off, because my wrists were getting those twinges when you aren't even doing anything. Plus I was beat from that workout, and possibly the stress of losing my job.

I measure every week, and was surprised to see an eighth of an inch gain, while I'm dieting (no carbs).

So today i go in to do the 5x5 thing, and got what really was, a shock.

Warming up felt good, and when I went to do the 5x5, the weight seemed really light, so in going with HST principles, I thought I'd try doing an extra rep if I could.

Low and behold, I could do 7, with the weight I barely got up last week on the last rep of 5.

Who'da thought that would work... I'll be curious to see if this continues. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and I went into the gym with everything wrong. I was starving (hadn't eaten anything but an open faced peanut butter sandwich all morning, and worked out at 12:30, had no energy, and thought the day would suck from how I felt.

The body adapts to whatever you give it, and I guess the changeup is what my body needed to be stimulated.

All his after 8 weeks of frustration and getting nowhere. Made my day.

 

[Primo Max]

It's funny how that works. I've had the worst days and came to the gym and been strong as hell.

 

[Neodavid]

Yeah, that's true. Sort of a sidelight to the odd behavior of combining low and high rep workouts, but yep, I was pretty tired.

It's funny how that works. I've had the worst days and came to the gym and been strong as hell.

 

[dbc3po]

Sometimes when you go back assward you seem to make the most progress forward. Usually my biggest gains come right after i change up my routine a little bit. I think its jsut the shocking of the muscles into something new aND DIFFERENT THAT STIMULATES THEM

 

[dbag333]

I take it you normally work out friday and saturday? Have you been doing each body part three times a week?! If you do and then you took Friday and Saturday off for a change I bet it is cause you got the rest that you needed. maybe you've been overtraining and those couple extra days of recovery made all the difference. If you always take those days off, well s--t.

Side note, any leg work in there. IF your squat is going up, most likely everything else is as well.

 

[Neodavid]

I was doing HST, 3x a week, so weekends were off, yeah.

I did my heavy chest and bicep routine again today, and for the second time now, using this technique, I've gone up, while dieting and losing weight.

Gaining muscle mass and strength while losing weight is pretty impressive. I'm also down to 250 sust every 9 days, so it's not like I'm juiced to the gills. I WAS doing 750 a week, for 6 weeks, and it got me nowhwere. Doing this routine so far has the appearance of magic.

The only other change is, I work my way up slowly to my maxes. I take 4 sets minimum to warm up. Bench for instance, looked like this:

135 x6
185 x6
225 x6
245 x5

Then main workout:
265 x5
275 x6
275 x5
265 x5
245 x5 (I was wiped out here)

This is the first time I've done 275 more than one set, so again I'm impressed. I know for sure I've gotten stronger each week, for 2 weeks in a row.

I am using HST principles in that each workout I'm trying to increase the weight slightly, and also, for 4 days, every muscle group gets worked out 4 times. 2x heavy directly, and 2x light weight high rep...

I thought this would be aproximately the same stress on the body as negatives, and have used this to extend my normal HST routine (which didn't get me anywhere, probably because I didn't do the SD).


On legs, I'm not even doing lower body, because in the summer I run and bike regularly. Lifting in winter is fine, but I get too worn out if I try to do legs too.

example of workout:

monday, chest, biceps, and shoulders, HEAVY, 5x5.
Tuesday, Triceps, and back (upper and lower), Heavy, 5x5.

Wed, chest, biceps, and shoulders, light, 10-12 reps, 4 or 5 sets.
thurs, Triceps, and back (upper and lower), light, 10-12 reps, 5 sets.

fri-sat off.

Start all over again.

I take it you normally work out friday and saturday? Have you been doing each body part three times a week?! If you do and then you took Friday and Saturday off for a change I bet it is cause you got the rest that you needed. maybe you've been overtraining and those couple extra days of recovery made all the difference. If you always take those days off, well s--t.

Side note, any leg work in there. IF your squat is going up, most likely everything else is as well.