Hypertrophy Specific Training

Hypertrophy specific training is a technique that claims to be based on actual scientific principles backed up by research! More can be found at: Hypertrophy-Specific Training

Here are my quick notes for the program:

Progressive Load
- Obligatory increase in weight (from 5-20 lbs.) each workout.
- Each cycle add 5-10 lbs for all lifts
Frequent training
- At least 3 times a week for each muscle group.
Changing rep numbers every 2 weeks
- 15 10 5
- High Reps = lactic acid = tendon repair
Only 1-2 sets
Rest Period to “Decondition”
- 1 week off every 6-8 weeks (mandatory)
Focus on compound exercises

2 Week Rep ~Mini-Cycles
At the end of the cycle, you will be using your max weight for that rep range. subtract 5-10 lbs for each day before the last in a set.

I’ll be trying this out starting 9/03/07 with a routine I designed to get the most bang for my buck. I only have 4 exercises: squats, deadlifts, dips, and chin-ups, and I do two one day and then the other two the next. This will be every day of the week until the rest weeks. I was doing a program that hit every muscle group only once a week and I was starting to feel like I was wasting a lot of time by waiting a whole week before working the same muscle group again. The guy who designed HST found research that showed that muscles take only about 36 hours to recover enough to benefit from more training. Apparently, the dreaded over-training is more of a CNS phenomenon and is related more to the large number of sets that so many people do. This program uses only 1 or 2 sets.