HST effective ?

[BD-]

It is sort of the opposite of what I have been reading so far... people always adviced me to rest many days between excercising a specific muscle group, up to 6-7 days of rest. Now recently people are advising me to use HST; Hypertrophy Specific Training. This implies training every other day, and doing a nearly full body workout every time, consisting of only one set of 6-8 reps per muscle group. 48 hours 'should' be enough time for your muscles to recover.

Has anyone (especially ectomorph persons) tried this, and seen results ? Would it be as affective as people are claiming it is for (beginning) ectomorphs ? I'm planning on doing this routine this summer for 3 months and see what the outcome is afterwards, and then decide whether I continue HST or switch back to HIT / regular training...

Here is a link about HST:
and here is a link with a specific training program:

 

[Leandros]

I've been told by my AT that 24 hours is enough rest time for a muscle, given the right nutrients and sleep.

 

[dswithers]

If you do a reasonable number of sets (1-6?), then 48 hours is enough rest time between workouts. The guys who need 7 days rest are usually doing 8-20 sets per body part, and spending 1-2 hours per session in the gym. I found that doing 4 sets of 12-15 reps 2-3 times per week per body part gives me the best results. It is also important to keep each workout session to 40 minutes or less. I can do a warm up and 2 body parts (4 sets each) in about 20 minutes.

 

[ace23]

I work HST and I love it its very good I do a full body workout from the calves up to the traps and I do 3-5 sets of each exercise, and I see very good results, try it you will love it.
I do it 3 times a week and it gives me the option to run 3 days a week when i am not lifting, the other day is for rest

 

[Ethan01]

Muscles need 4-10 days of rest after extraneous activity, meaning hypertrophy. The muscle grows only for 48 hours, the rest of the time is spent utilizing electrolytes and storing glycogen. If you push the 4 day minimum you run a very high risk of overtraining which will push you back 5-10 weeks.

Trust me, I used to be like every other newbie who thought it would be better to train every muscle everyother day. I stopped seeing results in a 7 week span! Now that I'm following a correct routine I have made enourmous gains.

 

[BD-]

But Ethan, have you read the site ? There has been conducted research among ppl who train with HSP (every muscle group every 2 days) and ppl who train regularly; ie every muscle group once a week... the group training them more often, even when they were still sore from the previous workout, experienced more gains both in strength and size compared to the other group... there might also be researches who claim otherwise though, it's difficult to decide what you can believe and what not online, that's why I was asking it here, as there are many experienced personal trainers here who must have had experience with hardgainers trying HSP...

Let me quote some from the articles:

In a study performed at the University of Alabama4, two groups of subjects performed the same periodized resistance training routine either once per week or three times per week. The results showed that muscle mass increases were greater in the three workout per week group, compared to the one workout per week group. In addition, the strength increases in this group were on average 40% greater!

So science is telling us that training a muscle group approximately every 48 hours may be more effective than training it once or twice per week.

In a study performed at Montclair State University5 researchers investigated the effect of a single set vs. a multiple set routine on increasing upper body strength. They had the subjects perform either one set or three sets of bench press, incline dumbbell press and flat dumbbell flies using ten reps, three times per week for 12 weeks.
...
These researchers found that doing a single set of each exercise was equally effective as doing three sets of the same movements in increasing the subjects one repetition maximum (1RM) on bench press. The take home message is that you needn't do more than a single work set to achieve the same relative gains of doing multiple sets.

etc.

More advice / experiences would be welcome, as I'm planning to start on monday.

 

[Allon]

This subject is so confusing.
I think though that it makes sense that if you do a heavy routine you will need more rest. For instance:
If you do 3 sets of 10-15 reps for the chest and do one - two max different exersizes for the chest each of 6 sets max, you would probably be best with just one days rest meaning about 48 hours.
This way you can work out 3-4 days a week and do a full body workout eachtime.
If you do 3 - 4 different exercises for the chest ( or any other muscles) with 6- 10 reps and 3 -5 sets per exersize, you would definitely need at least 72 hours rest, maybe even much more.
So basically, I think both would work. In fact, just play around with this. You can switch between these routines every few months. I also think doing a week or two of 20-25 reps every two months as a kind of break from heavy weights is also good, and off course a complete break from the gym for 7-10 days two to three times a year is also very advisable

 

[Allon]

Just noticed I didn't say what I meant in my last comment:

If you do 3 sets of 10-15 reps for the chest and do one - two max different exercises for the chest each <b>of 6 sets max</b>, you would probably be best with just one days rest meaning about 48 hours.
This way you can work out 3-4 days a week and do a full body workout eachtime.

I meant to say 3 sets max per exercise and a max of 6 sets per muscle group...

 

[BD-]

Well, I just started today, going to do at least one cycle of 8 weeks + 10 days strategic deconditioning... I'm going to pay extra attention not to overtrain - only doing MAX two sets, or one set of two different exersises, per muscle group. Don't think I'll be overtraining with that.
I'll let you know my experiences afterwards...