HLM vs. resets?

S

snowyflake

New member
As I continue in my analysis paralysis over whether to switch to HLM, I've been thinking about resets.

Let's say I'm doing exercises A, B, C, and D. Based on how things feel now, I group A+B into my heavy day, and C+D into my light day. For my medium day I do A+B but at a reduced weight and volume.

Over time, I progress the weight on all of those lifts. After a few months, I run out of progress on A and reset it to a lower weight. Meanwhile, C and D have both progressed to the point where those are the lifts I'm struggling with, and A is now a lot easier. My heavy-light balance no longer makes any sense.

How do people handle that? Do you keep shuffling exercise selection around to rebalance the H-L-M days?
 
@snowyflake I’ve been doing an HLM variant since the start of December. Before all this it was basically fuckarounditus, then a SSLP/Phrak’s GSLP mix. Can’t say I’m a super experienced lifter but I'm past novice gains at least and so far I really like the switch to HLM. It’s working for me. I can at least tell you how I have it set up. I basically borrowed from one of Andy Baker’s videos the idea of mixing it up and spreading out the impact. HLM is a template that you can vary up a lot. Andy Baker's other FAQ videos are pretty good. Anyways this is what I run currently:
  • Monday: heavy squats (5x5); medium press; light pull
  • Wednesday: light squats; light press; heavy pull (deadlifts 2x5)
  • Friday: medium squats; heavy press (bench 5x5); medium pull
The light/medium press and pulls can be whatever you want. For press that can be OHP, Viking press, landmines, incline press, close grip bench, pause bench, etc.. For pull that can be RDL, SLDL, rows, power cleans, etc. Light/Medium squats you can change up too if you want for front squats or whatever though I tend to just do lower weight fewer sets back squats.

For me on the program, my squat and deadlift has made steady progress. My bench has been a slow crawl to improve but I'm not too surprised there as it's always been lagging (before lifting I was a cyclist so big legs, not so big upper body). To remedy this I've been tossing a lot more volume and accessory lifts targeting my bench muscles. Andy Baker and others pretty much say to do the same thing for fixing a stalled bench. It's been working, slowly.
 
@snowyflake Honestly, deloads are a bit silly, you should always be managing your load (and not "grinding it out"). I would suggest training that includes auto-regulation. You should take a look at The Bridge by Barbell Medicine (its free) and see if you like their approach.

They also have a HLM template that I haven't tried yet, but The Bridge and their Hypertrophy templates have been great for me. I have learned so much from BBM that when I look back at SS it just seems so misguided and based on faulty premises.
 
@btyler101
deloads are a bit silly
Click to expand...

As you progress through your lifting career, your gains will slow to a crawl and the only way to stimulate new growth (I literally have a great year if I add 2 lbs/year) is increased volume. With increased volume comes some serious fatigue. Deloads are pit stops in your programming to dissipate accumulated fatigue. If you don't allow a break for this accumulated fatigue to dissipate, your lifts will suffer and you'll likely start to regress.

If you've ever ramped up your training to over 20 sets per muscle group over a mesocycle, you would definitely benefit and look forward to the programmed deload.

Think of deloads as "5 steps forward, 1 step back." (My programming has scheduled deloads every 6 weeks, around the time I'm missing reps, and I know that its time for a Deload Week).
 
@samamph I was referring to deloads as presented in Starting Strength, where you grind to a halt on an exercise, take 10% off and work your way back up. I think you are referring to more of a deload week, or like a low-stress week, which you are correct about.

I actually just finished up a low stress week today, after my last training block ended. From here usually the volume increases for a while, then it drops to create a mini peak, then a low stress week, then time to accumulate volume again, and so on.

This is how most of the programming I mentioned in my original comment is structured, but there is variation, sometimes you want to run an endurance block or something, like a palate cleanse. I prefer to use some kind of auto-regulation as well, it took me a while, but I figured out grinding it out isn't conducive to good results.
 
@btyler101 I've been doing 531. My general rule is on the AMRAP sets, if I'm not hitting two more than the base (i.e. 3 reps on a 1+ set) and still have something left, I'm too close to the edge.

For example, this cycle, I hit PRs on both Squat and DL. But, that's where the similarity ends.

For squats, I only hit 3 for my 5+, 3 for my 3+, and 2 for my 1+. I probably would have written off the failure on the first week as just a bad day if weeks 2 and 3 had been better. But, those three weeks, taken together, clearly spell deload. Especially considering that I was feeling stressed the previous cycle, so I had cut back my normal 10 pound increment to 5 pounds. This was my 8th consecutive cycle adding weight to my squat, so I'm not feeling bad about that at all.

On my DL, however, I did 7, 8, and 5 reps, respectively. So I'm going to keep on adding weight to that for next cycle. This was my 5th consecutive cycle of adding weight to my DL. One recommendation is to automatically deload very 5th cycle, but when I'm hitting 3,4,5 reps more than scheduled, it make sense to me that I should keep on trucking.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top