Originally Posted by T-nation

When you observe the strength training community, you quickly notice how each coach has his own "pet program." For example, Coach Staley has EDT, Coach Poliquin has GVT and GBC, Chad Waterbury has several different programs, Westside guys have, well, Westside training, and the list goes on and on.

My problem is that I love the iron game so much that I'm never able to design what I'd call my "ultimate program." Sure, when I first talked about Optimized Volume Training it made a lot of noise, and many people fell in love with the program and the results it brought on. But I have a deep-rooted, visceral need to experiment and find new ways to spark muscle growth. As such, I always hated to limit myself to the confines of one single training methodology.

I personally need to be allowed some freedom when designing or using a program, and I'm sure that a lot of you are the same way. That having been said, it's also important to have a certain framework to work from. So I recently designed a training system specifically for bodybuilding purposes; one that has proven to be super effective for all those who've used it, and which still allows for a lot of variation.

This system is called HSS-100. Quite frankly, I never used anything as powerful when it comes to building muscle mass.


HSS-100: What Does That Mean?

While it's a cool name for a program, it must mean something, right? It sure does:

H = Heavy lift

S = Superset (or triple set)

S = Special technique or special exercise

100 = 100 rep set


Let's break it down!

Exercise 1: Heavy lift performed as a stand-alone

Heavy lifting can stimulate muscle growth even though you're "technically" outside of the proper hypertrophy zones. It does so via three mechanisms:

1) Direct Action: Heavy lifting places an important growth stimulus on the fast twitch fibers. While the total volume might not be high enough to stimulate maximum muscle growth, it can certainly increase FT fiber size.

2) Indirect Action: Gaining strength will allow you to use more weight during a subsequent accumulation phase and this will translate into much improved gains.

3) Potentiating Action: Heavy lifting improves the CNS's capacity to recruit the high threshold fast twitch muscles fibers. These have the highest growth potential but are very difficult to stimulate. Increasing neural efficiency is a very effective way to develop the capacity to stimulate them and thus drastically enhance growth potential.

Plus, heavy lifting increases myogenic tone (tonus) which makes your muscles appear and feel "harder."

For this first exercise in your workout, you should pick a compound movement, preferably with free weights. For example:

Quads: Front or back squat

Hamstrings: Romanian deadlift or good morning

Back: Bentover barbell rowing or chest-supported dumbbell rowing

Pectorals: Incline, flat, or decline press (barbell or dumbbells)

Deltoids: Push press, military press, dumbbell shoulder press

Biceps: Standing barbell curl (barbell or EZ-bar)

Triceps: Close-grip press (incline, flat or decline) or JM press

Traps: Power shrugs (barbell or dumbbells)

You should train this first exercise mostly in the 4-6, 6-8, and 8-10 rep ranges, although it's possible to go down to 2-4 reps from time to time.

Between 3 to 5 sets should be performed (3 sets if working in the 8-10 range; 4 sets if working in the 6-8 range; and 5 sets if working in the 4-6 range).

Exercise 2: Superset (or triple set)

A superset (basically alternating between two different exercises) can stimulate hypertrophy via several pathways. First of all, it drastically increases training density, which has been shown to favor the onset of an anabolic hormonal milieu mostly via an increase in growth hormone release. While I'll be the first to admit that transient hormonal changes won't turn you into the incredible hulk, when you want to attain that perfect physique every little bit helps.

A superset can also allow you to thoroughly stimulate a certain muscle group. This is accomplished by coupling a compound exercise with an isolation exercise. While it's no secret that big multi-joint, complex exercises are the best growth stimulator, they do have their shortcomings, the most important being that your body will always strive to complete the exercise with the less energy expenditure/effort as possible. This means that it won't necessarily put the most training stress on the desired muscle group, but rather on the one best suited to do the job.

For example, you might perform the bench press to build up your pecs, but if your front delts and/or triceps are overpowering, chances are that your chest will be left sub-optimally stimulated from your bench pressing work. By adding an isolation exercise for the pectorals either after (post-fatigue), before (pre-fatigue), or before and after (pre and post-fatigue) you'll be able to fully fatigue the chest.

As we just saw, there are three main types of supersets:

1. Pre-fatigue (isolation first, compound second): Advantageous if you have problems recruiting a muscle group during a compound movement. Pre-fatiguing the muscle group will make it fail first during the compound lift.

Pre-fatiguing the muscle will also increase the mind-muscle connection as you'll "feel it" more because of the pre-existing fatigue/burn. So if you have problems "feeling" or recruiting a certain muscle group, pre-fatigue might be the solution. The downside is that you'll have to use less weight for the compound movement because of the pre-fatigued state of the muscle.

2. Post-fatigue (compound first, isolation second): The main advantage of this method is that it allows you to keep on using big weights in the compound lifts because you're finishing the muscle with the isolation exercise instead of fatiguing it first. In most cases, this will lead to better growth stimulation.

However, if you have problems recruiting or feeling a certain muscle group during the compound lift, the post-fatigue method might not be as effective as the pre-fatigue method.

3. Pre and post-fatigue (isolation, compound, isolation): This method combines the preceding two methods into one giant set of three exercises. It's very effective as it'll ensure that you fully annihilate the targeted muscle group, plus it'll improve the mind-muscle connection by pre-fatiguing it.

The downside is that this method is tremendously stressful on the body and nervous system. More than one such set is probably overkill for most natural trainees. However, if you decide to use this method and perform only one such giant set, it can prove to be quite effective.

Exercise 3: Special exercise or technique

The third exercise is used to really isolate the desired muscle group or portion of a muscle group. This is accomplished either by selecting a special exercise or a training technique favoring the development of the muscle group (e.g. iso-dynamic contractions are great to build the back, biceps, and hamstrings).

Originally Posted by Rocco32

Diet is going to go to very low carb. Most carbs being from veggies. Did one of those blood test thingies that lets you know what your deficient in and what your over in. One of the things stressed was for my blood type, O+, my body doens't process carbs very well. This makes sense to me because whenever I've done no to low carb diets...I feel better. Or when I do Carb cycling, on my no carb days I feel much better than the days I have carbs. It'll take a little while to iron out what exactly my diet will look like!

Originally Posted by Rocco32

One of the things stressed was for my blood type, O+, my body doens't process carbs very well.

Originally Posted by Archangel

I'm O+ too, interesting!!! I know because I'm basically a endo/mesomorph that I need to watch my carb intake anyway, but thats really interesting!!!

Originally Posted by Triple Threat

Interesting routine, good luck with it. Do you have the link to it? It might be something I'd be interested in down the line.

I'm O+ also, and I had never heard of that before. I may have to some online searching.

Originally Posted by IainDaniel

O+ is the most common Blood type with approximately 40% of people having that blood type.

Originally Posted by IainDaniel

I find it hard to believe that a good portion of the population are carb sensitive. O+ is the most common Blood type with approximately 40% of people having that blood type.

Just my thoughts

Originally Posted by IainDaniel

I find it hard to believe that a good portion of the population are carb sensitive. O+ is the most common Blood type with approximately 40% of people having that blood type.

Just my thoughts

Originally Posted by Stewart20

how about O- ?

Originally Posted by Rocco32

And more than half the population is obese. Right back atcha

Originally Posted by IainDaniel

LOL.... that has more to do with lazy life styles and crappy eating habits. ala McPukes and Pizza Slut

Hows things going David long time no talk