finding my 15, 10 and 5 RM

M

m-set

New Member
Hello
My first post here - thanks to ectosquat for the summary posts which really helped. This is going to seem like a dumb question, but here goes. I'm 40 years old and I haven't done any strength training for a long, long time, and my muscles are.... atrophied, to say the least, although you probably wouldn't think the situation was that bad by looking at me, since I suspect I have a good genetic framework.

When I go to the gym to establish my 15,10 and 5 rep max.... how will it work? On the first day, I will put some weight on a bar and do a few bench presses. I will fail at some point, because I'm too weak. So that will be too high - I'll take some weight off and see if I can get to 15. Maybe I will, but if I don't, I will have to try again. At my muscle mass level, I am going to be in bad shape already - how will I know that what I come up is an accurate number for my 15 rep max? If I could go to the gym every day and try with a fresh start, eventually I could know my accurate, starting-from-rest 15 rep max, but... I am just wondering how someone who hasn't done any weight training should establish this (important) series of numbers for the first HST cycle.

Should I start to find my max by putting very little weight on, i.e. build up to the 15 RM? Again, this will gradually weaken me so that there is a chance that the number I come up with will be less than the actual 15 RM. This may all seem kind of nitpicky but I am a true beginner and want to make sure I am doing things 'right'. Most probably the answer is 'Make your best effort to come up with an accurate number and adjust as you go through the first few weeks.

Another problem I forsee is that there do not exist freeweights in small enough increments to allow me to graduate the load over 6 workouts for i.e. bi curls, if I am following the chart below. Am I that weak? lol........... I may be

Workout 1 (Week 1, Monday)-10lbs
Workout 2 (Week 1, Wednesday)-12.5lbs
Workout 3 (Week 1, Friday)-15lbs
Workout 4 (Week 2, Monday)-17.5lbs
Workout 5 (Week 2, Wednesday)-20lbs
Workout 6 (Week 2, Friday)- 22.5lbs

It doesn't seem to me that there's a hope in hell that I will be doing 15 bi curls of a 22.5 pound weight within 14 days of starting this process.... and how much lower could the increments go? Don't laugh, you guys :)

Thanks, Nik
 
lol.... well, this seemed like a friendly site. Guess this isn't the place for newbs.

Thanks for the help. All the best
 
Hi. I thought I'd post my thoughts here for you, although I'm somewhat new to lifting, having only been doing it for a little over a year, and am completely new to HST.

First of all, I think you might want to take a good week to figure out your RMs, since you said you are very out of shape. I think it is much easier to determine RMs if you are at least familiar with your own strength level, so you should try and get familiar with your own.
Having a partner to help you, or going to a gym is probably mandatory for this, especially when you are figuring out your RMs for stuff like bench presses or squats. You don't want to end up killing yourself trying to find your 5 RM.
So go to a gym or find a training partner, then take your time.

I spent some time this morning figuring out my RMs, but I workout fairly regularly and in 10 rep sets usually, so I had a fair idea of what to expect.
What I did was loaded up the weights to somewhere near what I thought I could do in 15 reps. Then I tried it. If I felt like I could keep going after the 15th rep, I loaded 5 or 10 pounds more and tried again. I only had to increase the weight on a couple of exercises, the other exercises I was more or less accurate. In one case I had a little too much.
Then I did the same for my 10s and 5s. I dont know if this will hold true for you, by my 5s and 10s were all within about 10 pounds of each other. So that helped out. Once I knew my 15s, it was really easy to figure out the 10s and 5s. So keep that in mind, it might help you out.

Hope that helps.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Totentanz @ Jan. 08 2005,1:59)]By the way, the thread linked below had a lot of information that helped me out, so maybe it'll help you out.
http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/cgi-bin....5;t=279
Click to expand...
Hi Totentanz
Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply - as I said, I thought that maybe some of the more experienced guys here would be willing to respond to a specific question from someone who spent some time reviewing the program before posting, but... guess not. Actually I am a bit surprised as sites like this are usually pretty friendly. Maybe the HST world is too cool for that (you excluded of course). I just found another site with forums (heavyweights.net) so I am hoping for some better luck over there.
I had already checked out that page but thanks anyway. If I want to try HST I will just have to wing it, I guess. Your description of your process helped.
 
You seem to be very cheeky, saying how you thought this forum would be friendly to newbies, as if it wasn't.
A lack of responses isn't due to unfriendliness, take a look at how many active posters this forum has, not many, that's why the replies took a while.
But anyway, I am having the same problem as you trying to find my maxes, another worry for me is when I find my max BB Row (10s) will it affect my max for Chin Ups, I have, over a few days though, found my maxes for 10s, I'll have to find my maxes for 15s and 5s soon too.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (XRoader @ Feb. 01 2005,2:15)]You seem to be very cheeky, saying how you thought this forum would be friendly to newbies, as if it wasn't.
A lack of responses isn't due to unfriendliness, take a look at how many active posters this forum has, not many, that's why the replies took a while.
Click to expand...
Just calling it like I see it - and if you review some of the posts by regulars here at the same time, you will find that there were plenty of people around and lots of discussion going on at that time. Is one month not long enough for a someone to volunteer some info?
I posted at the other site and got a bunch of friendly and informative responses right away.
Bottom line - they have a right to run an 'experts only' board here - I have no problem with that. But why even maintain a beginners forum if that's the intention? Also, this is a business - why turn away potential customers?
 
As for your comment about the increments... for some exercises where the loads are really low, I increment by 2.5. You can't do it evenly, so I just stick an extra 2.5 plate on one side anyway. It seems to be working well enough for me. I'm just into my first week of 10s and I've gained about 5 pounds already.

You can repeat weights too, as long as you don't repeat too much. So in your example, you could just do 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 20. But personally, I would go ahead and use the extra plate and do the 2.5 increments.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Totentanz @ Feb. 01 2005,9:57)]As for your comment about the increments... for some exercises where the loads are really low, I increment by 2.5. You can't do it evenly, so I just stick an extra 2.5 plate on one side anyway. It seems to be working well enough for me. I'm just into my first week of 10s and I've gained about 5 pounds already.
You can repeat weights too, as long as you don't repeat too much. So in your example, you could just do 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 20. But personally, I would go ahead and use the extra plate and do the 2.5 increments.
Click to expand...
Hello

Wow, that is amazing!! Such gains already! Sounds like you are doing the program properly. Thanks for the tip and thanks for taking the time to post.

I have been working out at my local gym but now I see that I need to ge a set of freewights because the gym has only these molded dumbells which are not adaptable. So I cannot increase weight incrementally as you describe. Ah, well, it will be worth the investment, I am sure.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top