Hypertrophy Specific Training is Bryan Haycock’s method, and its defining idea is that you work through descending rep blocks rather than a single rep range. Two weeks of 15s, two weeks of 10s, two weeks of 5s, then two weeks holding those 5RM weights and adding negatives. Twenty-four workouts, three a week, eight weeks total.
Inside each block you work backwards from your rep max. If your 15RM squat is 280 and you’re stepping by 20 lb, the sixth workout of the block is 280 and the first is 180. So every block starts easy and finishes at a true max for those reps, and the weight goes up every single session. Haycock built it around mechanical load, chronic stimulus, progressive load and strategic deconditioning, which is the fancy way of saying: hit the muscle often, keep adding weight, then take a week off before your body stops responding.
It suits bodybuilders best, though powerlifters use it off-season to add size and work capacity. The catch is the session length: eleven exercises three times a week means a long time on the gym floor, and the 15-rep block in particular is grim. If you want the same full-body frequency with fewer movements, the Texas Method is a shorter session.
Table of Contents
Hypertrophy Specific Training Spreadsheet
Enter your 15RM, 10RM and 5RM for each lift plus the increment you want to step by, and all 24 workouts fill in. This is an adaptation by Tim in Vermont rather than Haycock’s official file: it’s drastically simpler, it keeps the training principles, and it works in Google Sheets so you can use it on your phone. His original write-up is archived here.
Note: Bryan Haycock’s own site and the official HST spreadsheets are both offline. hypertrophyspecific.com no longer resolves; the last working copy is in the archive. The novice, intermediate and advanced Excel files that used to be hosted on pro-technix.com went with it, so the sheet above is the version that still runs.
HST Program Overview
- Length: 8 weeks, 24 workouts
- Frequency: 3 full body workouts per week (the sheet lays them out Monday, Wednesday, Friday)
- Structure: all three compound lifts every session, plus 8 accessories
- Sets: 1 or 2 per movement, never more
- Loading: ramped backwards from your rep max for the block, stepping up every workout
- Inputs: a 15RM, 10RM and 5RM per exercise, plus a per-exercise increment
The Four Blocks
| Workouts | Weeks | Reps | Loading |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-6 | 1-2 | 15 | Ramp to your 15RM on workout 6 |
| 7-12 | 3-4 | 10 | Ramp to your 10RM on workout 12 |
| 13-18 | 5-6 | 5 | Ramp to your 5RM on workout 18 |
| 19-24 | 7-8 | 5, then negatives | Keep climbing past your 5RM; the last three sessions are eccentric-only |
Squat and dips are the two exceptions in the last block: the sheet leaves them off the negatives and stops them at workout 21. Loaded eccentric-only squats are a bad idea without a serious spotter, and Tim clearly agreed.
The Exercises
| Movement | Sets | Default increment |
|---|---|---|
| Squat | 2 | 20 lb |
| Deadlift | 2 | 20 lb |
| Bench press | 2 | 10 lb |
| Barbell rows | 2 | 10 lb |
| Incline dumbbell press | 2 | 5 lb |
| Dumbbell rows | 1 | 10 lb |
| Dips (weighted) | 1 | 2.5 lb |
| Chin-ups (weighted) | 1 | 2.5 lb |
| Overhead press | 1 | 5 lb |
| Barbell curls | 1 | 5 lb |
| Skullcrushers | 1 | 5 lb |
The increments are editable and the ones above are just the sheet’s defaults. Pick them by how much weight a lift can realistically absorb over six sessions: a squat can take 20 lb steps, weighted dips can’t.
What Happens After Week 8
You take a week completely off. That’s the strategic deconditioning part, and it’s not optional padding: the whole model assumes your muscle gets progressively less responsive to a given load, and the week off is what resets that. Then retest or re-estimate your rep maxes and start again from the 10-rep block. Go back to 15s only if you come back sore from the first sessions.
HST FAQs
Do I have to test three rep maxes before I start?
Testing all three for eleven exercises would take a week you don’t want to spend. Estimate instead. Take a recent hard set, work out roughly what you’d manage for 15, 10 and 5, and round down. The first workout of each block is well below the max anyway, so an estimate that’s 10 lb light costs you almost nothing and an estimate that’s 20 lb heavy costs you the whole block.
Two sets is barely anything. Is that really enough?
It’s the trade for the frequency. Every muscle gets worked three times a week, so the weekly set count lands in a normal range even though each session looks thin. If you add sets you’ll struggle to keep adding weight every workout, and adding weight every workout is what makes it work.
What’s a negative in the last block?
An eccentric-only rep. You lower a weight heavier than you can lift, slowly, and get help returning it to the start. You need a partner or a machine for most of them, which is a fair reason to just repeat the 5s instead if you train alone.
Can I swap exercises?
Yes, and the sheet doesn’t care what you name a row. Keep the pattern rather than the exact lift: a horizontal press, a vertical press, a horizontal pull, a vertical pull, a squat, a hinge. Keep it at eleven movements.
Is this good for a cut?
The rep-max ramp assumes you can add weight every session, and in a deficit you can’t, so the last block will stall out. It’s built for maintenance calories or a surplus. On a cut you’d be better served by holding loads steady rather than chasing a progression you can’t feed.
Updates
- Added HST’s actual 15/10/5 rep-block structure, which the post never mentioned: how each block ramps backwards from your rep max, the exercise and set breakdown, the negatives block and the deconditioning week. All four external links had died at the DNS level, including Bryan Haycock’s own site and the official spreadsheets; the two that matter now point at archived copies, and the section offering the Excel-only novice/intermediate/advanced files was removed because that download no longer exists anywhere.
