THT 4.0 HIT Experiment Week #4

 I'm not your typical bodybuilder. I'm an "IT guy", a car tuner, a model train enthusiast and a PC gamer. I'm also a classic "hardgainer". Ask away with any questions you might have! Read more from this author

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This was “the” week. After 3 weeks of solid, linear gains and also my first real hiccup, I was unsure of what I was up against. I was optimistic, I was upbeat about the week to come. But truthfully, I couldn’t call whether I was going to see a full fourth week of gains. So, off to the gym I went.

Day #1:

• Hack squats – 330lbs x 7
• Smith machine bench press – 260lns x 8
• Pec deck: 310lbs x 6 (moved to Smith incline bench mid-week)
• Seated cabled row (narrow grip): 240lbs x 8
• Seated calf raises: 200lbs x 7
• Seated cabled overhead press: 170lbs x 5 (this was a HUGE accomplishment for me)
• Seated cabled ab crunches: 205lbs x 65 (sets of 25 and then the remainder)
• Standing cabled single-handed curls: 85lbs x 8
• Smith machine trap shrugs – 340lbs x 8 (kicked down to 270lbs after analysis after Day 1)
• Cabled triceps pushdowns – 230lbs x 5 (switched to single-hand mid-week)

Day #4:

• Hack squats – 340lbs x 7 (got lower than 90 degrees, was stoked!)
• Smith machine bench press: -270lbs x 7 (really pushing these reps, banged out an extra 2 after a short break – I want mass!)
• Smith machine incline bench press – 180lbs x 6 (might have a bit more in me here – going for 8 reps or better on Thurs.)
• Seated cabled rows – 250lbs x 7 (loving these narrow grip rows, switching to 90-degree triangle grip next week)
• Seated calf raises – 210lbs x 6 (likely only going up 5lbs middle of next week, here comes the grind!)
• Seated cabled overhead press – 170lbs x 7 (day #3 was 6.5 reps. I earned every one this week!)
• Standing cabled single-handed curls: 90lbs x 8 (I love isolations for biceps)
• Smith machine trap shrugs – 270lbs x 8 (like I said, I went down a fair amount to get the range of motion I needed)
• Standing tricep push-downs – 75lbs x 8

This week was a learning week. I learned that I needed to lower my calf raise weight to lift right. I learned that I wasn’t getting enough RoM on my trap shrugs and lowered my weight there too. I also moved to incline presses and have added in a 3rd set of pec deck (max weight, to exhaustion) when I have time to ensure my chest gets obliterated. Also, I found that my opening warmups for hack squats get deeper and deeper – and my quads love me for it.

Some might look at this week and go “What the hell? He dropped weight?”. My answer to that is “I sure did!”. The numbers don’t matter. What matters is that you complete your repetitions to failure for your given rep range with the correct range of motion, hitting your Peak Contraction Point where you can.

Lift right. Lift HARD. Train smart – and to borrow one from Mark, intensely! Eat right, drink right and sleep lots!

Follow all of these things and your MuscleHack successes will build up – and your lean mass will come up too!

All the best, MuscleHackers!

Adam

Related posts:

1. THT 4.0 HIT Experiment Week #3
2. Total Anabolism 4.0 HIT Experiment, Week #2 tally
3. Total Anabolism 4.0 HIT Experiment, Week #1