[EricW]

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look up stuff on HST style workouts... the theory behind them is to start very light after doing nothing for a while and shocking your muscles continuously for a set period. Every workout you increase your weight and decrease reps slightly, not allowing your muscles to "get used" to the exercises.

Supposedly this allows for large muscle mass gains even though strength-wise you may not make huge gains.

You do these in cycles, and then let your body fully rest and recover for a couple weeks of no activity before starting a new set of exercises...

This is what I remember about it anyway, its been a year or so since I looked this stuff up

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HST is good stuff. To clarify your post, you're supposed to decondition your muscles so they respond to lighter stimulus. This way your muscles will hypertrophy even when you're progressively increasing with lighter weights.