THVT: The Holmes's Vector Training

Introduction and Overview

THVT is an easy to follow lifting program that focuses on three major goals necessary for serious strength. Its primary target is increased strength and size, but additionally enhances muscle endurance as a means to increase your capacity to increase your strenght.

The program is exercise independent, and does not attempt to suggest that you do this exercise or that exercise. It leaves that part up to you. What is does focus on however, is how you lift each of the exercises that you select.

Who is THVT for? Anyone who is looking to get bigger and stronger, with real world strength. It is not for serious powerlifters, it is not for advanced body-builders (those who are concerned with look over strength). It is not for those who simply go to the gym to exercise for 45 minutes a day. If you don't want to get bigger and stronger, look elsewhere.

It is for those who want to improve themselves. It is for those who want to see that they are progressing towards a defined goal. It is for those who have hit walls in their training. It is for those whose workouts are monotous, boring, aimless and are looking for a program that gets you fired up about your lifting on a day-to-day basis.

CHANGE = PROGRESS

Pickup any weightlifting magazine, or talk to anyone who knows what they are doing at the gym and you will hear lots of advice, most of it contradictory. One aspect that they all agree on however, is that change is very important. Change your exercises, change your reps, change the order of the exercises, change the rest period, etc.

When speaking of this change, the most commonly discussed technique of change is the number of reps that you should be targeting. Most experienced lifters know that you do low reps/heavy weights for strength, medium reps and weight for size, and high reps/low weight for muscle endurance and calorie burning. Using this as a guideline, many lifters will "go heavy" for six weeks, then "go light" for another six, etc., thereby incorporating the concept of change into their workout.

THVT does not operate like this.

THVT is a lifting theory that forces change into every single workout. In fact, change is its foundation.

THVT is centered around the equation CHANGE=PROGRESS. If you force a lot of change into your workout, you will see a lot of progress. Similarly, by progressing through the program, you will be forcing new changes.

This is essentially what others have been saying, but they don't take it to the levels that are prescribed in THVT. Instead of changing your workout every 6-8 weeks, THVT ensures that every workout is different, usually by just a little bit.

With THVT, every single workout, indeed every single execise, will be different from the previous week. Week by week, the small changes in THVT will build to very large changes. You will be forced to do all types of rep ranges, thereby guaranteeing you get the full benefits of each rep range.

By sticking to the program, you will be forced to do higher reps than you might normally want to do. These higher reps serve a very important role - they are recommended by serious lifters for a reason. Stick with them.

The Program

THVT consists of one long cycle (4-7 months) consisting of three Phases (or Vectors): Reps Phase, Rest Interval Phase, and Weight Phase. All three Phases are linked together, so that the last workout in one phase should be the same as the 1st workout in the following phase. The Cycles are also linked, such that the end of one cycle is the beginning of the next.

Phase Overview

Reps Phase

Rest Interval Phase

Phases and Goals

Each of the Phase goals seem pretty ambitious, and they are. How to get to them? A key component of THVT are the mini-goals along the way. Mini-Goals give you a more realistic goal to achieve, and help guide you through the workouts. Additionally, they ensure the equation of CHANGE=PROGESS, by allowing each workout to be slightly different than the previous one, and allow you to directly track your progress.

Lets see what THVT looks like for each of the phases with an example:

Reps Phase (5 sets, 100 lbs, 3 mins rest interval for the entire Phase)

Rest Interval Phase (5 sets, 100 lbs, 15 Reps for the entire Phase)

Weight Phase (5 sets, increasing weight, increasing Rest Interval)

Mini-Goals

There are some pretty lofty goals at the end of the Phases. Mini-Goals are one of the major facets of THVT. Their benefit is both in the physical aspect of lifting, and the other, perhaps even more important, is psychological.

The Physical benefits to be gained are subtle. By capping the number of reps for the exercise, each time you complete one mini-goal and start towards a new one, you will be increasing the amount of work that your muscles will need to do. Typically, when your first workout after completing a mini-goal (which is the same as the first workout towards a new mini-goal) you will perform usually 4 or 5 of the 5 sets to failure. The next time you do the exercise, you may only do 3-4 of the sets to failure. The time after that, you may only be doing 1 or 2 sets to failure. Over the course of 2 to 4 weeks (the typical amount of time to go from one Mini-goal to the next), your workout has altered the number of pure "work sets" and "failure sets". By constantly changing in this manner, your muscles will always be confused and forced to grow quicker.

Your progress towards a mini-goal will be tracked by the number of consecutive sets that you reach the goal in. For example, the 1st workout you may only be able to reach the goal (lets say it is 8 reps) on the 1st set, but not on the other 4. The next workout, you may be able to do it on the 1st and 2nd sets, but not on the 3rd, 4th, or 5th sets. The 3rd workout you may be able to reach 8 reps on sets 1, 2,3 and 4, but not on set 5.

Note in this example, the 1st workout you are most likely going to failure on all 5 sets. But the 2nd week, you will probably not be going to failure on the 1st set, but you will on sets 2-5. The 3rd week will probably see you going to fail only on the last 2 sets. This is one of the important aspects of change built into THVT - altering the number of fail/non-fail sets.

The psychologial aspects of THVT keep you constantly motivated to reach new heights. Typically, it only takes 2, maybe 3 workouts to move from one mini-goal to completing the next mini-goal. What does this mean? It means that nearly every night you go to sleep, you have either (a) just reached a mini-goal (which gets you fired up), or (b) you will probably reach it on your next work out (which also gets you fired up).

The THVT program shows you your progress constantly! No more doing 5 sets of 8 with the same weight every week. Where is the progress in that? Believe me, this detailed tracking of progress really gets you fired up to do your next workout - you can't wait to reach the new goal. You see your daily progress towards the seemingly impossible goals of each phase, but you know that believe it or not, you will make it. Your trajectory of progress leads directly towards the big goals.

Example

Here is a real example of how well the system works. Below are the actual results from my Dumbell Preacher Curl exercise. Where I couldn't do the same for each arm, it is listed as R/L. Also, improvements from one week to the next are shown in bold.

I highly recommend keeping very detailed log on your workouts. I use an Excel Spreadsheet, so that I can see my total performance to date, as well as what I did last week and what I should expect this week. This is very important!!!!

Why it Works

Why does this program work? Change is the answer for the physical side, Progress for the mental side. That was easy.

But why is change good for building strength and muscle?

Lets look at it from the short term, within the span of a few Mini-Goals and the long term, covering a span of more than one cycle

Short Term

Your body is very good at adapting and becoming efficient at a repetitive task. Very good. Efficiency does not force our bodies to adapt - in fact it does the opposite - because it requires less energy to do the job due to efficiency, your body can "relax" a bit more. Change is the way that you never allow your body to relax.

Some days you are going to failure on every set. Other days, only 2 sets are to failure. This is good and confusing to your muscles and nervous system. Going to fail on all 5 sets every week may sound tough and intense and admirable, but the truth is you are better served mixing it up. Get some work sets in. Give your nervous system a little time to recover.

Long Term

Back to the change in routines from "heavy" to "light" from the beginning of the page. Why is doing something like that recommended? For those of us who train for a few years, we have all hit a wall - a point where we can't seem to lift any heavier weight. Up until that point, we were making great gains every week, but then suddenly, wham! no more gains. Why is this?

It comes down to the foundation of blood vessels and capilaries within your muscles. Once you reach their "capacity", your gains will stop. It is then time to focus on beefing up your cardiovascular system in your muscles, giving it a bigger foundation on which to build more muscle. This is the reason for the high reps and Rest Interval Phase: to build up your cardiovascular foundation.

Make sense? Doing the last few mini-goals of the Reps Phase and all of the Rest Interval phase won't make your bigger or stronger directly, but just wait until the Weight Phase and the next Reps phase! With this newfound bloodwork, you will be able to skyrocket your strength gains. This accomplishes a similar goal to switching from a heavy workout to a lighter one for 6 weeks as so many do.

Tips and Variations

Here are a few ideas that you should consider when setting up your THVT program:

• One tip that I employ across all exercises is that I consider reaching a mini-goal to be when the 1st 4 sets are at the goal, and the 5th set is at the goal behind it. For example, If I consider sets of 10,10,10,10,8 to be sufficient for reaching the 10 mini-goal.
• You don't have to start at the beginning of the Reps phase - I start many of the exercises at 8, 10 or even 12 reps. Balances out the workout a bit.
• Don't over blast your muscles with too many exercises for each muscle group! They will get plenty of work with THVT. If you find yourself doing more than 15 sets for a muscle group, back off. Ideally, 10 sets is plenty.
• One technique that you can use to get strong and develop a good cardiovascular system in your muscles is to do two exercises for a specific muscle group, the first one going heavy and the second one going very light. Using Biceps as an example, I start in the heavy portion of the Reps Phase (at 4 Reps) with Preacher Curls, then do Barbell curls starting towards the end of the Reps Phase (at 12). For Chest/Tris, I do heavy Dips and very light push-ups. When I get into the high range of Dips, then I'll move to heavy Bench Press to balance things out. At that point, I might consider switching their order in my workout, so that the heavy exercise goes first.
• On some exercises, you can drop down to 4 sets or even 3. I use 3 sets when doing Wrist-Rolls for my forarms - If I even tried to do 5 my forearms would explode.
• Don't over work! You should have at least 5 days of rest between doing the same exercise again. Do not be afraid to take a day off, or even an extra day when you don't feel strong or energized. Remember, you can grow when you undertrain, but you can't when you overtrain.
• When you go heavy, use a warmup set!!! Do 1/2 to 2/3 of the weight you are going to do, 6-8 reps
• Space your routine out so that you do not train the same muscle group on consecutive days. Ideally, you should have a few days off before re-hitting the same muscle group. For example, don't do biceps the day after you do back - you will overtrain your biceps and your workouts will suck.
• Creatine and Protein Powder are the most important supplements that you should consider. Get 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight each day! I cannot stress this enough - Protein is incredibly important! Slam some down ASAP in the morning and just before bed, and a few other times throughout the day as well. Your results will be reduced if you don't do this!!!!!!

Summary

Using THVT, you will be focused on obliterating a heavy weight. The thought of doing 5 set of 15 reps with a weight that you can barely handle is mind-blowing. But, it is yours to obtain. It takes some time - this is the Pepe Le Pew method - slow and steady. When you add up all of the slow and steadies though, you'll get what you're after. The weight will first become a little more manageable, then you'll start to kick its ass. Soon, that once heavy weight will be irrelevant to you as you can so easily master it. In effect, it become your bitch.

The micro changes from workout to workout and the macro changes from low reps to high reps, and long rest to light rest will have huge benefits for the next cycle that you do. The mini-goals are key - they keep the workout different and keep you goal oriented instead of just "working out" for an hour or so. You will be amazed with your gains!

Keep this in mind: using THVT, I have never, on any exercise, done worse or the same as the previous workout. Never! Every single exercise, every single day, I have improved. Sometimes just one or 2 reps, but there is a clear, steady march towards the lofty goals.

One of my most outrageous goals is the following: 70lb dumbell preacher curls. When I started, I could do 1 set of 4 (see the example above). In a few months, I will be obliterating 70lb dumbell preacher curls by doing 75 of them in the same time that it took me to do 11(R) and 9(L) when I began. That is over a 700% improvement! It will be done!

Personal Goals

These are a few of the milestones I have achieved and wish to achieve. Just a little timeline for me.