Couple of questions about Hypertrophy II

[Phate]

I'm just starting my 4 week of Hypertrophy I and everything is going good. I plan on doing H2 next, I just have a couple of questions.
1. On Workout A the second superset has wide grip seated rows then Dumbell incline presses then dips. Are you supposed to do this like a triad? One set of seated rows, rest, one set of incline presses, rest, one set of dips, rest, repeat.
2. There is only 1 lower body day. With 1 hip dominant(deads) and 2 quad dominant(lunge and step up) for the entire week, no squats at all for 2 months. That seems terribly out of balanced with all the upper body work for the other 2 days. Just curious what anyones thoughts were on that.
3. What is the difference between the towel bicep curl vs. a regular hammer curl?
Thanks in advance for any help.

[flying scotsman]

Originally Posted by Phate

I'm just starting my 4 week of Hypertrophy I and everything is going good. I plan on doing H2 next, I just have a couple of questions.
1. On Workout A the second superset has wide grip seated rows then Dumbell incline presses then dips. Are you supposed to do this like a triad? One set of seated rows, rest, one set of incline presses, rest, one set of dips, rest, repeat.

This is a mistake in the book. Only the wide-grip seated row and the DB incline bench press are to be supersetted with full rest. The dips are to be done as straight sets.

Originally Posted by Phate

2. There is only 1 lower body day. With 1 hip dominant(deads) and 2 quad dominant(lunge and step up) for the entire week, no squats at all for 2 months. That seems terribly out of balanced with all the upper body work for the other 2 days. Just curious what anyones thoughts were on that.

If you analyse each of the upper body workouts by movement you will see:

Workout A:
horizontal pull
horizontal push

horizontal pull
horizontal push

horizontal push (tricep dominant)

Workout C:
vertical pull
vertical push

vertical pull
vertical push

bicep curl

Remember that one of the main themes of the book is to encourage you to think of movement, not muscles, so the two upper body workouts are balanced by 4 main movements.

Wirh regards to your comments about squatting - if you have done hypertrophy 1 then you will have noticed that squats were the dominant lower body exercise (being the first exercise of the training day). In hypertrohpy 2 deadlifts were the dominant lower bofy exercise (also the first exercise of the training day).
In both hypertrophy 1 and 2 there are lunges, step-ups and bulgarian split squats in which the lines between whether the quads or hips are most dominant are more blurry.

Don't worry about not squatting for 8 weeks, your quads will still be getting in plenty of work.

Originally Posted by Phate

3. What is the difference between the towel bicep curl vs. a regular hammer curl?
Thanks in advance for any help.

A towel grip presents an extra challenge on your grip. Also, for each and every set there is a greater chance of you gripping the towel with differring amounts of material within your fingers and palm of hand, thus you will create a non-uniform grip, possibly being off-set, i.e. not centred as opposed to gripping the centre of a dumbell. This all aids in inducing hypertrophy.

I hope this has been of some help Phate.

Ian

[Phate]

I understand the movement planes. As far as being unbalalnced I was refering to the loading during the week. In H1 you have 6 upper and 4 lower done twice a week. So you would have:
Day 1
Horiz Push
Horiz Pull
Vert Push
Vert Pull
Horiz Push
Vert Pull

Day2
Quad Dom
Hip Dom
Quad dom
Hip Dom

Done twice a week 12 upper body exercise, 8 lower body

But over the span of one week in H2 you have:
10 upper body exercises(2 Horiz Push, 2 Horiz Pull, 2 Vert push. 2 Vert Pull and 2 iso, I know dips are a comppound)
3 lower body exercise(2 hip, 1 quad)

[flying scotsman]

Originally Posted by Phate

I understand the movement planes. As far as being unbalalnced I was refering to the loading during the week. In H1 you have 6 upper and 4 lower done twice a week. So you would have:
Day 1
Horiz Push
Horiz Pull
Vert Push
Vert Pull
Horiz Push
Vert Pull

Day2
Quad Dom
Hip Dom
Quad dom
Hip Dom

Done twice a week 12 upper body exercise, 8 lower body

But over the span of one week in H2 you have:
10 upper body exercises(2 Horiz Push, 2 Horiz Pull, 2 Vert push. 2 Vert Pull and 2 iso, I know dips are a comppound)
3 lower body exercise(2 hip, 1 quad)

Phate, Hypertrophy 1 consists of two workouts and these are done alternately. Over two weeks you will do A-B-A and then B-A-B. Balance between movement planes is done over two weeks, not one.

Hypertrophy 2 consists of three workouts and these are done A-B-C each week in order, so balance between movement planes is done over one week, not two.

Note also that every phase of every program is inherently unbalanced since the movement or exercise that is done first in the training week and first on the training day is getting priority. So if you want to prioritise lower body movement in your next phase you could start Hypertrophy 3 with workout B, assuming you move onto this program after Hypretrohpy 2.

Ian

[Phate]

I've actually been doing H1 4 times a week like this:
Sunday -A
Tuesday - B
Thursday - A
Saturday - B
So Saturday and Sunday are back to back.

I don't think I'm explaining the issue with balance very well on H2. I was strictly speaking of upper to lower body exercises, not movement planes. 10 upper vs. 3 lower. Seems like it favors upper body. The reason I bring it up is because I feel my lower body lags behind my upper body. I can bench more than I can full squat.
I do see your point about squats being priorty in H1 and deads being priority in H2. Anyway, it doesn't matter, I'll do the program the way its written. I am planning on going on to Strength 1 after H2.

Thanks for you help on my other questions.