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Typical Key Features of
the Method
1. Using a weight that is heavy for the set, ie you pick a weight that is
the maximum weight you can use for your target rep range.
2. The number of sets performed is low, ie for each muscle group trained you do
the minimum number of sets required to fatigue the muscle, usually between 1 and
6 sets.
3. The reps are executed in good form throughout, with an avoidance of forced
reps or training past the failure point.
4. Great emphasis is placed on keeping all loading parameters the same, with the
exception of the weight being used, which should be increased by the smallest
amount possible at each workout.
5. The exercises chosen are ones that allow progressive overload, typically
'basic movements' rather than complex or isolation movements.
6. Recovery times between workouts are generally longer than may be used in
other methods.
Possible
Advantages
1. The amount of time spent in the gym is less than with other methods.
2. The program is 'simple' to follow, there are no complex pyramids, cycles and
the like.
3. The program doesn't become life absorbing, you have sufficient energy to go
to work, play with the kids etc.
4. Progress is easy to observe. If you are getting stronger, in the optimum rep
range, at some point you will increase muscle size.
Possible
Disadvantages
1. Increasing the weight at every workout becomes virtually, if not totally,
impossible over the long run, and therefore overload comes to a halt.
2. The mental and physical demand of reaching full muscle workouts in a single
set can be beyond some peoples resolve/motivation/desire, and the required
training intensity is not reached (this is why some HIT schemes contain up to 6
sets per body part).
3. There is insufficient exercise variety to stimulate all components of a
muscle, and therefore you may be missing out on some aspects of maximising
muscle growth.
4. If you jump straight into heavy duty style reps of training far beyond
failure without giving prior due care to fully warming up your musculature then
you risk serious injury. Never underestimate the damage that can be caused by
poor form or a lack of warm-up on even the lightest sets, let alone critically
hard post failure training such as rest pause and heavy negatives.
Applicability
HIT is especially useful to hard gainers, naturally thin people, or those
who find it hard to recover from higher volume workouts. It benefits all those
who have followed high volume, pumping type training for 12 months or more, or
those with at least 2 years training experience behind them. Obviously, its
ideal for those with limited time.
Often, people who
are more naturally heavy, gain muscle or weight quite easily and have good
muscular endurance don't take to this type of training. Women similarly benefit
from higher training volumes as they generally struggle to generate the required
intensity in limited set training.
Putting it into
Practice
There are a number of different ways of putting this method into practice,
please refer to the routines on the previous page.
What Is It
High Intensity Training (HIT) has probably been the subject of more controversy
than any other subject in weight training. Nonetheless, it does have a valid
scientific basis and has a large following.
The principle behind HIT is to do
the minimum volume of work required to stimulate growth. This in turn provides
the maximum opportunity for recovery, which optimises the weight trainers
ability to progressively overload the muscle. This results in the fastest gains
possible, in the minimum time period, with the minimum of training time.
So what is the basic
theory behind HIT? Well, lets face it, nobody actually knows what makes a muscle
grow. We have theory after theory and we have a pretty good understanding of
many aspects of muscle building but there is so much more that we do not know.
HIT can be considered an extreme viewpoint. However, when logically analysed, it
is no more bizarre in its methodology than any other form of resistance
training. For instance, who ever said a muscle has to move through a range of
motion to make it grow? Why? You have to use light weights so you can get past
the weakest range and so your muscles are always working sub-maximally in the
strongest range, causing a limitation to your muscle fibre recruitment. Whoever
said, that the magic formula of three sets per exercise and three exercises per
muscle group was the key and why? Why 9 sets over three movements. What
specifically creates this magic environment for muscle building at this number?
Nobody knows. We do know, however, that lots of people are building lots of
muscle with various methods and HIT works in the real world whether people like
to believe it or not.
Now, the fundamental
principle to understand in HIT training is that of systemic recovery. This means
that every time that you train, every single time, you are causing not only
localised stress to a particular muscle group or body part but are putting a
huge drain on the reserves of your entire nervous system. A drain on your
nervous system whether it be leg day or chest day etc. Not only that, but when
it comes to bodybuilding, HIT advocates are famous for there saying that
everyday is 'liver' day. What this means is your body has to work hard everyday
to build and assimilate the foods that you are eating into new functioning
skeletal muscle tissue. Again a drain on your system, that can only take so
much. And so the key focus of HIT training is to maximise recovery. So how does
one maximise recovery?
In short, one
maximises recovery by doing the absolute minimum possible to stimulate muscular
growth. You are looking for the fastest and quickest method to stimulate the
growth response of the body. And HIT advocates believe this to be possible with
just one very brief and intense set of one exercise, at its most extreme. This
means chest training can be performed once in a while with a brutal set of chest
press and then you go home and eat. We know for a fact that intensity is a key
determinant factor in muscular growth. Can this be done in just one set? Well,
most HIT advocates believe training is a brief and simple stimulation based upon
progression. If one was to enter a dark room and flick the light switch, the
room would be illuminated. Once it is done, it is done. One does not have to
keep flicking the switch on and off again and again, for this would cause wear
and tear and eventual damage to the light switch and light bulb. The same goes
for HIT training. Once a muscle has been stimulate past the point of failure
where it has never been pushed before it will trigger the growth response and so
cause you to build muscle. Of course you must consistently, over time, apply
further increased demands upon your muscle or it will never be forced to grow.
What you have here is a method that actually encourages less. The less the
better. The more stimulation you can create in the least shortest space of time
will yield the greatest results. Anything that prolongs trauma and stress upon
your nervous system, i.e. multiple sets and volume, the less you will recovery
and find it harder and harder to grow.
To be fair, in terms
of volume training, if one was to believe that a muscle needed further
stimulation from more exercises or more sets of exercises in order to cause an
overload and a response to grow, you would find your workouts getting longer and
longer and longer. After a few years of training you would be in the gym
everyday for hours because you would have increased the volume so much. This is
ludicrous. We already know that if you train too often or for too long then you
will yield negative results and actually regress rather than progress. And so
logically thinking, if you follow the trend, the opposite scale tells you to
decrease volume and increase intensity. This is because you cannot have both
factors at the same time. You cannot train for long periods of time at the
highest intensity. It is impossible. To train with volume you must lower the
overall intensity.
Intensity should not
be mixed up with perceived effort. Running a marathon is a high volume activity.
It takes a long time of muscular output. Nobody is saying that because this is
high muscle output volume that it is not hard. We are saying that your perceived
effort is through the roof. Only the intensity of muscular output is very minute
and so the leg muscles can keep going on and on. Whereas if you train a brutal
set of chest presses past the point of positive failure, and then have a partner
assist you with a few negatives and then a few assisted reps, you will of course
discover that you cannot keep doing this as the intensity is so high the
exercise must be ceased. However, your perception of effort still remains high
for both activities. It is just different.
One of the key
thoughts behind HIT training is that your sets should be performed very strict
and controlled. Instead of thinking in terms of sets, think only in terms of
reps. Whereas you will not be performing ten sets, rather just ten reps, and so
every rep should be the very best and performed to your maximal level possible
at all times. If you can't do that, then the rep is irrelevant and does not
count for anything.
The Growth Rep
Now, this is the
part of HIT training that is most frowned upon. We know that the body must be
placed under muscular stress that it is not used to in order for it to trigger a
growth response. HIT promotes the idea that if your set is ten reps long and you
only manage nine, or the tenth rep is pitiful, then you will not trigger a
response. It is almost like the first nine reps are merely a warm up and the
last, final and complete rep is your growth rep. A concept that makes simple
logical sense, yet does have a hard time to stand up in realm of scientific
reasoning precisely. No matter what the science, or the true trigger of the
growth response, you will find that HIT suits those who can train with great
intensity for brief and infrequent workouts.
HIT has been tried
and tested by amateurs and professionals alike. Mike Mentzer and Dorian Yates
being two of the more famous pro's using this method, although not exclusively
used by them. After Mentzer and, especially Yates, in Britain, HIT is becoming
more a normality than volume training. Again there are extremes on the views of
HIT. Some people advocate training a body part once every seven days, while some
upto once every sixteen days. And ranging from 1 set all of the way upto 3 sets.
Is HIT Just
Strength Training?
Bottom line, no. HIT
is all about maximising intensity in the shortest space of time, and may involve
the use of various intensifying techniques as outlined in the exercise
techniques section of the web site. Your aim is to cause the most muscle
stimulation for growth in the shortest space of time, which will inevitably lead
to strength gains. Strength training often involves training in a periodised
fashion, sub-maximally for much time, with low reps (1 - 5) in order to
stimulate specific strength muscle fibres. To learn more about different fibre
recruitments have a look at the section on inside
a muscle.
The Importance
and Confusion of Warm-ups
It is irresponsible
and useless to even attempt to train in HIT fashion with maximal weight to
absolute highest levels of intensity without a thorough and prior warm-up first.
Some advocates recommend a number of progressively heavier sets working upto
your work set. This means you would perform 3 or 4 progressively heavier sets
not to failure, before reaching the weight for your working set. Dorian Yates
typically performs around three warm-up sets on his exercises. Mike Mentzer used
to perform anywhere from three upto fourteen warmups as he built upto his
supposed work set. Now we know that much volume training theory is based on
training sub maximally. You often train to points near but not quite failure
with much volume training methods. Are these the same as HIT warm-up sets? This
is an area of much debate. In terms of HIT theory these sets are useless for
adaptive responses by the body, as if they are not to failure, they are well
within the bodies abilities to handle. This being the case, they would serve no
other purpose than to warm up the muscle and joints being worked. Volume
trainers may argue much differently.
Training Your
Brain
One of the
fundamental arguments against extreme high intensity methods to extreme muscle
failure is a point raised by Arthur Jones, a forerunner of HIT training, and the
inventor of the Nautilus equipment, before this term was coined, and now scientifically proven. The principle of
training your brain and nervous system. Now this is a very interesting and
important point that many people should take note of and decide for yourself
what you think. Now, the human body is an adaptegenic organism. It adapts very
well indeed to the stimuli you place upon it. Biologically, physiologically you
will adapt. Your nervous system adapts and your muscular system adapts. And your
brain and your nervous system are very clever things indeed. They are clever
because they learn.
Does anybody
remember the Pavlov's dog study? Pavlov was a psychologist that ran a very
famous stimulus-response experiment. What happened was Pavlov had a group of
dogs that when he was about to feed them, he would ring a bell. And as he rang
the bell the dogs would come running and salivate, hungry and ready for food.
After a very short space of time, Pavlov could merely ring his bell, with no
food whatsoever and still elicit the same salivating and running response in his
dogs. This response remained. The dogs had learnt.
Another example for
those of you who drive. When you first start learning to drive you have to
consciously think about what it is that you are doing. You must think very
clearly about what you are doing, pressing the clutch, observing, turning the
wheel, changing gears etc. You may talk to yourself in your own head and even
make mental images of what you are doing and about to do. This makes it hard to
concentrate, until you learn. Once you learn how to drive, all of these drop
down into your subconscious processes, making driving entirely automatic. Your
brain and nervous system has learnt. And your muscle's and motor units etc have
also learnt. Now you can listen to music, talk and drive all automatically.
When you train with
weights, not only are your muscles responding and being trained but you are also
training your nervous system. You are training your brain. Now, there is a huge
difference between perceived failure and actual full blown momentary muscular
failure. Most people dont have the ability to put in enough intensity to
actually achieve true muscular failure, only they still do fail. This is
actually just their perception of failure, not true failure, but once the nerves
stop firing and the muscle stops contracting, you have ceased your exercise.
This means you have in effect failed. When you train with such high intensity
intensifiers such as drop sets and negatives and rest pause training, well
beyond the point of positive failure you are causing much stress, trauma and
damage to, not only your muscle fibre, but your whole autonomic nervous system.
And what you are essentially doing here is training your body to fail. You are
training it to feel unnecessary pain and discomfort beyond its abilities and
this can even strike fear of the thought of a workout - such as when trainers
fear leg workouts. When you train your brain and nervous system, you are also
training the muscle at the site of contraction, how to and shut down the
muscular contractions. Next time you work out it is highly possible that your
brain and nervous system don't want to experience this pain and discomfort you
have trained it to respond to with such resistance training stimulus and so you
nervous system terminates the exercise long before true muscular failure. This
is proven science. Training your body to total failure all of the time, may
cause you to limit your progress and results. We know for sure that this
stimulus response actually happens. We are not sure yet whether or how much it
may limit your growth.
Dorian Yates and
many other advocates of HIT, and those of other schools of thought, have
proclaimed that one should terminate the exercise one rep prior to total
muscular failure. This way you never train the body to fail. You train it to be
successful at the target rep range to your near maximum. This doesn't mean you
take it easy. It means that every repetition is performed and executed
perfectly. There is no cheating or bouncing or forcing the weights. You are able
to control and handle the weight and stop before that rep where your arms and
legs shake and your whole body trembles and you try your damn hardest to move
that weight, yet it will not move. What is happening here is your nervous system
is being exhausted by firing nerves and firing and firing and no muscle tissue
is contracting as it has reached positive muscle failure.
So how intense does
one go? This is a question you will have to try a little personal
experimentation with. Needless to say, training past the point of total muscular
failure on a regular basis can lead to exhaustion of your nervous system and
recovery ability - causing your gains to come to a grinding halt.
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