HIT Training 101 HIT Training 101 High Intensity Training High Intensity Training Section targeting Hit Training 101
Saturday, 2010-07-31, 8:26 PM | Welcome Guest
Main | Registration | Login | RSS

HIT Training 101

The simplicity of High Intensity Training to enhance your health and fitness goals

"One does not accumulate but eliminate.  It is not daily increase but daily decrease.  The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.”        -Bruce Lee
 

H.I.T., which is an acronym for High Intensity Training, is characterized by a low volume approach of total sets per workout and brief, intense, infrequent workouts for adequate muscle recovery.  HIT workouts became popular in the 1970’s through the research of Arthur Jones and developed further by others who simply added their own scientific studies to an already effective weight lifting program. 


So who benefits from hit training?  It is for beginners in the gym, those trying to lose weight (building muscle is crucial), anyone who has a busy work schedule or advanced bodybuilders or athletes.  Do not be intimidated by the name "high intensity”.  This simply implies that for a muscle to grow, a maximum effort, your very best effort, must be put forth in order for muscle to respond accordingly. Muscle tissue is built through the following three phase process: 1) stimulation 2) recovery and 3) growth.  Hit training provides a minimal amount of stimulation with a lengthy recovery period for maximum growth.


The science of High Intensity Training is not simply to seek after the bare minimum in an effort to swallow the "magic pill" and achieve instant gratification.  Before we ever enter the gym, we should ask ourselves the question, "What is the absolute minimum that is necessary for muscular growth?" The point is that what is necessary and adequate should be followed over what is excessive and therefore unnecessary.   A simple process that few employ.


The modus operandi of the muscular system is to function as a defense mechanism in a threat/response relationship to exercise.  A muscle perceives a threat due to the burden of the weight as it is exercised to failure.  It is momentarily weakened and therefore adapts to the demands of the burden by multiplying muscle fibers previously weakened.  The muscle strengthens because it assumes it will encounter the same burden again and must therefore conquer the threat.  A minimal amount of work out sets are required to provide adequate stimulation.  An inadequate recovery period, such as a high volume approach, only prolongs the recovery cycle and leaves the muscle in its weakened state.  When progress is not recognized on a weekly basis then what follows is an unrecovered muscle from its previous workout. 

           

 

The low set nature of hit training can be summed up in the words of six time Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates, who said, "if you can pound in a nail with one swift stroke of the hammer, why hit it twice and damage the wood?”  It is difficult to wrap the mind around this strange manner of thinking when one has been accustomed to a high volume approach to training but truth tends to be stranger than fiction.  It was George Bernard Shaw who said, "All great truths begin as blasphemies."  This is lived out among the masses when most build a concept of reality around the argumentum ad populum to reinforce what is assumed to be true.

    

    The following are important reminders of High Intensity Training:

  • Muscle tissue is built through the following three phase cycle: 1) minimal amount of stimulation and 2) adequate recovery for 3) maximum growth.  Repeat the process.

  • Stimulation is optimal when work out sets are kept to an absolute minimum and momentary muscular failure is sought during the course of each work out. The body must perceive what it believes to be a threat imposed from the outside. All available muscle fibers are called upon to help in assisting to remove the threat of the burden (weight) while achieving absolute muscular failure. The muscle requires a minimal introductory stimulus and does not need to be reintroduced to produce "more” growth. 

  • Recovery is optimal with 4-5 days between work outs and no more than 4 work outs in 20 days.  It is during this time that the body defends itself by producing more muscle tissue.  It does so because it is anticipating a "next time”.  This is the body’s incredible ability to overcome any obstacle and ensure victory.  Keep in mind that in order to defend itself, it must perceive an adequate threat.  Recovery is prolonged when a higher volume of sets are applied.

  • Growth occurs as a result of following the previous phases and is achieved while sleeping.  Growth hormone and testosterone levels (this includes women too) are optimized when work outs are kept brief, intense (absolute failure) and adequate sleep is provided to ensure a proper release for rebuilding muscle tissue.

  • High volume sets are discouraged due to a severe lengthening of the recovery cycle. No logical and adequate reasoning exists as to why the high volume trainer stops at, for instance, 4 sets of bench press. If 4, why not 5? If 5, why not 6? There is no scientific basis for stopping at any given point. If asked, "Why not 100 sets of bench press?” the answer would be emotional, not logical. After all, if 4 sets are good, surely 100 would be better, right?  Not so.
Site menu
Links
Block title
Translator
ShareThis

Body by God eBook
3dBodybyGod
Social Bookmarks
Sponsored Links
Amazon
Copyright MyCorp © 2010 |