HIT Training 101

    Muscle tissue requires far less application than most would believe to be true, giving credence to the statement: truth is stranger than fiction. This resultant conviction to weight training hinders most in achieving their goals by adhering to the burdensome pattern of conventional weight lifting.  Its cause stems largely from a lack of understanding regarding the function of the muscle.  What is understood is that the muscle must be subjected to an ever-increasing burden of weight to produce growth.  What is misunderstood is how and why?

    To answer the aforementioned questions, it is of the utmost importance to understand the modus operandi of the muscular system as a defense mechanism, which reacts in a threat/response relationship to exercise.  When any given muscle is exposed to the burden of a heavy weight and forced to absolute failure during the course of repetitions, it perceives this experience as a threat.  All available muscle fibers are called upon to remove the perceived threat and in the process of reaching absolute failure, it is momentarily weakened.  It must now multiply the muscle fibers that were called upon and in so doing strengthen the muscle for what it assumes will be another encounter due to the previous threat.  It must conquer the burdensome threat if it is to retain its position of superiority.  This answers the question of why.

    Before answering how, an analogy will be used as a filter through which this matter can be understood.  When the skin is exposed to sunlight, it defends itself by a darkening in pigmentation.  Added benefits follow from a brief exposure (20 to 30 min.) such as mood elevation, testosterone enhancement for building muscle and the body’s natural production of vitamin D.  These are all positive factors that assist in the well-being of the body.

    The negative factors of a prolonged exposure to sunlight are a depletion of vitamins and minerals, lethargy, skin cancer and sunburn.  Analogously, it is the same with muscle.  When muscle is subjected to a prolonged exposure to a given threat, overtraining ensues or in the case of the analogy, sunburn.  If one does not experience increasing gains in either weight or repetitions on a weekly basis, then one is in a current state of overtraining.  One may have an adequate tan to withstand the beating rays of the sun but what happens is that you become the proverbial victim of the frog in the kettle.  Just as it is dying and does not even know that it is being cooked, so it is with a darker tan. 

    Added pigmentation will eventually protect from the sun but it will not prevent a depletion of vitamins and minerals, skin cancer, lethargy and diminishing testosterone production.  All are residual factors even with an adequate tan.  It is often the sad state of life at the gym.  Many walk around in this sun darkened or sunburned state of overtraining and do not even realize it.  Strangely enough, the same weight is lifted every week with little or no progress while assuming that this is what progress should look like.  Many conclude that they are not working hard enough and add even more sets and quantify their exposure to weight lifting by increasing their time spent on a weekly basis.  Neither of these conclusions is correct.

    To answer the question of how, one must observe the brevity of time spent in the sun to produce a tan.  It is minimal.  There is a strong correlation between these two members of the body.  By observing one, we can determine how to operate the other.  Just as a minimal amount of time is needed for a sufficient tan, so it is also true of stimulating a muscle.  A prolonged exposure to set after set on only one given exercise will only extend the duration of recovery and diminish gains.  This, in effect, weakens the body’s ability to adequately defend itself by a continual overworking by an active training stimulus while ignoring the more important passive response of repairing what was weakened.