30. What's High Intensity training (HIT)? or What can be done to work the muscle further?
Description
This article is from the Fitness FAQ, by Jeff Gleixner (glex@cray.com) with numerous contributions by others.
30. What's High Intensity training (HIT)? or What can be done to work the muscle further?
High Intensity training is using various methods to further
stress the muscle, to cause more growth. The following are
some common methods. These should be used sparingly to
shock the muscles or to help you get over a plateau. Allow
for adequate warm-up and rest and go to positive failure on
each set.
Forced Reps: After positive failure is reached spotters assist
you in doing a couple of more reps.
Partials: Doing a movement through a small range of motion.
Usually used to strengthen the weak part of a lift. Also
commonly seen when the person is using too much weight and
can't do the full movement.
Negatives: Using a weight that's above your max and only perform
the negative portion (The part of the activity where the
weight is moving with gravity). Spotters lift the weight
through the positive area and you do the negatives.
Stripping: Doing a set to failure then the spotters remove some
weight and you do a few more reps to failure. This can
continue for many reps.
Burns: After positive failure occurs, continue doing mini-reps (a
few inches of movement) to keep stress on the muscles.
Super Set: To further fatigue a muscle an isolation movement is
followed immediately by a basic movement. i.e. Flyes followed
by doing a Bench press.
Tri Set: Similar to Super Sets only three exercises are used instead
of two.
21's: Do half of the movement for 7 reps, then do the other half
for 7 reps then do 7 full reps. i.e. Barbell curl: Curl
from arms straight to 90-degrees for 7 reps. Then curl
from 90-degrees to arms perpendicular to floor for 7 reps.
Then do 7 full reps. This is done non-stop and considered 1
set.
From: Tim Mansfield <timbomb@cs.uq.oz.au>
MODIFIED HIGH INTENSITY SETS
This is a summary of "The Modified High Intensity Method" by Robert
Hinson, Natural Physique, v3 n2, Sept 1990.
The so-called "High Intensity Training" method championed by Mike
Mentzer, Arthur Jones and Ellington Darden calls for a reduced number
of sets and a reduced workout frequency. The reduced number of sets
(down to only one work set in some versions of the method) and greater
recovery time allows the trainee to work each set to failure.
The article claims that many HIT trainees have not made the gains
claimed by HIT advocates and that this failure can be attributed to
three reasons:
1) insufficient warmup
2) too heavy weights
3) over-emphasis on forced reps and negative reps
The Modified High Intensity Training method (or MHIT) aims to solve
these problems by restructuring the sets by:
* incorporating proper warmup into the single set using 65-70% of the
1 rep max weight
* expand the single set to 15 reps with the first half done super-slow
and the second half done explosively
This keeps the weights safely low, incorporates a warmup and exhausts
both slow and fast-twitch fibres.
So a single MHIT set follows the following pattern:
phase 1: 8 reps
5 second positive contraction
6 second negative contraction
phase 2: 7 reps
1 second positive contraction
2 second negative contraction
There is no rest between phase 1 and 2.
Hinson recommends a three day per week workout on a two-way split as
follows:
Monday: chest, back, legs
Wednesday: shoulders, arms
Friday: whole body
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