High intensity training (HIT) is a weight lifting method whereby the lifter completes his or her set until they achieve momentary muscular failure. As you can imagine this type of training is not for the faint hearted and requires some serious mental and physical concentration. To get the best out of HIT weight training (or any weight training for that matter) is to ensure the full rep range of a given exercise.
High intensity training is all about exerting maximum effort in order to stimulate muscle growth, by performing that last seemingly impossible repetition is when your body uses 100% of its momentary muscular ability, which in turn causing increases in muscle mass.
High intensity training was popularized by Arthur Jones, the founder of Nautilus fitness, and also backed by the late professional bodybuilder Mike Mentzer (pictured left), who wrote the book “High-intensity training – the Mike Mentzer way”.
So, how do you make your workouts harder and more intense so that you can achieve momentary muscular failure and truly build muscle? Well, there are 3 principles that you must stick to in order to train with high intensity.
1. Progressively Increasing the Weight you Lift
As your strength increases the amount of weight you can lift will also increase, because the simple fact of building muscle is: “Strength = Size”.
So, if for example you can bench press 200lbs for 6 repetitions, then 2 weeks later you manage 10 repetitions, its cleat that you have increased in strength and therefore increased muscle mass (size). You should now increase the weight by as much as required so you can only manage 6 repetitions. Doing this every time you increase in strength means you won’t hit any muscle building plateaus. For a more detailed explanation see my section on progressive resistance.
Remember don’t stop increasing the weight as you become stronger, doing so will stop giving your body a reason to build muscle.
2. Progressively Decreasing the Time Workout Time
This is simple science, if you increase the intensity of a workout you naturally decrease the workout time. For example, if your current workout takes 2 hours to complete, then completing it in 1 hour would double the intensity. By increasing this intensity of your workout you will run out of energy quicker and also need longer rest between exercises.
It is very important that you increase the intensity without trying to rush through your workouts, doing so will be ineffective. As you first begin with high intensity training you may need more rest between sets or exercises, and that’s perfectly fine, it takes time to get used to the intensity. Eventually you will not need as much rest between sets or exercises whilst keeping the intensity to a maximum.
This simple graph explains the correlation between workout time and intensity, showing that as the workout intensity increases, the workout time decreases.
3. Carrying Each Set to a Point of Total Failure
Carrying each set you perform to total failure may sound vague, but what this means is complete that last seemingly possible repetition until you physically cannot lift the weight anymore.
Training to total failure is tough and often uncomfortable but at the same time very effective. By failing momentarily during a set means you are recruiting all of your muscle fibers to complete the task, which in time will increase your muscle mass.
The skeletal muscles have 3 levels of strength (concentric, static and eccentric), and all 3 levels must fail during a set to perform total failure.
The First and weakest level of strength is the muscles ability to lift or raise a weight from a position of full extension to full contraction. This movement is known as a positive strength or concentric contraction an example would be dumbbell bicep curl with 25lb, starting with your arm straight and lifting the weight up towards your body until the biceps contract at the top position.
The Second level of strength is static contraction, whereby the muscle remains still whilst holding a weight, using the example of a bicep curl, the static part would be holding the weight for a few seconds at mid point (so arm at 90 degrees). As you are stronger in the static phase of the movement you can handle more weight, so for someone doing dumbbell bicep curl with 25lbs they could probably manage 30lbs in the static phase.
The Third and strongest level of strength is the negative phase, known as the eccentric contraction. This is when the weight is lowered under control to the starting position. Your muscle is the strongest in the eccentric part of the contraction, so someone who bicep curls a 25lb dumbbell would be able to handle 35lbs-40lbs dumbbell in the eccentric phase.
So in order to complete total failure you must exhaust all 3 levels of strength during every set, exercise and workout. As you can see this is what makes high intensity training tough but very effective.
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