Archives for 2008

Mentzer liked H.I.T. because he felt it made it possible to avoid over training.  When challenged by others about his approach and how it was not the norm, Mike liked to quote Victor Hugo, who once said "Nothing in this world is so powerful as an idea whose time has come."  Mentzer took the H.I.T. principles espoused by Arthur Jones (inventor of the Nautilus line of equipment) and spelled them out very carefully.  If Mike Mentzer was anything, it was passionate about H.I.T. and the scientific approach to explaining it.  He broke things down into seven principles as follows.

First Principle: Identity

Mike states that your body and mind are unique to you.  This is your identity.  Because everyone is different there is no reason for everyone to train exactly the same way.  H.I.T. allows for this individuality by having you pick weights and intensity levels that give you enough stimulation for you to grow.  I may deadlift 300 pounds, but you might only deadlift 200 pounds.  It doesn't matter as long as we both find the intensity level that causes growth in our muscles. 

Mike taught that you use your mind to determine reality.  By using your reasoning powers you can determine what is right and what is wrong.  Logically training 3 sets on every exercise is just over doing it.  It is extremely easy to understand that taking 1 set to failure is far less training than taking 3 sets to failure.  Thus, when trying to avoid over training, it is clear that 1 set is going to keep you further from over training than 3 sets.

Second Principle: Intensity

This principle states that the harder a person trains, the less time s/he will be able to spend in such training.  Intensity and duration of training exist in an inverse ratio to one another.  You can either train hard or you can train long, but you cannot really do both.  We have already discussed how we can increase the intensity of our workouts.  Using those techniques and hitting your body with high intensity will cause growth.  That's what H.I.T. is all about.

Third Principle: Duration

This is the point where most weight trainers screw up.  They do too many sets and they workout too often.  When you are lifting with intensity you need time to recover.  Mentzer states "With a truly scientific, theoretical approach to exercise, there is no room for the traditional or the arbitrary."  (High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way, p. 45).  The point is clear–don't just stick to the old sacred cows, but be prepared to try some new and different ways of training.  That's how you will achieve results.

Fourth Principle: Frequency

The body can only cope with a limited amount of stress.  Training causes stress on the body.  Once you have used enough intensity to stress the body sufficiently, you need to then leave it alone to recover.  This is why H.I.T. proponents recommend starting out at 3 days a week and if over training signs pop up, back off to 2 days a week.

Fifth Principle: Specificity

"As a rule of thumb, the level of stress must exceed 50 percent of the individual's existing capacity.  The more the stress exceeds the 50 percent level, the greater the rate of improvement.  Therefore, if you wish to achieve the greatest and most rapid improvement that your genetically predetermined capacity will allow, you must exercise at the 100 percent level of your existing functional capacity."  (High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way, p. 60)  In order to induce specific changes you must hit 100 percent intensity and you must use very specific plans of attack.

Sixth Principle: Adaptation

Muscle growth is the body's way of adapting to the stress you are putting on it through exercise.  At the same time, the body will "get used to" the workouts you throw at it unless you do something to force it to continue to adapt.  This is done (in H.I.T.) by continually increasing the load pushed during a specific exercise.  Progression is the concept that helps keep the body growing.

Seventh Principle:  Progression

In order to continually grow something in your workout must progressively change.  If it is the repetitions or the weight lifted, something has to be changing constantly.  Mentzer was a huge believer in this concept.  He spent alot of time teaching on this concept. 

Conclusion

Mentzer preached the H.I.T. concepts to everyone that would listen.  He is partially responsible for Dorian Yates training using the H.I.T. methods.  He took a very scientific approach to H.I.T., studying it from many different angles.  He practiced H.I.T. principles until the day he died of heart disease (genetic in his family).

Dorian only trained for 45 minutes a day, but it was brutal training.  He would use 3 exercises per body part and 3 sets each exercise.  He would take the first 2 sets just short of failure, but the final set was always to complete failure. 

Dorian prescribed to the Mike Mentzer style of H.I.T.  He definitely took things to the limit.  Where Yates was different was that he didn't believe in training the entire body in one session.  He took what he learned about H.I.T. and created a hybrid.  His hybrid obviously worked as he won the Mr. Olympia contest 6 times, with 5 of those being consecutively.

What Yates realized while training with Mike Mentzer was that intensity is great for building muscle.  Yates would use H.I.T. during his building phases to gain mass quickly.  He felt that he had to modify the intensity as he got closer to the competition because of the reduced caloric intake he would be under.  He felt that only with alot of calories could you sustain this type of training.

If H.I.T. was good enough for 6 time Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates, it should be good enough for you!

OK, so this was a particularly brutal workout.  I need to describe it to you for you to get the full effect.  I had been adding 5 pounds to the thigh extensions each workout, but I came to the gym feeling like a caged animal ready to explode, so I added 10 pounds to my previous weight.  I managed to crank out 10 repetitions.  My legs were quivering and my quads were on fire.  I moved over to the Thigh Curl machine and proceeded to bang out 10 repetitions with 150 lbs.  It had my legs screaming.  I then loaded up 360 lbs. and cranked out 27 repetitions of standing calf raises.  This was particularly brutal because my calves were on fire by the 10th repetition and I just kept on going.  I managed to go to complete and total failure on the 27th repetition.  I racked up 225 lbs. on the squat rack and proceeded to crank out 9 very nice repetitions.  I do not take squats to full positive failure for obvious reasons, but I was about 1 rep shy of that.  At this point I could feel my body was already wasted from the effort I had already put in.  I got on the Quad Blaster, grabbed a 47.5 lb. dumbbell and proceeded to ride the Blaster for 13 intense repetitions.  I went down for the 14th repetition and just fell to the ground.  I literally had to crawl to the bench to do my dumbbell pullovers.  I managed to keep the intensity extremely high for the rest of the workout until I hit deadlifts.  I stuck with the "mistake" from the last week and worked on 275 lbs.  I managed 8 repetitions, but as soon as I was done, I had to run to the trash can to vomit.  The intensity of the workout had pushed my body over the limit.  I finished off like a warrior with my shrugs and forearm curls.

Today I will share with you why this system is here to stay for me.  I am completely amazed at what I am about to share.

In just 4 short weeks I have seen some pretty incredible jumps in my numbers.  I have purposely been keeping my numbers to myself, but since I am now a H.I.T. evangelist, I thought I'd put my money where my mouth is.

Four weeks ago I weighed 215 lbs. and was at 16.8% body fat.  That is 177.88 lbs. of LBM and 36.12 lbs. of fat.  I have been eating about 25% more calories per day for the past four weeks.  At this point I now weigh 223 lbs. and I am at 16.39% body fat.  This equates to 186.45 lbs. of LBM and 36.55 lbs. of fat.  I have gained a total of 8 lbs. on the scale but only 0.43 lbs. of that is fat–the rest is LBM!  Pay attention–I am eating 25% more than ever before and I am not gaining fat! 

My strength has increased as well.  Take a look at the chart I created below and you will see how much my numbers have improved. 

I honestly do not know how anyone could look at the above spike chart and not immediately ask about having a H.I.T. routine designed for them.  I have never seen strength gains like this in such a short period of time.  Remember, all of these weights are with timed repetitions of 3 seconds up and 3 seconds down.  That makes it even more incredible because it means that for each and every one of these exercises, if I lifted with the standard cadence, I'd be able to do even heavier weights.