High Intensity Training History Lesson (by John Romaniello) HIT for short, is a hot button in the training community. Developed by Arthur Jones in the 1970s, HIT at its core is a system of training each muscle with one set to the point of momentary muscular failure. The workouts were brief, intense, and infrequent. In the 70s, when Arnold and Company were advocating training twice per day, six days per week for nearly two hours at a clip, this wasn’t just controversial—it was nearly heretical. You see, the fundamental principles of High Intensity Training (HIT) are that exercise should be brief, relatively infrequent, and intense. This was in direct opposition to what was considered standard bodybuilding training as, or what would come to be called “volume” training, as practiced by The Oak. Not so with HIT: in the High Intensity model, workouts are less than an hour long, and training is only done twice to three times per week. High Intensity Training uses a system in which exercises are performed with a high level of “intensity,” which is more exhausting than volume training, and therefore requires less work and more rest, in order to facilitate recovery. It’s important to note that HIT principles use the word intensity differently than the rest of the training world: in most weight training contexts, “intensity” refers to the amount of weight you’re using relative to your 1-rep max; whereas in the HIT model “intensity” refers to how “hard” an exercises is, as determined by approaching or achieving momentary muscular failure. HIT itself is based on the theory that training to failure it will stimulate the body to produce an increase in muscular strength and size. Advocates of HIT believe that this method is superior for strength and size building than most other methods which, for example, may stress lower weights with greater volume. As strength increases, HIT techniques will have the weight/resistance increased progressively where it is thought that it will provide the muscles with adequate overload to stimulate further improvements. In HIT, it is known that there is an inverse relationship between how intensely and how long one can exercise. As a result, high intensity workouts are kept brief. After High Intensity training, as with any workout, the body requires time to recover and produce the responses stimulated during the workout, so there is more emphasis on rest and recovery in the HIT philosophy than in most other weight training methods. While many typical HIT programs comprise a single-set per exercise, tri-weekly, full-body workout, many variations exist in specific breakdowns of set and exercise number, workout routines, volume and frequency of training. Further, in HIT, tempo is generally stricter than most other types of training. This refers to the cadence of a lift, which will be very slow compared to a non-HIT weight training routine; advocates of HIT stress the importance of controlled lifting speeds and strict form, paying special attention to avoid any bouncing or jerking during a set. Rather, as soon as it becomes impossible to perform a rep in good form, the set is terminated. I don’t want to turn this into a history lesson, but it’s really important to stress this point: while the idea of short workouts 2-3 times per week may not seem unusual to you, that wasn’t the case in the 70s. Again, HIT was positioned as the polar opposite to volume training and in many ways these are diametrically opposed theories.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:42:52 +0000
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