All Coaches:HIT Come Back?

Training Bodybuilding
41

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Elaikases wrote:
…I did run a search here out of curiosity to see if HIT was alive where the real experience seems to be.

Gather not.

Kinda like if you run a search of the American Medical Assoc. Journal you won’t find current practical discussion of using leaches and bloodletting to combat diseases.[/quote]

This is wrong beyond belief. It was never and by definition never could be the only “self evidently true” way to train as guys like Mentzer propounded, but to put it in the same category as bloodletting is just ignorant and closeminded. If maybe not the entire HIT “worldview”, HIT principles can still be a valuable tool when used intelligently.

43

800×1168 291 KB

I made great size improvements with HIT. Even if you don’t want to do it year round, it can be a nice break from higher volume work for awhile. I have tried to add some before and after pics. Let’s see if they show.

44

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Let me be more specific and then I think there will be less, if any, disagreement between us on this issue. Go pick up any recent copy(ies) of Ironman Mag and read John Little expounding on the profundities of Mark Mentzer’s infinite wisdom and compare it with what CT posted above. There is a significant difference.

I should have been more clear in my first post to what/whom I was referring. Sorry. I should not have made a seemingly all inclusive statement when referring to HIT.[/quote]

I’m still not certain what you mean exactly which isn’t a jab, but just an honest statement. Let me be clear. I was once a devoted HIT -ee. HIT principles so thoroughly revolutionized my progress at the time that I became convinced that any other training method was a compromise at best and pointless at worst.

I have since been emancipated from this very narrow standpoint and now recognize the sound validity in many other styles of training. However, I also cannot deny that ferociously intense, brief and infrequent training works, period. Any view that refuses to concede that is just as wrong as my former one was.

Taken as one method to be utilized in cycles over a long term plan it is an invaluable tool for breaking plateaus and just plain letting a man know what he’s made of.

For instance good old fashioned barbell squats done to utter eccentric failure on the 8th rep, by that I mean every last God given fiber of your being is pushing up from the heels in good form, but the bar is still going down.

Picture that, and when it gets down to the rack a couple of partners immediately yank enough weight off each side so that you can get 3 or 4 more and then were back at total eccentric failure as described above. Yank again, 2, maybe 3 more after which the bar is left on the rack and you collapse into a puddle of gasping, quivering submission.

That will make a whimpering Mama’s boy out of the most seasoned, iron hardened lifter on Earth and make no mistake will stimulate growth when all else fails.

However, by just plain human limits mean this type of training can only be done at very low volume and very infrequently, but that will be more than enough… for a while… then a different method cycled in is both a welcome and productive change. I do believe the cns can only take so much of this before it refuses to play ball anymore, even at low frequency.

45

Just a quick comment on the latest “HIT” arm workout from Darden - it is barely a spin-off of “true” HIT. If you notice, the trainee actually performs THREE sets for maximal reps, albeit, supersetted. And this is performed twice per week, which is not high frequency. Traditional HIT from my understanding (i.e. Mentzer) is ONE set of 5-6 reps to failure 3+ times per week.

With the Darden arm routine, you would be looking at a 24-36 rep volume per workout with a 75-80% 1RM load, twice per week. This scheme is actually similar a Waterbury Set/Rep Bible parameter.

With respect to this particular Darden workout, as long as there was maximal loading for those 8-12 reps per movement, I think this is a solid routine. At least it would likely be a change of pace for most folks doing straight sets at 3x10 with sub-maximal weights. It might even be a decent break for those guys over-using the bodypart split with 100+ reps per workout.

Side note: if a poster is going to use “shut up and lift” as their rationale to support their opinion, then they should not be posting on a site known to be “Bodybuilding’s THINK-Tank”… THINK being the key word here…

TopSirloin

46

I’ve tried HIT numerous times, but it just isn’t for me. However, if the only thing you get from HIT is the emphasis on EFFORT, then that’s a very significant concept that carries over into every other methodology.

I’ve done countless sets of heavy low reps in my brief powerlifting career. When asked what my greatest achievement was, I quickly refer to my 405x23 full squats at 215# bwt. So I guess I have to give HIT it’s due.

47

I’ve never been one given to wholesale adoption of any system. I kinda pooled together principles from Jones, Darden and Mentzer and wound up working each group in a push/pull/legs split once in seven days.

After warmups I did two sets of each movement in some version of the manner described above or another “way past regular failure” technique to paraphrase CT. In a nutshell I positively pulverized each muscle group and left it alone for 7 days. Very largely big compound movements with smaller ones for bi’s, tri’s, delts, calves and abs. Bi’s after back, tri’s and delts after chest (usually, sometimes delts first) and abs, calves, quads and hams in varying orders.

I gained at least 40 pounds lean in the following 20 months and this for a guy who started as a soft, walking stick person. Ironically it was my refusal to consider other methods that ultimately led to watching the gains taper off and my losing the motivation to train. Had I been wiser and more open to diverse methods I may be 50 or 60 pounds larger today.

49

[quote]pushharder wrote:
<<<All in all I doubt you and I have any significant disagreement.[/quote]

Yes, the way it was preached as if carrying the authority of Almighty God himself from the peaks of Sinai was overdone to say the least and even though I modified it right from the start I did believe at the time that the general philosophy of High, low and low was the only way I would ever go.

I don’t even know if I’d consider myself part of a “breakaway sect”, I just am willing to embrace whatever is useful to me from whatever source.

I haven’t bought a muscle mag in over 13 years and am not familiar with Little, but I used to read em all the time.

In short, even though I do read, enjoy and respect the authors here for instance, you will not find me in anybody,s camp. I have gleaned useful information from a bunch of them and plan for that to continue.

That isn’t an ass kissing, don’t get on anybody,s bad side copout either, it’s REALLY the way I approach things. I couldn’t care less who’s idea something was, if I can use it I do and for that I’m grateful to T-Nation.

The “stimulate, don’t annihilate” thing has some validity, but a little annihilation here and there would do some guys, including me, some good.

It does aggravate me the way Dr. Darden gets treated by some guys here who in my view should at least show some common respect for their iron game elders. He’ll always have special place in my heart.