I’m disapointed by HIT. I’ve been training HIT style since I started lifting (1.5 year ago), and have reached a big f****** plateau when it comes to size. Chances are I’m eating too little, but still, it sucks.
Anybody in here trained using HIT for at least 6 months, then switched to more conventional training?
If so, what did you change? What were the results?
Thanks a lot
Hitters are notorious for making big gains for awhile before reaching a unsurpassable plateau. I’ll probably get a bunch of flaming from hitters for saying that and HIT does seem to continue to make gains for some but most peak out. I used HIT style and made gains for awhile also but stagnanted. I’d recommend Bryan Haycock’s “HST” Hypertrophy Specific Training. See his web site “hypertropy-specific”.
Well, I’m using a HIT-style workout regimen, and I’ still making gains (slowly, but that’s fine by me) 3 years on. I use this regimen mostly because it fits into my lifestyle, not because it gets me the best results. People often ask me what the best workout regimen is. My answer is ALWAYS the same: the one you’ll stick to. Most people who are looking for constant and fast gains find HIT-style workouts best used as a break from higher volume training, and only used for 4-8 weeks at a time. Give some other methods a try for a while and see what happens. Then go back to HIT for 6 weeks or so and see if you don’t make some more gains.
I used HIT, according to the methods
of Ellington Darden (one set per exercise,
no more than 8-10 sets per workout), for
three years. It gave initial good results but
after this not much. I did much better moving
to two sets per exercise and using powerlifting style periodization methods,
i.e. starting training cycles at 60% 1RM, adding weight and dropping a rep from the target each time, and ending at about 90% 1RM before starting the next cycle again at somewhat higher weight for same rep scheme.
I don’t at all recommend staying on HIT, or at least not certain kinds of HIT, for long.
As it happens, what one might call the original HIT that Arthur Jones developed is a much better program, and is suitable for long term use though I’d make a few changes, particularly employing splits to the routine rather than full-body. His HIT method for many years was about 72 sets per week. (Something which would make most HIT’ers of today faint dead away.)
All I can say is that several years ago I gave it 100% and did everything I was supposed to. I did get stronger, but didn’t see the gains (and, in fact, not even the pump) that I saw when I got off the program.
Yeah, I’ve tried HIT on and off. Mixed results. Takes a good month to see a change. Yet, the best I’ve found, for fat incineration, is some mild jogging directly after crawling out of bed, say 30-40 min. Using that method, I achieved my leanest body ever. It is not very practical though (work, school, etc.)
If I remember correctly, Jones’ argument for a full body workout was that you don’t sleep one half of your body one night and the other half the next. You can’t systemically “rest” one body part if any other part is being worked in the following days. (He might have pointed to arm growth in subjects who were working nothing but legs, for example, to show the interdependence of body parts, the need to see our bodies as an organic whole.) Hence, a split routine doesn’t let anything rest, strictly speaking.
I’d value your thoughts on the subject. Your modification to his program assumes you disagree on that point. It might sound silly to justify anything as ubiquitous as a split routine, but Jones’ argument, even if it’s wrong, holds a sort of obvious, intuitive appeal.
I had great results from Hit for about 3 months. Then I hit a wall for the next 1 year and 9 months. After 2 yrs. straight on HIT I am now exploring other training regimes and gaining again.
I got into HIT years ago and grew like crazy, but about a year and a half ago my progress had slowed down, so I decided to try some T-mag routines. I also increased my calorie and protein intake, 9 weeks ago I started the second Ian King workout along with a major increase in calories and protein. I put on a few pounds, but I think that it was almost all fat. My shoulders are the only thing I have that is bigger then about two years ago.
I am not saying anything against the T-mag routines, just that the ones I have tried haven’t been as productive as I expected. I just started the meltdown training, and feel like I did when I was doing HIT. I plan on being between 180 and 190 after 12 weeks of dieting and exercise. (My LBM is 160 pounds.) I hope the lower bf% helps with my next attempt at growth. I also plan on trying Mag-10 also.
Others have noticed changing from HIT has produced great gains, but they haven’t materialized for me. Yes I got over 2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight, and I follow the routines meticulously. Either I haven’t put my finger on what is holding me back, or I just am at that point that I need a little boost, which is why I am going to try Mag-10. I haven’t decided between going back on an HIT routine or trying the escalating density routine.
I have noticed that people seem to be under the impression that either HIT is all you do, or something you never do. I think that it is just a routine, and can be done for short times like a single bulking cycle. I just think that if you do it all the time then your body adjusts and quits making gains. So if you were to change routines say every 12 weeks then you could do a king workout, then an HIT workout, then the pop em out routine. (I did that one before the King workout thinking it might help.)
I should note that what I know about HIT I learned from Ellington Darden. I ran into a person working out following a Mike Mentzer routine, and he told me he only works out once every three weeks, otherwise he was over training. When he told me this, I almost shit a brick. I think it was Tim Patterson who said that the biggest problem with HIT is that not very many people could work out to total muscular failure, and I agree. I don’t think that few of the people who try HIT ever do it right. There is also a problem where your mind tells you that you reached total muscular failure when you actually haven’t.
I think it is interesting that some of the Nautilus philosophy has been adopted here, and expanded on. I think that most of the people dealing with HIT haven’t dealt with diet enough. I also believe that HITers would be helped by at least a short non HIT cycle, and Vise versa.
What are you exactly doing as HIT style training can encompass a whole range of training theories (from one set to failure to abbreviated programs and so on. I would suggest you use volume as a means of progressive overload instead of intensity (more weight on the bar) i.e. you increase the work sets on a single exercise each week untill you reach a given amount (max three or four)then either use increased weight again for a couple of weeks or increase the density of your programs by keeping sets and weight the same and decrease the rest period time. once you have gone through a cycle like this go back to one set style of training and just try to increase weight then when you plateau repeat the same style of mini periodisation, that way you dont ignore any possible means of overload which original hit training does.
I also use HIT as a 4 to 6 week mental “break” from higher volume training. I find it a great way to allow me to continue to train when other things in life like kids, job, etc. might otherwise get in the way. Also, I always make sure to do some light warmup sets and lots of knee and shoulder warmup before my single set to failure. Occasionally, I’ll do a drop set if I feel I didn’t get to total failure. You definitely don’t get the “pump” from HIT that you do from higher volume. Overall, I like HIT as a diversion that allows me to maintain gains between periods of higher volume where I actually make the gains. This has worked well for me.
Jones’s argument there is nice-sounding rhetoric but first, it’s only an assertion
that there is any relevance or effect, and
second, countless lifters grow very well
on split routines, and are convinced they
grow better on them than on full-body.
However, and I hadn’t considered this before
you raised the issue, I do think Jones has a point. A while back I wound up experimenting
with a protocol during weeks intended for rapid gains as follows: 3 way split, bodyparts trained once per week, and workouts alternated between ones intended to trigger growth and ones intended for maintenance (low volume, no emphasis on negatives, one set per exercise, one rep short of maximal.) Precisely for the reason of not inducing drains on the body while the bodyparts just trained had the opportunity to grow from their intensive workout.
E.g.,
Monday: Triceps, shoulders, chest – intensive.
Wednesday: Legs, abs, lower back, optionally minor parts like forearms or rotator cuff – maintenance.<P.
Friday: Biceps, upper and midback – intensive.
Next week same but Monday would be maintenance, Wednesday intensive, Friday maintenance.
This works very well indeed. I do not want to say it’s proven to work better than training intensively each workout (which also works well) but I like it myself. This does fit in with Jones idea of it being undesirable for other bodyparts to be working while parts just trained should be growing, but nonetheless is a split routine. And I think it is better than a similar approach of fullbody with equally long rest periods afterwards, since targeting (training only certain bodyparts) allows a more intensive workout and more stimulus for growth. And even if not so, it is more enjoyable.
I was a Mike Mentzer phone consultation client for over 1 year and made great progress in size and strength, but I am making even faster gains now using Ian King’ specialization programs. I think it’s all about change. Any routine you do for too long loses its effectiveness.
As far as low volume Mentzer had me do 1 to 2 warmup sets followed by 1 set to failure at 5 to 8 reps on squats, followed by 1 set to failure on pulldowns. One week later did the same with Deadlifts and Dips. Thats right 2 work sets per workout, and my strength increased steadily, and alot more time to do other things in my life.
If you’ve been doing it for over a year and half it’s time for some volume. Watch yourself grow!!!
By the way, I saw that my previous post was screwed up. Somehow I omitted the third workout of the week, Friday: biceps, rear delts, midback and lats.
I am a self-proclaimed HITer. I haven’t had time to read through the other posts. First, if your diet sucks, then no program is gonna help you grow. Don’t blame any program you are on if your diet sucks. Second, according to the HIT theory, eventually you will need to add volume (eg 1 set to 2 sets)…if you would like me to break it down, I can, later when I have more time!! =-)
I have to go with PaulB and PWard on this one.
I think “HITT” (and all of it’s manifestations) is probably an excellent part of an overall periodization cycle/program. Whether or not it can form the foundation of someone’s program is another debate (and USUALLY a heated one on this site! Whatever happened to “HETYEY 225?” Did I get that right?)
I vary my intensity similar to bill, only week to week. I increase weight and decrease reps using predicted 1RMs to increase intensity by measurable increments. I have a recovery week at 90% of last predicted 1RM, reload week at 100%, overload week and peak week where i add weight to Pr 1RM. I havn’t used it for hypertrophy yet but that is a matter of rep ranges theoretically. I noticed my body seemed to make gains for 4 weeks of HIT before burnout. instead of spacing the workouts i varied them i guess. The theory of the recovery and reload weeks came from biofitness/trainer.html or exrx.net. Cant find it now.
HITer Scott:Generally according to HIT, you must decrease volume and frequency as you progress, so as to avoid overtraining. I don’t know where you got that from.
Mufasa: Heytey visited the I-A-R-T message board for a while. I think he got ridiculized and banned since he was obviously a liar.
Let me describe what I did when I worked out on HIT.
When I did HIT I would set up a routine and have a weight that was below what I could handle. I did this so I could work on my form. I would stop after the twelfth rep no matter what, then increased by 5%. Eventually I worked up to muscular failure, and quickly I might add. When I started to notice my progress slow down or stop then I would change the routine around and set the weights lower then needed again… I did this because of something Ellington Darden wrote, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was.
While I did follow an all body workout each time I worked out, I still made an A and B workout. On one day I would place more emphasis on upper body while doing few exercises for the lower body, and on the other workout I would do more lower body exercises while performing only a few upper body exercises. This gave me almost a cross between a split routine and a complete body workout. I also made sure that none of the A and B exercises were the same.
When I noticed my progress slowing down I cut back to 5 workouts every two weeks, then to two a week. Most people are unwilling to try that, but it kept my progress going. Often I would look at the clock to time my movements using Nautilus protocol. Now called TUT. The TUT I followed was 214 on single joint exercises and 204 on compound movements. Although I have also worked out with 10 0 10 before. I became very good at timing myself, and don’t need a clock to time myself anymore.
The way I did it I ended up with close to a split routine, and times where I was working out without going to failure. There were also times that I did more then one set, and often where I would do two or three different exercises for a single body part without rest between each exercise.
HIT accepts many fo the basic scientific principles SAID, overload, progression, etc. Under HIT, intensity is defined as degree of effort; which is generally measured by going to failure (ie 100% effort or 100% intensity). Under HIT, overload is defined as an increase in load or reps (TUT). [Note: according to HIT definitions, intensity and load (eg %1RM) are not synonomous, they are seperate and distinct considerations] Now, with SAID in mind, the body can not only adapt to the load or TUT but the body can adapt to be able to handle 100% intensity/effort for 1 set of an exercise or series of exercises. As we all know, full or close to full adaptation is a bad thing as far as growth is concerned. Therefore, over time, HITers will need to add volume to cause the body to further adapt, this has been experienced by many HITers including myself. How long before you should add volume? That is up to you, studies show that 1 set is just as good as 3,5, etc. However, these studies are limited in duration (ie 1-4 months). So, you have to decide for yourself…have you stopped gaining in size and/or strength? Do you feel less taxed than before? Etc. Everyone’s adaptibility curve is different.
As far as frequency goes, that is a whole other story because your recovery is limited by how fast the CNS recovers (muscles, of course, recover rather quickly, it is the CNS that is the limiting factor and the cause of the dreaded overtraining). As it has been pointed out by others, the ability to increase CNS recoverability is less than the ability to increase size, strength, etc. In other words, CNS recoverability has a lower adaptation ceiling than muscle size and strength. This also is another consideration that you must determine for yourself…everyone’s recoverability is different. Some people can do a HIT routine 2-3 times/week, others once every 5-7 days, etc. It’s all about tracking your progress and adjusting your program accordingly. No one program will work forever, you adapt and you need to account for your adpatation or you will stagnate.