Maybe I dreamed it but I thought as soon as Darden came out with his Extreme Hit stuff many months ago we jumped right in with a zillion questions and he answered with his reasons for heading away from failure? I guess like you said on the old forum we tended to argue over the same stuff year after year and never really did seem to establish what exactly constituted failure. What’s failure to one person seems to be different from another no matter how many times it gets discussed or brought up in these forums.
This forum gets more traffic, and draws a more diverse readership than the old one. (That was probably the point of moving here)! Plus this thread was started by someone whose name is not familiar to me, so I assume someone new.
When you draw in new participants, questions will be repeated. It may be a new argument for someone younger, and/or not familiar with the old debates.
@Chris_Graeme1 Confusing isn’t it! It’s not actually a change in direction. I think the earliest book I can remember seeing from Nautilus (Dr. Darden) that referred to NTF (not to failure) movements was published around 1972 (ish) (after the Bulletins). It just seems to have been something that got obscured for one reason or another.
What IS new, exciting and what Dr. Darden has done to give HIT a fresh move is the sandwiching of a NTF movement inbetween 2 negative portions in the same event.
I think it actually is a change in direction. NTF training may have been suggested before, but the reasoning has changed.
In prior writings, NTF sessions were presented as a tool to help manage recovery. Say you were working out three days an week and couldn’t recover well at that frequency. Instead of dropping frequency to 2 days a week, you could turn some of the sessions into NTF workouts. This is how it is discussed in The New High Intensity Training book. You were still supposed to go to failure in some of the sessions.
With Extreme 30-10-30, going to failure is now treated as something optional, and not necessary to get results. You can still do it if you want to… but it no longer seems to be core to the method.
I do wonder, it at least in part, that failure has been recommended because people often times don’t really train that hard? In other words, if you tell someone to train around and 8 out of 10 in terms of effort, it might be a 6 out of 10 in reality. Maybe not hard enough. Tell them to go to failure, and they get enough inroad in assuming form, load, etc. are correct. Anyway, just a thought and question.
Strange how the likes of Arnold , Sergio and a ton of other top bodybuilders didn’t employ HIT yet somehow they managed to get huge anyway. HIT is only one of many ways to build big muscles and I think if you start counting those bodybuilders who employ HIT and train to failure and those who use higher volume and don’t push to failure you’ll find many many more who don’t train to the old Jones style of failure.
Scott
This is just what Brian Johnson preached many years ago when he introduced Zone Training. His explanation was the only thing that finally got into my thick skull about why my strength increases - or those I thought I was making - weren’t being reflected in an improved physique.
When I finally got away from the limited beliefs that training to failure, reducing volume and always shooting for heavier weights was the only way, it opened up a whole new world of training progress.
Like a lot of people here and on the old board , I was mentally stuck in having to train within the HIT ‘rules’ or you didn’t belong to the HIT CAMPS. Glad I broke free of that restrictive way of approaching really productive training … I wish I did it sooner than I did.
“Tribal” loyalty based on a training method appears to be pretty common. Remember the HIT Jedi’s? You also have Starting Strength zealots. I’m sure there are many other such camps.
I remember in my teens and twentys I was loyal to Arnold and Francos workout for years
Monday and Thursday was chest and back…20 sets for each
Tuesdays and Fridays was shoulders and arms…20 srts for shoulders, 15 for bis and tris and 10 for forearms
Wednesdays and Saturdays was legs…a ton of sets
I was in the gym for at least 2 hours…talk about being a loyal gym rat with no other life, lol
Yes, many people are desperate to belong to something regardless of how stupid it might be. I’ve always felt like Mark Twain , I wouldn’t join any club that would have me as a member, ha ha!!
Scott
The principle of Oscillating Kinetic Energy (OKE), can further muscle recruitment. There are osculatory barbells, vibrating plates, all which recruit muscle fibers.
