While I have more toward the side of more recovery in recent years, I’m not a HIT guy. Well, I was at one point, around 22 years ago when I idolized Mentzer and Viator (ironically shortly after I became an olympic lifter).
And yes, sometimes I will use the single set to failure approach in a program (like some I published on T-nation), with clients or even with myself. But it is normally as a change of pace program.
Paul is a lot more HIT than me as he tends to adhere to the single work set to failure approach a lot more than I do.
I personally don’t have ONE training approach. Which actually makes it a lord harder on me from a business perspective. Depending on the client/situation I can use various approaches, ranging from HIT to high volume training.
I do that some principles that I adhere too, though.
I believe that a natural trainee has a limited capacity to tolerate and grow from training stress, that controlling cortisol levels and that proper recovery are key when it come to optimal progression with natural lifters.
As such I use a series of 6 training variables to adjust the training stress level of a session. Three of which are the ones that I use to select what kind of program I put someone on:
- Volume per workout (total sets in a workout, not per body part)
- Intensiveness (how close to failure do you go on your work sets, on average)
- Load (amount of weight used for your work sets)
In a NORMAL situation (3-4 workouts per week) I want to have one variable HIGH, one MODERATE and one LOW.
For example:
High volume, low loads, moderate intensiveness
High volume, low intensiveness, moderate volume
High intensiveness, low volume, moderate loads
High intensiveness, low loads, moderate volume
Heavy loads, low intensiveness, moderate volume
Heavy loads, low volume, moderate intensiveness
If training frequency is higher then the stress per session must be lower. So with 5-6 workouts per week we have ONE variable that is high and the two others must be low.
And if training is less frequent than 3 workouts per week (1-2 sessions per week) you must make training stress higher by having TWO variables high and one moderate.
So my first principle is to match training stress level with the training frequency.
My second principle is that you should hit each muscle to some extent twice per week. That’s why I gravitate toward whole-body training, upper/lower or a lift-specific approach (which is another form of upper/lower split).
And another thing that tends to characterize my training is that I prefer to use fewer exercises per session. I wouldn’t call it a principle, because sometimes I don’t respect it in some situations, but in at least 85% of the programs I write for clients the number of exercises per session ranges from 3 to 6.
Now, I get where you got the idea from your program. It is a Dorian-like plan.
I think it will work. But it’s not something that I would use.
I like the use of a back-off set after the heavy set. There are some exercises that I don’t like and some that I feel won’ work well in the plan you designed.
Again, I don’t hate it. I think that you have too many exercises on some days and some choices that I wouldn’t make. You get your volume from doing less work sets of more exercises and I generally prefer to do the opposite. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t work well.