Everything I Wish I Knew About HIT Training
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
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In this video I cover my experience with HIT Training - High Intensity Training and the pros and cons to this approach. I discuss the differences in programs used by bodybuilders like Casey Viator training under Arthur Jones, as well as Mike Mentzers Heavy Duty Training and finally Dorian Yates Blood and Guts.
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Photo Credits of gyms, bodybuilders and many more - Denie Walter AKA "Denie" Williams, Chris Lund Photos
Thank you for capturing such amazing photos of these legendary bodybuilders!
Special Thanks to the very rare photos of Casey Viator to Drew Baye at baye.com/ and Donald Duke for capturing these legendary photos!
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*Build massive arms using proven old school bodybuilding training methods*
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Follow me on Instagram: Jakked
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Cult following is right. Look at Yates today. He's lost it all and can't even train because of all his injuries. HD and BG wasn't worth it. Look at Mentzer.....oh right...we can't. He died at 49. Pity.
@@johnspartan98Look at Ronnie Coleman he was on very high volume training back then. Now well.. you know how bad he is. Huge amounts of steroids made train those bodybuilders high/low volume whatever on insane level. If you are natural you can train HIT without any issue or injuries at all.
Using Heavy Duty Mentzer style I've never have grown near as much and I'm 60. This for me is the holy grail for muscular growth even at my age.
So u advocate for that?
@@binchili
No. He doesn't.
Psssh...
So, I'm 60 as well. I know back in late 70s when I started training I bought Mentzer's book Heavy Duty. Could not get interested in it. I wanted to do more volume. Wish I would've committed to it when I was in my prime. I might've been more successful but here I am 60 and overweight and covered with arthritis.
@@jamesgilmore1684 32 and covered with arthritis. Just start.
@@dendanskehelt4296 wow you're 32 and have arthritis? I feel for you . I started getting arthritis 4 years ago and that is only in my thumbs, which is difficult at times but I couldn't imagine having that everywhere. Im 58.
Been doing it for 6 7 weeks . Every single week I’ve been getting stronger
What numbers? Do you have strength or size differences? And body weight differences
@theJ3ZA personally I've been doing it for 3 months. Stronger every single week but I look EXACTLY the same
@@0nt0p0fth3w0rld you going up in weight because your on a bulk 1 to 2 pounds a week up in weight
@@0nt0p0fth3w0rld I've heard that you get denser muscle.
@@0nt0p0fth3w0rld Classic HIT.
One set is all you need, and the nervous system gets damaged even more when workouts are for 2 hours every day, that's why Mike's style focuses on fewer sessions and less time in the gym, with more Intensity, that's the best style I've ever tried.
Its the intensity that damages ur nervous system not the volume , and intensity is such a thing that if taken to perfection can leak ti incredible muscle growth but if taken beyond perfection thn it can cause fatigue in nervous system which will slow ur gains
@@FahadKhan-qh6xx
So same shit for both and both will result in gains, except one will waste triple the amount of time and the other one will leave you with lots of time to do other stuff and have a life...
Hmmm really hard choice
Mentzer said there would be those who's bodies wouldn't handle very well the high stress levels of hit, as for me high volume will work for a little but eventually catches up, I however really enjoy hit and my body responds extremely well to it.
I basically do 1 set to positive failure now on a push/pull/legs split. I don't do the beyond failure intensity techniques like Dorian since I am just a general trainee. I also train low frequency so only 3 days a week with PPL and my joints feel amazing. Even the warmup sets after you get to decently heavy weights take a toll and this type of training keeps me going as its all finish in 60-75 minutes total.
I recently cut back from a six day ppl to a 3 day ppl like you. I was reckless before and did 3-4 sets to failure 6 days a week. Would you say 3 days have you better results than 6? Would appreciate the input because I also love doing ppl, but sadly I only know how to go to failure which is why I benefited from doing one set.
Explain more pls, your PPL training sets and reps
I have been on HIT for 4 weeks now, coming from almost 2 decades of Bill Stars 5x5. I was unconditioned for almost a year before starting HIT, i am making consistent gains so far and i feel good, i am doing usually 96 hours between workouts, sometimes 72. Once i plateau i will take an entire week off and reevaluate. Im 39 years old.
How is it going for you? have you noticed gains?
@@mr.broski2427 yes i stated im making consistent gains, and i still am.
@@ChristIsLord229Great to hear that! Hope you continue making progress.👍
I just started the Mike Mentzer ideal routine a week ago. I don’t care if it’s the BEST program ever. Even if it only yields 80% results compared to volume programs it will still save me a lot of time in the gym. I am one of those funny guys how don’t want to be a professional bodybuilder and for some strange reason I have a life and friends/hobbies outside of the gym. 😉
Still making gains, in body weight and lifts.
Try adding an extra rest day every few weeks until you are training once every 7 days then go onto mike menzters consolidated program and let us know how it goes
I’m not a body builder, but I use HIT principles for my strength conditioning. I don’t have a spotter to push me through a Mentzer/Yates kind of set, but I do tack drop sets on. I’m also careful to split the work so I’m letting different parts rest between workouts.
I’m in my 50’s, and this approach has me making steady, incremental gains in strength. There is also a bit of mass accumulating here and there. I can’t say if this is the optimal way for me to gain strength or mass, but it’s working in my 50’s.
Mentzer was quite clear on not using techniques to go past positive failure every session, as this is simply too taxing on the nervous system.
The frequency training by Dorian Yates style is the only thing that has worked for me on building mass.
The high frequency training with low intensity never worked for me... in fact whenever I tested it(multiple periods) I was always becoming weaker and smaller and was having a systemic fatigue while my muscles were never tired/sore.
The problem of the people that are trying HIT training and don t grow is that they don t follow the LOW VOLUME and the REST DAYS that it requires.
4 to 6 sets close to failure on big muscle groups and 3 to 5 sets close to failure on small muscle groups is the key and 2 days ON - 1 day OFF is also key.
Every muscle group should be trained every 6 to 8 days.
Also every 2 weeks(or whenever you feel like it) you need 2 rest days in a row for a deeper recovery(muscles+CNS) and every 8 weeks on the program you need 1 week completely OFF(no delode BS) for overal recovery and then you hit the 8 weeks training cycle again by being fresh.
One more key here is that I never chased to lift more weights or do more reps in every new training....This thing was happening automatical because I was hiting my sets close to failure.... so as I was getting stronger and I was surpassing the 15 reps then I was adding some weight and then the reps were going a little down and after some time I was hitting again the 15+ reps with the certain weight and was adding a little weight and so on...
What I mean to say is that I never tracked any progress on papers ..... All of my focus was to hit my sets close to failure by keeping a perfect form of the excercises and the progressions were happening at its own pace...
39 years old 100% natural body builder here...Started bodybuilding at the age of 13 but I got serious about it at the age of 19.
I was working also as a fitness trainer in the biggest gyms of my country for 12 years and the best muscular bodies I had seen were all doing HIT training Bro splits style.
My 2 cents.
I feel u ...ive always had a high intensity moderate volume and it worked well when my joints were young and pliable...im more like you and dorian now...every once in a while pre workout on one million i go crazy but i do pay for it later
everyone's body is different , me too the only way i could make gains is by hitting PR's
Reading the Book as an intermediate, true Hit is like minium rest between training days is 4 days lol. He did it many ways, but I am going to do an Upper Lower 2 times a week 4 day rest, or just go 4 days a week but that is going to require a bit more processing, not hard, but managing fatigue and recovery ratios.
@Old Skool Bodybuilding Routines not selling anything. Just saying my experience
Thats because you a dopamine high fiber 2 b type personality
When I was younger I did a lot of boxing. So I knew what the blood and guts all out feeling felt like, leaving it all in the gym. Then I got into lifting weights and I couldn’t believe how easy or how boring it was in some way. This hit style seems very interesting
making it like a fight works for me. huffing and puffing, explosive upstroke, push that weight up there lets go, medium pace on the way down, gritting my teeth, going holy shit, hitting the gym like a beast. every last rep. pain is unsurpassable, 1 more rep still!
@@dangerdavefreestyle hit really is like fighting (against yourself). my biggest tip for training without a training partner is rest pauses and doing one handed exercises where you can use the other hand when you've failed positively to do a few extra negatives. great for bicep isolation curls, cable lat exercsies. theres other techniques you can do too
When I used to train twenty-five years ago, these principles dominated my thinking; however, trying to return to working out again, I find that I might have to just let some of these ideas go if I'm going to stick to it at my age. I used to finish each workout with tremors and sheer exhaustion, but I really don't see myself going through that again without just abandoning it all. Looking back, I found that ever since I started to train that way, I lost all that I first enjoyed about bodybuilding. I did get results in terms of size and strength, but, to be honest, that probably could have been accomplished in a way that wouldn't have had me abandoning such exercise for over two decades afterwards. That being said, I think that H.I.T. can be incorporated into my program, but just as a way to shock myself out of any plateaus rather than as the foundation for any future exercise regimen.
This is my experience and how I use hit these days
I need to here that..thats the reason why it's my 9 th time starting back
I think you need to be in shape for a while, well rested to prep, the mind and nervous system is a hell of a thing to shock. There is no lying to the body, only to the mind. When you do more reps over dramatically raising the weight to cause more intensity we know we are shying away from intensity, that shock that really is going to force changes. There lies the hard path to adaptation.
You have lost because of steroids not because of the HIT
Hard truth the cultists never wanna admit: Mike built his physique with volume, just like everyone else during his era. He was still on PEDs, like everyone else. And by virtue of being on PEDs, his body was in a constant state of muscle protein synthesis - this will be nothing but beneficial and yield results for anyone on PEDs who trains with high frequency OR low frequency because MPS is always activated.
At the end of the day, just find your happy medium and what works best for you. It doesn't have to come down to just "one set a week" vs "20 sets a week." There is so much in between and ways to modify/tweak a program, it isn't that black and white. If you've been bench pressing every day or every other day for ten sets for the last 10-15+ years then yea of course you probably got shitty results. That doesn't mean the secret formula is in bringing it down to one set to all out failure. It could mean just dialing something back to maybe twice a week instead of three of four times a week. Maybe cut down the volume by a set or two. Miss me with the "your CNS is overtrained with high volume/high frequency" crap. Brick layers and landscapers laugh at you lol.
You need a good partner to do the one and done style HIT or need to use pre exuastion and static contraction set extenders & probably only need one or two sessions per week.
Very important to know your numbers for how much weight you can lift for reps to failure and to do a quick warm up for each exercise.
IMO you need to lift very slowly 5-7 second raise and lower, even setting a stop watch for 1.5-2 minutes per exercise.
That said I think initially training a Reg Park or Steve Reeves style full body workout with a little higher volume 3x's
per week for beginners is a good idea to learn lifting fundamentals.
Then transitioning to more of a Vince Giranda/ Arnold style workout with more exercise variety for intermediate lifters, a 12,10,8,6,15 with 6 being a failure set seemed to work well for me.
3-4 days a week splitting body parts for push, pull, legs and maybe a 4th arms and a shoulders specialization day.
As I got older HIT became my go to, for safer more consistent workouts.
It's really saved my joints, and allowed me to continue to grow stronger!
What is the Arnold routine that u mentioned?
I do HIT training now, with a little more volume. And then I De load every 6-8 weeks. There has to be a balance with everything, even Dorian doesn't train his guys to a failure they can't handle and nervous system damage hurt them long term. Dorian said it best, if you work a job and have other things that require your energy, then you have to know how intense you can train so you can still recover. Mentzer was an animal, but he also believed in knowing when to have those push sets and when not to.
The C.N.S is without doubt the most overlooked aspect of training.. as one gains knowledge over a long time of training you'll learn that all the training styles are best utilized in cycles like volume. Then Low volume...you'll reap all the benefits without feeling that destroyed feeling out of the gym where you cant function it's a real thing when you're training really intense
well for HIT at the beginning the fatigue is horrible but if you keep insisting your body will get used to it, i've been doing it for more than a year and now i never feel fatigued , when I say HIT i'm talking insane intensity, I would say the main the biggest advanatge besides having total tolerance over CNS fatigue is strength gains , you will get insanely strong
How does the program work?
Cns fatigue sucks. It's the worst fatigue there is. Hate it so much. That's why I never do HIT style training anymore. Can't lay in bed for the whole day 😂
I personally think the best way to go is to take most your sets 1 rep away from failure and if your training calls for it then take the last set beyond failure. Always aim for balance and go based on what gets you progress and results as well
That’s what I’ve been doing. I’m 63. I go to one before failure. I’m not going to cause an Aneurysm. Not at my age.
I keep going til I feel the burn, then I go a little past there to where it feels like my limbs are going explode from the burning. Shake it off, then repeat.
Im glad I only wasted 2 years in volume training before i found HIT through a Mentzer video.
I believe this depends a lot on your muscle fiber genetics. I have always been an extremely explosive athlete, giving me high power output but slow recovery. This has caused me to make much more progress with higher intensities and lower volume. However, my friends who seem to have very normal muscle fiber distributions, meaning that they are neither extremely explosive or extremely endurance based, they do best with higher volumes and a bit lower intensity
I think you might be on to something here regarding fiber types.. It has been the same for me (more of an 'explosive' athlete). Over a few decades of training and experimenting, higher volumes would tend to drive recovery into the ground while I've always made good progress with short / intense training.
You are absolutely right on this one. Thanks man 🤝. Where did you study this ?
@@balasaravanan500 I haven't really studied it.. Just personal experience. Also back in the day I trained with powerlifters and American football players who would work out each main lift hard once per week (usually pyramiding to a top all-out set with not much high-effort volume), and most of the better power-sport athletes had a lot of success with this type of training. I think the underlying physiology of it it pretty simple -- fast-twitch dominant people can exert more force so they a) can't do as much volume and b) need more rest to recover in-between hard training.
This sounds like a really plausible explanation
I seem to be better at endurance, so should I stick with higher volume, more frequent training? I was thinking of switching to HIT training, but I'm not very powerful, or strong.
I started training at 13 years old. My uncle was an amateur power lifter and I was to be his project. As I matured I came across Dorian Yates style of H.I.T. training. He was the current Mr.O
As I become more familiar with the workouts it made perfect sense verses the longer..high volume workouts I first had been instructed to do by my uncle. And I began to see increased strength every week it seemed.
Now that I'm in my 40's and have racked up minor aches and injuries over the years. I still believe in H.I.T. but I see some pros and cons to bother H.I.T. and the traditional Golden era high volume workouts.
So I started experimenting with both... For 6 weeks do H.I.T... Keep a journal and write everything down. And 6 weeks do a higher volume... Less weight style of training. And compare notes. Every body it built different, most difficult yet educational part of the process is learning YOUR body. Weight lifting is supposed to be fun. Challenge yourself but don't punish yourself.
So which one is best high volume till failure or low volume till failure, I'm confused let me know this please
This info is pure gold. Everybody contemplating trying HIT better listen to this man and not repeat his mistakes. I wish I had discovered this video sooner. Lots of self-experimentation later I arrived at basically the same conclusions as you.
Hi Peter. Older guy and not a body builder. If you check out Drew Baye and Jay Vincent the current thinking on HIT is not the old blood snd guys. Basically it is as many reps as you can with good form. No drop sets etc. frequency depends on recovery and varies by individual. I train full body twice a a week and feel great. I think you are spot on regarding the extremes. I first did Nautilus in the early 80s every other day and did burn out.
Exactly. Drew Baye even says you should not do "set extenders" as for they are at best waste of time and at worst counterproductive
In a nutshell: train close to failure - or to failure on your own without the assistance of a partner with negative reps and static holds etc. (you could argue that failure on your own is not true failure - implementing static holds and forced negatives are what really take you to true failure). And everyone once in a while - when you find your groove - implement these HIT training techniques in your program when your body feels ready for it. This way you’re still extracting some benefit from it, while preserving your nervous system.
From my personal experience, I have seen amazing results following Mike Mentzer's routine I have been training since I was 18 with high volume training and I've seen results but I was feeling bord from going to the gym and most of the times fatigued.
I've started H.I.T training in August after I read Mike's book and applied it perfectly with some minor modifications to improve. I've tracked every set every workout and every rep I did in an excel sheet and believe it or not I've progressing with my workouts more than ever.
With high demanding workouts that keeps me so fatigued, I take like 7 days off sometimes until I feel rested again and sometimes I took 3 because I was well rested and I also broke my last workout record.
I have proof of all that.
Hey man. I’m so happy to found ur channel. Just started lifting 5 months ago. Decided to finally do t bar rows cause ur Arnold vid on them, and I haven’t been this sore in a long time (I did the rounder approach, but made sure the lower back was stabilized the entire time) . Have new stretch marks. I never knew what I was missing. Keep up the good work.
I love to use HIT principles in my training regimen but as you note, it places enormous stress on the nervous system and increases recovery time. I do at least one exercise that is HIT for chest, back and arms but 3 other exercises that are traditional high volume as warmups. For legs I am experimenting with the pyramided squat methods Tom Platz used, which also places a lot of stress on the nervous system but obviously can produce amazing results as he has demonstrated. I don't work out this way because I think it is necessarily the absolute best method, I do it because I enjoy it.
body responds well to Mentzer training but i dont think it's sustainable for most people long term, in terms of CNS. After all even Mentzer did meth
im thinking of experimening with a switch between Mentzer and high volume training, e.g. 1 cycle of Mentzer then 2 cycles of higher volume training, repeat
great video
Im on my 2nd month of following mentzer’s heavy duty training protocol. Ive had 3 chest workouts so far and Ive PRed every workout. This is the goal. My one set is taken to concentric failure on pecdeck, followed by spotted eccentric failure, immediately followed by machine incline press taken to concentric failure, then wait 10 seconds, do another failure rep, and repeat 4 or so times. Figuring out what time my body really needs to recover is likely going to take me a while. Recovery time is different for everyone, so it must be figured out individually. But theoretically once dialed in I can always PR every set. Ensuring that I always put on muscle between sets.
The problem with your idea is that you decided to look at different HIT training systems to mitigate fatigue. Regardless, all that needed to be done was having a devolume period, where you autoregulate your training which will reduce fatigue. Once fatigued is offset, then you can go back to it again. It is much like periodising your sessions
The best workout is the one that has intensity and volume in balance. I could not agree more.
What worked wonders (and still works) for me as a tall hardgainer is superslow one set to failure (Dr. McGuff workout), one workout every 5-7 days. With this i went from 170 pounds to 211 pounds in a year (it was weight gain, not only muscle mass, but i am very satisfied with the results). I will continue using only this training method as it give me a lot of free time from gym to train BJJ more frequently.
I find it to be the opposite of what you’re saying tbh. I feel like high volume training causes more systemic fatigue. Exercise selection, training frequency and obviously training volume are all very important variables to consider when utilising I high intensity approach. I believe 3-4 sessions per week is optimal with 3-4 exercises each session, all 1 set to failure (with a couple of low rep warm up sets to acclimate to the load) progress can and will be made very fast with this style of training.
Age 57. Mentzer" Ideal Routine" I train every 4th day . 5 after deadlift. I do 3 rotations of this and then take an entire week off. I grow ! even at my age. If you stop increasing poundage on the bar or reps - go onto his Consolidation routine for 3 rotations. It's easy. You have so much time to focus your attack on the next work out !
I only do 4 to 8 sets per body part while doing 5 to 8 reps on each exercise and I've gotten some of my best results from this.
Is that per session or per week?
@@doubtingthomas9117 per session
@@genestringini8215 thanks
I've been training nearly 3 decades after years of trial and error, I would totally agree, less is more keep perfect form, heavy weight, lower volume, higher intensity. With perfect form the heavy weight is subjective. I can train twice a week, and I get complements on my physique.
@@joeyandrewjones Much better than training 6 days a week 3 hours each session like I used to.
Thanks for detailing your experience. 👍🏽
Interesting video as initially I made incredible progress from HIT training both muscle mass wise and strength wise. However in the last year or two I've had conflicting opinions on this type of training due to most of the points you mentioned in the video, so it's great to hear them points from an experienced lifter. Especially since HIT training seems to be as you said, a cult at the moment in the UK at least and anything negative about the style, is blasphemy. All training styles have positive and negative attributes.
Also as you said, it's relentless and any time you think you save in the gym from doing HIT training, you most definitely lose outside the gym as you need to up recovery levels. So it's easy to create unbalance in your life if you're not careful.
I remember at the time when I made great progress from it, I was in a different time in my life where I had a lack of other responsibilities so could dedicate a lot more time to the gym and sleeping and had less stress levels which will affect it. In fact I remember numerous times going round to see girls and I'd literally just fall asleep, it actually caused issues cause I think it offended some of them but I was physically and mentally drained from the training.
One day I will priories the gym again and I'll definitely go back to HIT style at some point in cycles this time however. It's definitely a style aimed at a certain demographic such as young people who lack real responsibilities yet, early retirees, professionals and PED users in my opinion for long term consistency. Basically anyone who can commit to the life outside of the training and not let is unbalance the rest of their life.
I certainly find one set per exercise 30 min workouts less fatiguing than 3x10 one hour sessions that I used to do- I thought one of Mentzer's aims was to avoid fatigue, my main issue is how to avoid rust if you only workout every 4 days
@chestermosburger3113 that's the problem I found with such low frequency, eg once a week. What are you doing on the other days and do you have the discipline for it? Personally going to the gym forces me to do mobility, cardio, and stretching, and makes me feel looser
Train with intensity for 4-6 weeks, when you stall or feel drained do volume for 2 weeks and repeat
exactly. The pple must understand that u have to do HIT in cycles and not for years straight.
That exactly what Dorian said
@@aragon9173not really
Peter,
I am a HUGE advocate and proponent of overtraining, which obviously is the counter opposite of HIT training.
Can you do a video on Old school bodybuilders that would fall into the category of overtraining and discuss the pros and cons of overtraining as you did with this video on HIT training?
Thanks!!
Wth is wrong with u
I’ve tried HIT. I gain strength quickly but not mass. The best approach IMO is to sprinkle it in on occasion to break thru plateaus
Literally after the first session of HIT training I got sick. My body and mind were completely exhausted. Preparing myself to next one but, this time I'll decrease overall valume of exercises and avoid complete failure
But if u decrease volume,where do u go further ? it's only 1 set
@@binchili
I rep.
Every 10-12 days.
@@binchilihe was probably doing more than he should have.
You are not in a good shape then. Don't go to the gym and it will get better. U should see a doctor aswell.
I have been lifting for almost 40 years , almost 55 now. Never got big , never got ''the body of my dreams'' but I ve come to some conclusions based on my experiences. The only routine that really works is the one you stick with and that makes you stronger over time . The one that makes you feel good and doesn't drain your energy . Aside from that , your age and genetics , lifestyle , sleep , diet and stress / hormone levels will make MOST of the difference . ALL the competing bodybuilders I ve talked to , admit that without chemical help one can NOT go very far and definitely will NEVER achieve the type of physique we see in magazines. MY gain in 40 years is that I m healthy , strong for my size and look good for my age .
Back in the early 90's we used a high intensity style used by Dr. Ellington Darden, who Lear es under Arthur Jones. Darden wrote bigger muscles in 16 weeks, if memory serves. We did Mon workout heavy all out high intensity session full body and on Wed light, and Fri medium. Also we ran a 4 week training cycle of negative only training, that was really hard and fatiguing but it worked really well.
Mentzer cautioned against excessive eccentric failure. It was mostly concentric failure only
Hi peter bro, great video man!!!
The best routines I've ever done:
pull, push, lower, off, repeat
or chest and back, shoulders and arms, legs, off, repeat
or chest and arms, legs, off, back and shoulders, off, repeat
But when you go forward and you want to fix weak points I think the basic PPL + weak points becomes better for that, for example, let's say you have really good legs and bad torso, so we would do it like this:
1 - pull
2 - push
3 - lower
4 - off
5 - chest and back
6 - arms
7 - off
Very similar approach to how I do things. Great setup!
Glad I found your channel, awesome content. Straight old school body building is what I live for, keep it up.
I did HIT for few years, I have Mike Mentzer's Birthday too lol. I would do Peck deck beyond failure and do Incline bench same way right after pec deck. Quads in 20 min Leg ext. Beyond failure then Hack same way two times. Back Under hand pulldowns then pull overs Delts we side laterals into Press overhead. Diet was 5000 calories per day and as Mike said if double intensity then double the dose lol
Not going to lie Mental was important with all the food and supps (wink) I was able to train hard all the way to show. Got weak around 3 weeks out but went as heavy as possible. As I got older, I went back to Volume. Great videos and like that you tried this method in order to really get it!
i used the Jones/ Darden style of HIT. i did it for a few years. i tried Heavy Duty and made good gains. after a while it felt like a job doing it. i had to come in the gym totally focused to assault my body. the fatigue and the strain on the central nervous system got really high. i was slamming energy drinks to get ready for the workout. one day i had 300 lbs on a close grip incline press. i got to the 8th rep and started to fail. i tried for the 9th and i felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. i went home and rested. after a week it didnt get better. i went in for an MRI and i had a small tear in my rotator cuff. the doctor gave me a cortisone shot. i took more time off. when i came back to the gym, i adjusted the poundage and intensity. i started doing a little more volume. slowed my reps way down. i went back to whole body training. i rarely push to all out failure. i do more warm ups. Mentzer didn't encourage much warming in the early phases of HIT. later i saw he advised his clients to do a few warm up sets. i guess we were his crash test dummies. Mike started recommending 2 or 3 exercises once ever 5 to 7 days. i tried it and discovered that was worthless. i was paying a gym membership and only going 4 times a month. the workouts were so brief and infrequent, i had to stay in a calorie restrictive diet because i wasn't burning enough calories from exercise. Mike didnt recommend and exercise on the off days. during a conversation with Clarence Bass, Clarence told me that Mike said to him, before his death, he wished he would have included more cardio in his training.. Mike was an extremist and tried to be different that all of the rest. in doing so, his workouts were ridiculous. HIT training should be part of a periodization program. not to be exclusive.
Doggcrapp crew checking in
Love the concept of DC training. I ran it extensively years ago. I agree with the main objective (get stronger on key movements) as well as the simplicity but i found the same issues with hit training I mentioned in the video to also be true with DC training.
Well my coach is Dusty Hanshaw and we’ve been doing 4 way DC training for 3 years and I’ve added 40lbs of lean tissue. I’m 25 now and stage weight is 225. Gearing up for my
First national show. I’ve been lifting since I was 15 too so it’s not like I’m new to training lol. Also only 5ft 9. So I’m not a slenderman. The problem people have with DC is their inability to truly push their set to absolute failure without compromising execution and then lack ability to do that week in and week out. It’s not rocket science. Do more week to week. Pair it with proper recovery and diet and you’ll grow. DC works so well because it’s truly the only way to train high frequency. It’s not possible to do high volume and high frequency without digging a hole too deep to dig out of from a recovery stand point. You have to be doing lower volumes session to train muscles more frequently. Love your vids man. But I think you should give DC about her try but this time have a training partner to REALLY push you to hell and back during those sets.
@@diegodelatorre591 what is the DC 4 way split? Never heard of it
@@PeterKhatcherian Dusty Hansaw's Advance DC training i believed.
@@Han-nk3io interesting. I know Dante has a 5 day split he recommends for advanced lifters but I don’t think I’ve ever heard Dusty discuss a 4 way DC split. Unless he’s referring to the 3 way split done 4 days per week.
You might have a different combo of muscle fibers. Most gifted men are majorly fast twitch. These take longer to recover, but grow the most. For most normal humans HIT doesn’t have the same negative effects you are referring to. We have enough slow twitch to be strong enough during recovery to do most activities Normally in life, such as our occupations. Myself it’s the only way I grow, without damaging my joints. I can lift low intensity set after set, day after day, but my joints just don’t keep up. HIT actually helps dissolve imbalances, and gives joints sufficient time to heal, and the one set fatigue makes me too weak to get hurt when I do lift. I am an ectomorph with high mesomorph traits (as body type is a continuum). Here is my experience, shared with many others. 9:07
The golden era leaves no doubt about the efficiency of the method applied, but we can't forget: those are people with great genetics and steroids.
High volume won't bring these results to mere enthusiasts.
Testing methods and knowing your body is the most important.
I actually learned alot from this video
Personally had unbelievable results with HIT. I went from 77.2 kg to 95.5 kg in 13 months. Yes, over 18 kg (40 lbs) gained in 13 months, with roughly 3-4% body fat increase (now 16.5% bf using 7 point calliper test). I used Mike Mentzer's ideal routine training once every 5-8 days. Everything meticulously recorded. And would you believe I was very sick 2 of those 13 months, and had a big setback where I lost and regained 6 kg... Happy to answer any questions. I am nowhere near Peter's physique, but I hope to carry on with my HIT experiment and see how far I can push it.
How’s it going? And do you use a training partner?
@@user-xe5fz6se9j No training partner apart from a few times. I got up to 97.4kg on 10th May. Decided to begin cutting some of the excess fat, trying to get under 15%. Still stronger every session, when applied properly this training is great. I'll get back into a surplus in a month or two.
How old are you ?
@@boneless1295 Nearly 25 years. Training since 18.
@@fulchpthows the progress now?
I used to do ppl, on most of my compound lifts my last set would be about 90 - 95% of my 1rm, I did this for 2 months and I was burning out and losing motivation to come to the gym, took your advice and dropped my intensity and did a upper lower split and finally started building muscle again
Mr. Mentzer used the analogy of sun exposure, everybody has a different tolerance. For some the Hit method is too much, so for those he had a different method of conditioning.
And that is?
One of my favorite techniques is failure pause (3-5 seconds) back to failure.
Can u explain?
@@binchili lift to failure, pause, lift to failure… after the pause ( 5 seconds ) you’ll most likely only be able to do 2-3 more reps. It’s a Mine Mentzer technique that works well if you workout alone or don’t have a spotter. Super sets and drop sets work well too…
Great job Bro!
My HIT routine ( what works for me )…
Monday;
Chest
Tuesday;
Back/biceps
Wednesday;
Shoulders/triceps
Thursday;
Legs/abs
Friday;
Chest
Following week I’ll start with Tuesdays workout, Tuesday, Wednesdays workout, Wednesday, Fridays workout and stagger my workouts like this through the month. Legs/abs once a week on Thursdays. Typically less than 3 hours per week.
Your Experience is very similar to mine. Got a bit of strength gains from HIT. But systemic fatique is too much, Localize muscular fatique is like Mike Mentzer said it only took 1-3 days max but systemic fatique took way longer but In frequent training isnt the answer due to Decompensation. training to failure Frequently is just not worth it. I remembered pushing Exercises Dorian's styles with force reps, slow negative and My body and mind just feel more sluggish without added benefit compare to my exprience with non-failure Frequent training.
Agree 100%
the trick with HIT is taking a nice long nap right after your post-workout meal. your CNS will recover much faster. you can "hit" the same bodypart every 3 or 4 days easily.
@@baloosd can u explain the program? tried it but next day i felt fine,went to complete momentary muscle failure
I just started doing HIT/Rest-Pause Mike Mentzer protocol, the hardest thing is practicing the exercise of restraint! I want to be back in the gym because it was a habit of spending a couple hours there every day & I was happy, but I wasn’t seeing gains, so why keep doing the same thing over & over again while expecting different results? Like I said, I’m relatively new to the program, but I’m enjoying the gains as well as the mental component of practicing restraint, also, it forces me to pay closer attention to my diet since I’m not just moving weights around for a few hours burning calories.
What's restraint?
Restraint from junk volume
Your experience with HIIT was interesting to hear. I've experienced and still do experience to a lesser degree, the nervous system fatigue of highly intense workouts done to failure every set (or >80% of the sets). Everything needs to be in the right amount - the number of sets, the intensity, the frequency, the number of reps, rest time between sets etc. Not too little and not too much.
I find that 10-12 sets per large muscle groups (chest, back, quads etc) at a pretty high intensity (0-3, usually around 1 rep shy of concentric failure) is enough weekly volume and effort for good results. Of course, with applying consistent progressive overload in weight/reps.
I love HIT but it's so easy to deceive yourself regarding overtraining. You may feel totally recovered two days after a 1 hour gym workout, and you may get away with hitting the gym 4-5 times per week for a while, but you'll eventually discover your CNS isn't recovering as quickly as your muscles.
I've been doing a modification of HIT for the past couple of months (slightly less than Mentzer level intensity) and spent 48 hours in bed this weekend just recovering. My muscles have DEFINITELY GROWN and I've made measurable strength gains, much more noticeably than when I did volume training. But damn, the necessary recovery period is brutal.
Great Video Peter!
I am doing Hit training for 6 weeks so far and working out two times per week, I didn't gain muscles, But become much stronger, each training I would put more weight progressively, looks like gaining strength is very effective so far.
You following his 4-2-4 method or naw? Pause slow pause on each rep?
@@NrecapsAnimeSeries I am training twice a week, sometimes even once a week, 4 trainings, the first one is chest and back, second: legs, third training: Delts and arms and fourth: legs again. Trying to do slow as possible each rep, especially emphasizing slow negative rep, and also static hold, but not for long, also I rest few seconds and try to do two or three reps more but with the same weight, I am not doing dropsets. I hope explained you well. You can find these heavy duty training on youtube, so you can see for which exercises you can do static hold and etc.
Stumbled upon your channel. You have great content on your channel... What's your take on DC training?
Sergio was his biggest when Arthur Jones trained him.
Would love to hear your take on MAX-OT training. It's not as old or popular of principle, but similar to HIT.
I think it’s an excellent routine for beginners/intermediates to learn how to train hard and focus on progressive overload. I think the more advanced you become the more you need to focus on other variables as well
Pyramid to one set to failure then reverse pyramid for 3 sets.I think it covers a lot of volume many criticise HIT for.
sometimes after my 1 heavy work set, i will add a widowmaker set where i can just get around 20 reps at failure on a much lower weight. with or without the widowmaker, i always finish with a weighted stretch.
This will sound very dramatic but muscles especially legs (I know that's most people) recover absurdly slow. I still recovr make great gains and have great overall health. But I always knew high volume wouldn't work even though I spent years doing it. It gave me the mental endurance and now I know my body I rest more often. I prefer to spend all day at the gym but my gains are faster now. I will say I have had days after training where I was very lucky I was free from work because I was so fatigued I had no choice but to sleep i mean like I had popped sleeping pills with my breakfast kind of drowsyness. This is my experience so far
Yes, the systemic fatigue was the limiting factor. Muscles recovered relatively quickly but my body as a whole didn't. A good balance I found for myself was 1 set to positive failure. Give it your all, but as soon as the weight stops moving for more than a second, stop. Do not turn your last rep into a static hold, don't do forced reps, negatives, or drop sets. Initially, some of these techniques are useful to learn to push yourself to failure in the first place and to learn what true failure means. But once you can only crank out 1 or 2 reps on your drop set, immediately stop these practices. You're creating enough stimulus with your working set already. After 8 months of 'traditional' lifting I switched to HIT doing 1 full body workout per week. Major lifts increased between 60%-100% in the past 3 months.
I agree. Too much volume, not enough intensity. And vice versa. Same with frequency. I am going to try rotating frequency on body parts.
So if you didn’t had result with regular bro split once a week in the beginning and didn’t had much success with HIT routines? What other kind of training exists that gave you better results?
The military uses the HIT system for its full time soldiers with basic nutrition and resting times. The truth is the exercises should be spaced out anywhere for 2 to 5 weeks due to the neuro state the body reached during the stress of the exercises the body is not conditioned to already. The reason most don't have success are the proper diet is not implemented, you aren't resting enough, or the individual does not fully use the muscles they are working on. The thing is plateau really is just endurance training with lighter weights. The truth is if you never ever wrestle with anyone, and all the sudden you have a buddy that just wants to play and wrestle. Guess what happens after a few times of fending off your buddy with all your strength. The next time they wrestle with you, you some how got stronger. Why? Because the mind told your body that you are in danger and increased your testosterone level so your body could adjust to the stress it felt on the outside. This being a condition that restricted you, your mind protects the body by pushing more blood into your system to fill your muscles to protect yourself. The same is done with soldiers training. With pushup you push to failure by using the 5 by 5 system and what's called the ladder way. You state with 1, then do 2 then 3 and so forth until you reach 5. Then rest 10 Seconds and without stopping start with 5 pushup then 4 then 3 until you ate done. 5 sets of this straight gives you lots of strength and endurance. The same way with sit ups or crunches, and the same with the squat or lunge. Make sure you keep your count or cadence during the movement. 4 count from bottom to top, then the same way back. This makes sure you are performing the work to the fullest of the muscles. Also try not to take anything as far as vitamins. Try to eat a balanced diet. If you lack in the day the protein shake and the vitamins can help but are not a substitute for food you could naturally eat that already supplies you with what you need. Most of my old battle buddies hurt themselves by not eating and only taking supplements. The stuff wouldn't digest all the way causing high blood pressure and constipation. So eating a food that provides the fats, protein, and vitamins you need will ensure your body breaks it down and fully stores all it needs to recover. The reason this doesn't work for some is because of overtraining the muscles without proper rest and nutrition for growth. Rest has to be provided or your body will eat itself because it doesn't have those things in its system to push though you to add strength and now it goes to the only source it has and that is the muscle itself. So diet, proper exercise, and complete rest are needed in order to make this a good journey. Before you exercise please sit down with someone or look into setting up a proper meal plan with recovery foods while you rest and try not to take any supplements. Most bodybuilders do and they are all in bad health because of it. The truth is all pro lifters have or do you steroids, the ones that haven't have found real success in this system. Remember it's not how frequently you exercise, but how frequently you exercise correctly. It takes maybe 10 minutes to lift weights in one exercise to complete failure. So in that theory if you have 5 exercises for your circuit it will take a total of 25 minutes to look like you were there all day. While you gained muscle and endurance the guy that's been lifting all day looks like he's fit but is lacking in size strength and endurance. Everyone wants to get stronger bur really nobody knows how to put in the right work to get it, and when they find out they'd rather stay sedentary and work minimally versus workout for real and have a benefit from it. I guess it depends on if you record yourself versus go to actually work out. Before you start this stuff please make sure you eat right and you rest accordingly. We have in the military for a while before now anyway. It's becoming a thing to do versus the training it's supposed to be. Very soon our military is going to be in such a bad way due to everyone wanting to chemically castrate themselves and then they want to cut themselves up. If it's going to be like this we might as well ward the clinically insane to the military because that's what's checking in to defend the right to do it. So prepare yourselves for our country to fall because of nobody ready in themselves to train or be for real.
Excellent vid as always Peter. Curious, where are those pants at 7:24 from? All the best.
I think some people have faster neural recovery… they benefit more from HIT…
Also switching to HIT when you reach plateau often gives results. But most people benefit more overall from high volume. Each muscle needs individual consideration. For example, I find shoulders/traps tend to grow with regular training, whereas triceps/biceps tend to grow with intense training. Depends on your body shape.
Let me tell you this when I stopped all the silly hi volume widow dressing exercises..and just did deadlift squats rows bench press over head press..and not in the same workout added weight to the bar over time and got really strong I grew and lost body fat..forget all the BS..Get Really strong first..
It's interesting as Steve Reeves classified high intensity workouts as ones where you would do pyramid sets, antagonistic muscle sets, and other Golden Era techniques
Very good analysis of how you went full circle and learned how your body responds to different philosophies. For me, the truth is somewhere in the middle of it all. I will run a HIT cycle once a year to throw in a curve ball, but for my age and training years, I respond best to a three day Bro-Split with volume on the lower end of the spectrum. Through 40 years of mistakes, I have found the truth where it normally hangs out; somewhere in the middle.
It really comes down to the personal body. Some people do better with HIT some do beter with higher volume. but what many ppl dont understand is that ur not going to workout HIT like Viator did for years. u do that (as a normal person) maybe for like 6 months and then recover your body. So actually u do HIT in cycles.
Here is what Mentzer has said. training to failure, that is, momentary muscular failure is what is required to stimulate muscle growth. That is the same for everyone. What is different is the recovery. Recovery for a working, on his feetman is different for someone who has a completely different job. People are also genetically different when it comes to recovery. Also, if you're on PEDs like this guy, you should have no problem with HIT. But of course it's him promoting his own program. It's like what Greg said, train harder than last time. Don't over complicate it with Jeff NIPPARD s 1-5 RIR RPE blah blah. Hit the weights as hard as you possibly can and then back off until you're recovered. Anyone working out 3+ days a week is wasting their time and or is on PEDs and can recover that fast.
What's your thoughts on pre exhaustion for muscle groups before getting into the workout? Been doing this recently, great content as always
Can definitely be a useful tool for muscle groups you have a hard time connecting with. For example doing pullovers before any pulldown motions can help focus on the lats if you are more arm dominant
@@PeterKhatcherian are crossovers a good pre exhaust ?
Pre-exhaust is BS and does not work,
Can u Please explain a HIT routine in workout video 💪💪
HIT is garbage. It only works for drug users. Because everything works when you're on peds.
I have a few videos that cover hit training in more detail if you scroll back to some older videos you’ll find them.
@@Croissantrophy.meme.channel bull. i'm natural and have gone from 187 to 225 on HIT. you need to understand how to manage your CNS, and you need the balls to really push failure every session.
@@Croissantrophy.meme.channel damn the amount of brain cells I lost just reading ur comment
@@Croissantrophy.meme.channel nah, it transforms your physique when you switch over, give it a chance for a good 6 month
Pete is a Schwarzenegger lover so of course he's not going to give Mentzers routine any credit!!!
Where are the big HITters though?
HIT works better with machines or isolation movements.
For compound movements I prefer sets across. 3x5, 5x5 or 3x8 to get bigger/stronger.
yea the HIT works on machines because u focus the one and only muscle u want to focus. If u use free weights like swuads or whatever u cant focus on one exact muscle.
GOOD VIDEO BRO.
Having very very similar experiences, I realized later, HIT is a logical argument. The premise is false. The premise being: how "hard" you train determines your results. That is not correct. The idea is to fatigue the muscle. A muscle "fails" though, because of nervous system failure. This is why HIT devotees are often burnt out. By the logic, wouldn't they be the ones NOT burnt out, with a bunch of "volume" guys lying on the side of the road? But that's not the case. One can fatigue the muscle more, with more volume, at a HIGH, but not ALL OUT, intensity. Additionally, while "HIT" in it's various incarnations claims to be the only "true" logical method, each incarnation is very different depending on who is describing it. Jones HIT, Mentzer HIT, Yates HIT are all very very different. Something else many don't realize...studies that use "training to failure" as a methodology...that is a convenient way of measuring "effort". It is much easier to say "subjects did an exercise until they could not do another repetition" vs. "subject did an exercise until their perceived RPE of "8"." Science hates subjectivity. That doesn't mean that the real world does.
I do an average of 2 working sets of movement as I am 2-3 repetitions before failure. When I want to increase strength I train with 1 heavy set but never to failure and I use a ramp for basic movements.Sets to failure ruin my nervous system.
Yes for me as well. The more sets I’m doing the more I make sure to keep failure in check.
Like mind pump said before. My relative was a plumber and he had huge forearms
Dm I needed this thank you
Hit training for me is the ONLY training as a natural. Nothing else packed the muscle on. You dont grow in the gym. Most lifters dont know that theyre overtraining until one day they realize after 5 years they have hardly changed..
I expect results for my effort and HIT delivers. Mike Mentzer is the man. Nobody else had the guts to tell us the truth.
I take a dialectic approach using HIT and volume training in cyclical workouts
As a teen I switched from arnies 6 days a week 2 hrs a session to a Dorian Yates style and literally transformed my physique in a short amount of time.. 25 yrs later I go middle of the road but for me it’s hands down the quickest way to add size naturally and juiced.
So hit works for adding size the quickest?
@shrexy boi did for me, not the mentzer style but the Yates low volume approach, especially when your young and supple.
@scottw3780 what is the yates style compared to the mentzer style
@shrexy boi slightly more volume and frequency, try and find a free copy of blood and guts on line and have a read
To overcome the fatigue on your nervous system dorian states u need to take a week or two off training every 6 or so weeks other wise u will plateau, it is a lot of taxing on your system
It's a system that promotes recovery yet prolongs it. Go figure.
One way to look at HIT is similar to when Goku went super sayian 3
“Goku: [chuckles] Just wait. And this... is to go... EVEN. FURTHER. BEYOND!”
Some controversial points according to some, but from what I've seen in the research and in my own experience, totally accurate. When you actually watch the videos of Dorian training, on some of the big compound movements he was in reality more focused on progression than reaching true failure.
High volume is just too tedious and it comes with small tweaks and aches that I just can't seem to ever fully recover from.
I have made similar experiences, lately. Having trained so hard that i couldn't train the next day, at all. I was so exhausted that i needed 2-3 days to recover, just to be able to train the nex muscle group.
Maybe i'm just getting old, lol.
I need to feel the pain hit training 6months then high volume 3months 2 weeks off and i start again with hit let the body never adapt
You have to take a deload every 4-5 weeks to bleed off some fatigue
In my opinion , u should have done 2 day per week workout bcz of HIIT it is very very difficult for body to recover and also divide ur days to upper and lower body workouts it will be very helpful .
I’ve started doing some HIT and some volume and the results seem to be better than one or the other or averaging