High Intensity Training

High intensity training set the strength and bodybuilding world on its ear back in the 1970s when Arthur Jones came out with such programs to be used with his newly launched Nautilus equipment. Though the subject of much controversy since it often flew in the face of accepted and conventional wisdom of lifting weights at the time, it has proven its worth over the years. Six time Olympia winner Dorian Yates used many concepts of high intensity training to herald in the era of the mass monster.

1. The tenets of high intensity training are few and simple. Bouts of exercise should be infrequent and brief. The reasoning is that an athlete could work hard, or work long, but not both. High intensity training also popularized the performance of each exercise with high effort and done until momentary muscular failure. By doing so, muscle strength and size would be increased.
2. The last piece in the high intensity training puzzle is the attention paid to proper form. Athletes are to perform all reps under full control, both the lifting and lowering of the weight, and avoiding any jerking, bouncing, or yanking of the weight or machine movement during exercise. Since such high resistance is employed, precaution is required to avoid injury.
3. A typical high intensity training workout consists of one or two exercises per body part, and one to two working sets per exercise are perfect. All working sets, regardless of the number of reps or weight used, should be done until the athlete can no longer do a complete rep by himself. Each body part should typically be worked only once per week or even as long as ten days to allow for full recovery.
4. In order to benefit from high intensity training, an athlete must have some level of fitness, as the exertion level does get cranked up. Form is even more important using high intensity training than most other training programs. But if your routine has slowed down or even stopped giving you gains, give HIT a try. Arthur Jones and many bodybuilders felt it was all that was needed to kick start and continue gains.