High Intensity Training, also known as H.I.T., is a system of strength training that is characterized by brief and infrequent, but very intense, workouts. Performed correctly, High Intensity Training produces dramatic increases in strength and muscle growth very, very quickly.
High Intensity Training was popularized in the early 1970’s by Arthur Jones, the inventor of Nautilus exercise equipment. Through the years, High Intensity Training has been used successfully by champion bodybuilders, elite athletes, and thousands of fitness enthusiasts.
High Intensity Training allows you to build muscle and increase strength fast. You should not have to wait weeks, months or years from your muscle building workouts-changes should occur immediately, right from your first workout, and should be dramatic and continuous from then on.
Instead of trying to find out how much exercise you can tolerate, you will discover how little exercise you really require to grow as fast as possible.
The cornerstone principles of High Intensity Training are:
- Intensity
- Duration, and
- Frequency.
Intensity
As it applies to exercise, intensity is defined as the percentage of maximum
momentary effort being exerted. Intensity is the one factor in your workout that
stimulates your muscles to get bigger and stronger. The higher the intensity on
each set you do, the better your results will be. Your goal on every set is to reach
100% intensity, the highest possible level, which means exerting a maximum
effort. The last rep you perform in each set you do should be the last rep you can
possibly perform with proper form. When you work out in High Intensity Training fashion, only one set of each exercise is necessary.
Duration
When you work out High Intensity Training style, your workouts have to be brief. Why? Because intensity and duration are inversely proportional. If the intensity is very high, the duration, or length of your workout, must be low.
Picture yourself sprinting at top speed for a distance for 50 yards. Now imagine yourself running a distance of one mile. Can you run the mile at the same all-out pace you used in sprinting the 50 yards? No way! Since you drastically increased the duration of your run, the intensity had to decrease, whether you wanted it to or not.
And make no mistake, your workouts must be intense to build muscle. Nobody gets big and strong from lifting light weights.
A typical High Intensity Training workout takes 30 minutes or less. As you gain experience and become more adept with the program, the workouts can be performed in as little as 18 minutes.
Frequency
Recovery is just as important to your results as the workout. The High Intensity Training has to come first; it is the stimulus, the thing that flips the switch and sets muscular
change into motion. Your body doesn’t actually change during the workout; the workout merely stimulates the change. Then you need a recovery period to give your body time to produce those changes.
That’s why lifting weights every day is a mistake, even if you are training different
parts of your body. There is an overall energy drain on your body, and eventually
you will get burned out.
The High Intensity Muscle Building program is designed to give your muscles the
stimulus they need to change, while keeping the workouts brief and infrequent
enough to allow those changes to occur.
Click here to learn more about the High Intensity Muscle Building program
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