High Intensity Training – My 6 Month Update | Critical MAS

High Intensity Training – My 6 Month Update | Critical MAS

May 11th, 2011

by MAS. 

 

It was last December when I started up a super slow HIT program. For those unfamiliar with High Intensity Training (HIT), it differs from traditional weight lifting in the following ways:

• 1 set to failure
• slower movements – the goal is to remove momentum from the lift
• as little as 1-2 exercises per body part
• shorter workouts
• fewer workouts

The common element is taking the targeted muscle to complete failure and then allowing sufficient time for recovery to take place. Additional sets or longer workouts, necessitate a reduction in intensity, which is not ideal to stimulate maximum muscle growth. Also not allowing your body time to recover from the previous workout short circuits the repair process when muscle is built. High Intensity Training is about hitting it very hard, very brief and then resting. Or as James Brown would say, “hit it and quit it“.

My HIT Protocol

There are several different HIT training protocols and they differ slightly from one another. I mostly used The Big 5 Workout plan outlined in Body by Science and used by Ideal Exercise. Often I would add two additional arm exercises. During a second workout at Ideal Exercise, I learned how to incorporate a technique called pre-exhaustion into my workouts. That method is covered in detail in The New High Intensity Training by Darden. In addition, I did some experimenting with John Little’s static hold techniques, which I plan do more of after I finish reading his book Max Contraction Training.

Most of my workouts last just 10 minutes and I only workout every 5th day.



Leg Press by Oliver DelaCruz. I used to believe the leg press was a worthless exercise. Once I learned to really slow the movement down and not lock out, I became a fan. 99% of the people in the gym use this piece of equipment wrong. SLOW DOWN!


Was HIT successful for me? Before I can answer that question, I wanted to define what success means. Given my age, training age and the fact I’m an ectomorph, I do not think it would be fair to expect noticeable muscle gains. If I were a 25 year old newbie mesomorph, my expectations would be much higher. So for me, I will measure success with these metrics.

1. Do I Feel Good? – Yes. Unlike traditional weight lifting, I never get shoulder or back pain. My muscles are more sore, but my joints feel great. Using machines and slowing down the movement has taken the fear out of lifting. For the past five years, I’ve always held back in the gym on the last few reps out of a fear that I was going to injury myself.
   
   
2. Am I Getting Stronger? – Yes. Especially in the arms and legs. I am 6 foot 2.5 inches tall and I can tell you that Dr. Doug McGuff was dead on correct in the book Body By Science when he made the case for machines with taller athletes.
   
   
3. Is this style of lifting holding my interest? -At first it didn’t. It was tough getting the right mindset in the beginning. I had to undo the hesitate style I had been using for so many years. Visiting Greg Anderson at Ideal Exercise really helped me understand what is meant by intensity. Clarence Bass felt HIT was too tedious for him. I didn’t. I enjoy it more each week.

Show Me the Numbers

I violated a core HIT rule. I didn’t record any workout. Times and weights are very important to HIT. Since you are typically only doing a few exercises for a single set, you don’t have the luxury of dialing in the weight across multiple sets. My training philosophy is the Minimal Effort Approach. As long as I feel I’m moving in the right direction, I wont try and complicate things. For me the first 6 months of HIT were about unlearning old habits, practicing slower movements, better breathing techniques and listening to my body.

At some point if I feel my progress is stalling, I’ll start recording things.

Going Forward

In the post Training To Failure or Training To Quit, I theorized that I might cycle between periods of High Intensity Training and a more traditional Pavel style workout program. Well, I am going to stick with HIT for now. Every week that passes I become more convinced that HIT is right for me.

Why NOT Aerobics.doc - Why-NOT-Aerobics.pdf

Why NOT Aerobics.doc - Why-NOT-Aerobics.pdf

 

"The Best Exercise Out There? - The Deadlift" - by Mark Mogavero

"The Best Exercise Out There? The Deadlift"
by Mark Mogavero

By Mark Mogavero

"What's the best exercise for???? Answer: The Deadlift

I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked what the best exercise is for arms, legs, abs, and all the remaining body parts. When asked this question, my normal response is that there is no best exercise for any given part. The real key to developing chiseled abs, broad shoulders, and killer arms is to perform a wide variety of exercises on a regular basis, as to keep the muscles guessing and placing them in a state of perpetual progression. Any competent fitness professional should be able to understand this and make that same recommendation. But one day, while I was being asked this question, I failed to hear the particular body part mentioned, and I thought to myself, 'What is the best exercise for the body, period'?

If I had to recommend one exercise, and only one exercise to someone that will provide the most benefit not only inside the gym, but outside as well, without question I would recommend the basic deadlift. To me, there is no more pure form of exercise and no other exercise come close in terms of improving one's life outside the gym. Why?

In the most basic element, the deadlift is an exercise where dead weight is simply lifted off the floor to a standing position. There are various ways to perform the dead lift such as sumo-style, Romanian, single-leg, stiff-leg, narrow stance, opposite arm-leg, performed with dumbbells, barbells, cables, bands, kettlebells, bags of sand, rocks, cars, etc. Yet, the exercise for the most part, the goal of the movement pattern is the same: lift the weight.

In an average day for the average person, how many times does one pick an object up? Regardless of whether the object is picked up from the floor, couch, car-seat, garbage can, etc, the fact remains that any person lifting an object in this manner is performing a deadlift. Is a parent who lifts a toddler off the floor doing anything mechanically different from picking up a loaded barbell in the gym? With the variation in hand placement and perhaps a little change in depth of movement, the task is the same.

Here's the basic exercise:

the beginning of the movement, position yourself so your Shoulders are aligned over the bar, hips back, and chest up.

As you begin to lift the weight, the back stays flat, the chest over the bar, push through your heels and straighten the legs and hips simultaneously.

At the top of the movement, the back is flat, not hyper extended, Knees just short of locked out, chest once again over the bar.

When considering the fact that nearly every muscle group in the body is involved in the exercise, one can see that the deadlift is a real total-body exercise. I would estimate that some 90% of the muscles in the body are involved in this lift. Not only is it very taxing to the muscles, but a very demanding cardiovascular exercise as well.

• Lifting a baby out of a car seat? It's a deadlift.
• Picking up groceries off the kitchen floor? It's a deadlift.
• Taking a full garbage bag out of the can? It's a deadlift.

You could argue that sweeping the dirt from a floor into a dustpan, and then lifting the dustpan and emptying it into the garbage is a form of a deadlift.

The barbell version targets the muscles of the lower back and hamstrings as the primary movers, but the real benefit comes from all of the various stabilizing muscles that are called upon to maintain proper form throughout this exercise. These include all of the muscles that stabilize your spine, your transverse abdominus and rectus abdominus (your 'Abs'), internal and external obliques (the side of your abdomen), your lats and traps (the large muscles of your middle and upper back, and to some extent your pectoral or chest muscles.

There are other benefits to performing the deadlift that are overlooked by the average fitness enthusiast. Since the exercise is so demanding, your body's metabolism will remain elevated for several hours to almost a day in some cases after performing the lift. Not only are you developing strength and flexibility in the muscles, but you are burning fat for a long period after leaving the gym! Talk about a double whammy. Not only will your metabolism be higher, but as a response to the strain of the deadlift, your body will release a higher dose of hormones into the bloodstream to help repair muscle, tendons, and other soft tissues. This helps to increase the lean body mass of an individual, and the result of that increase will be a higher basal metabolic rate, or the overall number of calories that your body will burn over the course of a day to maintain the same bodyweight. The translation is that not only will you be burning more calories during the workout, and after the workout, but your body is repairing itself in a way that will make you burn more calories on a more permanent basis. The deadlift really is the perfect exercise!

I am sure that some of you are questioning the safety of the exercise, and are concerned that you will hurt your back performing this lift. I have worked with hundreds if not over a thousand clients, and can say in each case, even those who had a 'bad back' saw results from doing deadlifts. If you have any type of health issues, make sure you get clearance from your doctor before performing this exercise, as it can be quite taxing on the cardiovascular system and briefly elevate blood pressure. Make sure you practice perfect form as shown above. If you are unsure of your ability to perform this exercise, seek the guidance of a qualified fitness professional and have them make sure your form is perfect. Start very light until you have the movement down, then add weight as your body gets stronger.

I have complete confidence that this exercise, when performed properly, can help anyone. Not only has it helped my clients, but it has paid huge dividends for me as well. The deadlift was a key component in my recovery from a lower back injury that I suffered when I was 18 playing college football. Ten years after the injury, arthritis developed, severely limiting my flexibility (I was barely able to reach my feet to tie my shoes). With a little bit of Chiropractic care, and lots of deadlifts, I can honestly say that my back has never felt better, nor have I ever been this strong. If it can work for me and my clients, it can work for you.

About the Author:

Mark Mogavero is the owner of Dynamic Personal Training, located in Verona, NJ. His website is www.dynamicpersonaltraining.com

How to Develop Six Pack Abs

How to Develop Six Pack Abs

First of all, crunches, sit-ups, etc. are ineffective for developing 6-pack abs.

So why do people insist on doing hundreds of them? Because some very effective marketers have implanted this idea in their heads in the hopes of selling them useless ab exercise products.

So why don't crunches, sit-ups, etc. help you develop six-pack abs? First we have to understand exactly what a six-pack ab is.

The muscle that makes up the abs is the rectus abdominis. And it responds to exercise the same as the other skeletal muscles. I repeat, the ab muscles respond to exercise the same as the other skeletal muscles! 

To increase the size of the muscle fiber and make them stronger, do an exercise that you can do no more than 12 reps of before failure. This is a good general rule for ALL skeletal muscles.
To do sarcoplasmic development (i.e. make them larger for bodybuilding), do an exercise that you can do at least 8 of and no more than 15 reps before failure.

Me at 7%
Body Fat

The one big (and important) difference about abs is that for most people they are covered by a thicker layer of body fat than must other muscles. Therefore, in order to see them (no matter how developed they are), you must get your body fat down. For most men with typical fat distribution, at about 10% body fat, you will start to see a "4-pack." At 8% body fat, you will see a full "6-pack." Below that, the definition starts becoming really defined.

The picture of me on my website is at about 7% body fat.

So why is doing hundreds of crunches, sit-ups, etc. basically worthless for developing 6-pack abs?

• You can not "spot reduce" body fat (except by surgery). The myth is that if exercise your abs, you will reduce fat directly from around your abs. This simply IS NOT TRUE. Your body removes fat according to a predetermined pattern that is based on genetics, age, and health. Unfortunately, the abs are usually one of the last places that the body removes fat from. Doing crunches and situps does NOT remove fat from the midsection any more than other exercises.
  
• Abs are a relatively small muscle group, exercising them burns much fewer calories than exercising the legs (a large muscle group) making ab exercises ineffective for removing belly fat (or any fat for that matter). The fastest way to exercise away fat from your midsection is by exercising the large muscles groups (i.e. the legs). This means doing exercises such as cycling, running, squats, steppers, etc.
  
• Doing an exercise that you can do more than 15 reps of won't stimulate a muscle to grow larger. And I repeat, because this is important, the abdominal muscles respond to exercise the same way other skeletal muscles respond! For the same reason that doing 20 or more reps with bicep curls won't make your biceps any bigger, it also won't make you ab muscles bigger! Remember, the abs are muscles just like other muscles.

Doing ab specific exercises is not necessarily bad, but you must do them in a way that accomplishes something useful. And about the only thing useful that you can accomplish with an ab specific exercise is to make the muscle bigger - and how do you make a muscle bigger? Do an exercise that you can do no more than 15 of before failure. So if you can only do 15 or less crunches before tiring out, then that's okay. Otherwise, they are not doing much to develop your abs.

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click to enlarge

Study Finds Squats and Deadlifts Are Better at Developing Abdominals A study published in the January 2008 issue of the "Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research" found that the squat and deadlift activated more core muscle than fitness ball abdominal exercises.  While there are exceptions, in general, fitness ball exercises and balance pad exercises don't stress the ab muscles enough to stimulate muscle growth.

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So What's The Best Ab Exercise?

To have 6-pack abs you must do two things: Develop your abs and more importantly, lower your body fat. So what's the best ab exercise? Probably a food journal and cardio exercises such as cycling and running. But seriously, to actually develop the ab muscles, forget fitness balls and balance pads and stick with the real core exercises such as squats and deadlifts. Squats and deadlifts (when done without a belt) require great core and abdominal strength and really work the abs.

The abdominals work in concert with the back muscles to hold the spine erect during exercises such as deadlifts and squats.

In fact, for most people, the limiting factor in how much they can deadlift is their core/ab strength. Watch someone bend over and pick up 400 pounds and tell me they don't have core muscle. It's their core and abdominal strength that allows them to transfer the power from their legs to the arms and holds their back erect during the lift.

The transfer of power from the legs to the arms is what core strength is all about. And of course a key component of the core muscles are the abs. If you want to develop your ab muscles, do dead lifts, squats, and dumbbell rows. If you want your ab muscles to be visible, lower your body fat.
 

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Summary

• The abs aren't magic special muscle, they're muscles just like your biceps. To make them grow, follow the same rules for training as you would your biceps. Low reps, heavy weights.
  
• Doing high rep ab exercises does little to strengthen your abs or make them larger.
  
• To see your abs, you must reduce your body fat. Diet and exercise are the best way to reduce body fat. To burn the most calories per hour, you must exercise your large muscle groups, such as legs.
  
• Doing high rep ab exercises burns very few calories, and therefore, will do little to reduce body fat.

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References:

Squats and Deadlifts are regarded as the Best Ab Exercises for
overall abdominal development for Six Pack Abs.
http://www.body2shape.com/Best-Ab-Exercises.html

When you are lifting heavy during your squats, lunges, deadlifts, and the bench
press, you will be using the ab muscles to a great degree
http://www.hulsestrength.com/ripped-abs-ripped-abs/

Deadlift heavily taxes the abdominals and obliques
http://ezinearticles.com/?Five-Reasons-Why-You-Should-Deadlift&id=2398753

Deadlifts: The Best Bodybuilding Exercise

Deadlifts: The Best Bodybuilding Exercise

By Sean Nalewanyj

Are you looking to build some serious muscle size and get a ripped, head-turning body as efficiently as possible?

Today I want to share the best bodybuilding exercise out there that can help you accomplish exactly that.

All it requires is:

1) A barbell
2) A flat surface

That's it. Put as much weight on the bar as you can safely handle, and pick it up off the ground while keeping your back straight.

Sounds pretty simple right?

It is, but don't be fooled, because "deadlifts" are by far the best bodybuilding exercise you can possibly perform.

It will work you from finger to neck to toe and stimulate upper body size gains faster than any other lift out there.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that although deadlifts are the best bodybuilding exercise available, they're also extremely intense to perform and might leave you wishing you never entered the gym in the first place.

But if you're truly serious about your results, you'll be able to battle through it and reap the benefits. Heck, if you're like me then you'll actually look forward to them.

The reason why deadlifts are the best bodybuilding exercise is because:

1) They stimulate virtually every muscle group in your body to some degree.
2) They allow you to handle a large amount of weight.
3) They place your entire body under the greatest amount of total stress.

In fact, once you start deadlifting consistently you'll probably notice a "spill over effect", where every one of your other lifts (such as bench presses, chin ups, curls etc.) rapidly increases in weight as well.

While there are many different ways to perform the deadlift, we are going to examine the standard bent-legged version as this is the most common style for bodybuilders.

Sean Nalewanyj is a natural bodybuilding expert and best-selling fitness author committed to providing effective, research-based advice for building muscle, burning fat and gaining strength. Sean is the creator of the "No Fail System" bodybuilding program and president of EliteImpact Labs. Connect With Me: Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | Google+