VOLUME TRAINING vs. H.I.T....NO WAY!!!

[Jude2]

I don't know where people get the idea that a untrained muscle will start to atrophy in 40days. I would say it is alot sooner than that. I know if you immoblize a muscle ie cast, atrophy will begin in 48 hours.

 

[SD1959]

Hi my friends.
I was training "Super Slow" since i learn it in October....
In 4 month i did 16 productives workouts in 5 hours 30 min (20 minutes workouts), my legs grows 2 inches, my arms 1 inches, my back gets more details, my upper chest is better, i get 20 pounds of pure muscle fiber becouse i have the same body fat 5.8% with 256 pounds....

If you compare one guy running a volume training, in 4 months he performs about 80 workouts in 160 hours....Dont you think this is a lot of work even if he gets maybe the same results (i am sure not)
My best friend is running a volume training,very hard workouts, is running a good cycle too, good nutrition plan, but he looks at the same shape with no improvements in 6 months, he weights 240 pounds and is moving the same weights???????? OVERTRAIN IS THE ANSWEAR WITH NO EXACT AMOUNT OF FIBER STIMULATION.

Science is the way, say no to empirics, say yes to any version of HIT......
HIT is the best, HIT is the fastest way to get huge....

and remember........
........There is no sapace for the littles!!!!!!!!!!
Bigheinz

Could you post more detail on your version of training?
Thanks,
Sd

 

[marshallmadman]

I would like to bump for that info. Ellington Darden wrote a book on SuperSlow training 20+ years ago. The idea was 10 seconds on the negative, and 10 seconds on the positive of each rep.
As has been discussed in the past, time under tension is another way to increase fiber stimulation. Superslow training allows you to keep muscle under tension for long periods of time. However, weight uses is extremely low. (at first) It's almost like starting your lifting career all over again.

Could you post more detail on your version of training?
Thanks,
Sd

 

[Dad]

I don't know where people get the idea that a untrained muscle will start to atrophy in 40days. I would say it is alot sooner than that. I know if you immoblize a muscle ie cast, atrophy will begin in 48 hours.

Close - you can measure excess urinary nitrogen output in a bed-ridden patient in 24 hours.

For the rest of you who it looks like didn't bother to read the whole thread, I'll repost my reply to Hienz's nonsense:

I posted this in an earlier thread, and thought it to be appropraite here as well.

HIT training has largely been a history of failure (no pun intended). I nkew most of the major proponents of these ideas, and they do not work for the most part. What is usually used as an example of the supposed superiority of HIT, is the story of some high-volume trainee abruptly switching to HIT and making miraculous new gains. This would happen with any radical switch in protocols. I've seen the same thing in those who went from HIT to high-volume.

Below is my original post:
HIT
I spent some time in 1987 with Nautilus before they were sold. They tried every version of HIT training you can imagine, and never got much in the way of results for bodybuilding. They then used this "Superslow" idea on a bunch of osteoporosis patients - most of whom were senior citizens - got some results in a group of people who'd never trained, and then tried it on bodybuilders with no results. At least one very promising pro almost had his career destroyed trying El Darden's training ideas. Not one pro who tried Jones' workouts stayed with them.

I know, what about the famous "Colorado Experiment?" Casey Viiator had been working for 2 years on an offshore oil-drilling rig and not training at all. He'd dropped from around 220, to about 160, then got injured, and was hospitalized, reducing his weight further. Jones then took him back to training, loaded him up with all the gear and food he could stuff into him, and lo and behold, Casey regained muscle he'd ALREADY HAD ONCE. This version is, of corse, not the one written in the HIT lore!

Along comes Mike Mentzer (whom I also knew). He takes this whole "HIT" notion to its logical, yet ridiculous conclusion, by having people train 2 sets every 2 weeks! Peolpe weren't getting gains at all, and of course not - they were DE-conditioning!

In reality, Dorian used something like Mike's 1970's version of HIT. This involved something like 3 exercises, 2 sets each, for chest, and maybe 12 total sets for back, while doing similar numbers of sets for other bodyparts. These numbers do NOT include warm-up 3 or more sets. Beginning to sound familiar? This is also NOT how he built his physique in the first place.

Someone in an earlier post above mentioned CNS exhaustion. This is precisely what you'll get, as well as adrenal exhaustion, with a steady diet of HIT. Since muscle fibres will recover in days, but CNS and endocrine recovery takes as much as weeks in some cases, you'll never be "in sync" on your recovery. Toward the end of his life, even Mike Mentzer was beginning to concede that "training to failure" may not be necessay for gains, but rather balancing training with recovery. His comment to me, off the record of course, was "It's all about recovery." This was not the stance he took in public, though. He had too much invested in all the years he'd promoted HIT to change anything.

Most HIT proponents blame the fact that they are "not training HARD enough" on their lack of gains, so they try to find ways to increase the "intensity." The fact is that few of the people who originated HIT had any understanding of basic physiology, were openly distainful of medical science and research, and created theories which remain unproven.

If I sound somewhat bitter, it's because of my personal experience, as well as that of hundreds (yes, hundreds!) of bodybuilders I've talked to who've been frustrated by a lack of progress while trying to use a flawed methodology. What's even worse is that they blame themselves as though it's some character flaw on their part which keeps them form training "hard enough." When I returned some years back to more conventional training, my progress resumed, and I gained back all of what was lost in the "HIT years."

As an update, I would add that Dante is the only guy to solve the problem of of how to train very hard, yet frequently.

 

[teamelite]

i saw an old geezer doing super slow the other day in the gym.

volume works, and hit works

just depends on which concept you were exposed to growing up.

i like volume, but with reps, not a bunch of sets and exercises,

2 light warm ups then 3 heavy sets of 20 and its time to move on,

 

[betito]

A couple things make muscle grow (progression, TUT, intensity...) whatever sistem that meets those principles will make muscles grow no matter the volume

 

[BigJB]

the one thing that hit does lack is science. most hit is based on recovery and the idea that hit promotes recovery and thus, muscle growth. the problem is that hit is almost a religion. the followers can not bring themselves to try anything else and hold true to their beliefs so much that they become stagnant. i will say that i have gone a whole month between leg workouts and not lost any strength...but, i did not gain any either... one can not overlook anecdotal evidence either. (although i hate to rely much on it) mosy anecdotal evidence says that high volume works. look at any national level stage and you will see 90-95% of the top guys do a basic higher volume workout. that may go against our readings in science and human phys but, it is right in front of our faces. that being said, most well known strength coaches and people such as tudor bumpa, and charles poliquin believe in more frequent workouts and higher volume. they base their finding purely on what they observe through human phys writings and again, their clients. it stands to reason that only a few things are proven to aid muscle growth..these are facts based on everything we know about the human body:
1) we must incur cellular damage and or/ muscular disruption to promote a anabolic enviroment. 2) we must make this happen as often as possible to ensure a anabolic enviroment stays constant ie more growth. 3) we must make sure we supply the body what it needs for theses processes to happen ie protein, carbs ect 4) we must reduce volume or intensity slightly to make sure the muscle groups can be trained fairly often. if a muscle stays sore for 5 days..back off a little. 5)muscle soreness is not an indictor of growth or is it a signal to layoff that particular muscle group. a muscle can be trained when it is slightly sore with no regression in growth. 6) training to failure is not "needed" to stimulate growth. many strength athletes that are not bodybuilders do not train to muscular failure. failure is a way to "gauge" progress but, that can also backfire. train to failure after a bad nights sleep or a illness and you will see that failure is not always a indictor that the muscle has been fatigued. more than likely you are fighting many other factors that led to muscle failure..not the muscle itself. ie cns fatigue, immune stress, leading to a weakened state.
that being said, the biggest legs you will find is usually on speed skaters. all one has to do is look at their training protocal. squats and lunges ect. performed two to three times a week along with the speed training....that my friends is pretty frequent stimulation. they do not seem any worse for wear...

If you've ever trained on the DC two way split and truly learned how to train to complete failure on one or two work sets for a muscle group, you can see how it would be a reverse of progression to try to go back to a 5 day split with one or two bodyparts per day and multiple exercises and sets...

Even if Johnny's in the gym for 10 hours per week lifting and he gets the same results as Sammy whose in there for 3, wouldn't anyone prefer to lift for 3 hours per week instead of 10? I know I would(and do)

Like BH said, it also allows for a great deal more time over the long run to do other things(besides more time to eat and more time to sleep.

All things being equal, if I'm training 12 hours a month, and you're training 40+, I will have more recovery time, more time to eat and sleep, and less CNS fatigue.

 

[sexyboy]

both work.

might be smart to do both and always switch it up.

SB

 

[intenceman]

Bump- wondering if the OP still trains this way. If not, why?

 

[Sugashane]

Bump- wondering if the OP still trains this way. If not, why?

Bigheinz has posted some lately and still advocates HIT. I don't know if he has the EXACT same philosophies, but he built himself into a huge MF'er and has trained with and had a lot of success with HIT or similar principles, so I don't see why anything would have changed.

 

[intenceman]

Bigheinz has posted some lately and still advocates HIT. I don't know if he has the EXACT same philosophies, but he built himself into a huge MF'er and has trained with and had a lot of success with HIT or similar principles, so I don't see why anything would have changed.

I gathered that, but I was wondering if he was still doing superslow specifically, I had never heard of a pro or even high level amateur using that. Looks like he does different routines over time. Probably a good idea. Thanks again!