Mike Mentzer HIT vs HST

[imported_domineaux]

A friend loaned me a copy of Mike Mentzer VHS video of HIT training. I've watched it several times, and to be honest it escapes me how different it is to so many other training programs.

I thought I'd post about it, because I like to read a few other viewpoints about the HIT training. It's not that I'm going to HIT or anything, it's just that I'm curious to understand how you can workout every 6 to 8 days with 5 or less exercises and accomplish anything.

I'll watch a few more times and hopefully I'll be able to read between the lines or something. Maybe I missed something, but 6 to 8 days between workouts? I mean the workouts were intense enough, but then you get a workout for chest and back, then legs , then shoulders, arms and triceps,etc. I can't see the benefits of just working chest and back, then have 3+ weeks until the next chest and back workout.

Maybe this is witches brew or something. LOL

I appreciate reading comments from others on this training.

 

[Lol]

From an Interview with Bryan Haycock <div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Guys really need to understand what all the anabolic drugs do. The drugs take over the nuclear and protein synthetic machinery of the cell and simply make it start growing and dividing. The more you take, and the more protein you eat, the bigger you'll generally get. Training is necessary, but it's really just used to &quot;coax&quot; the growth, not cause it.

Natural guys don't have the luxury of growing in spite of their training. They're forced to rely on the weight itself to get the muscle to grow. That's why most of the effort is centered around reps of five and even negatives. Without the constant heavy loading of the muscle, it just won't grow.</div>
Mike used a boatload od AAS. He wasn't afraid to say so either unlike some of his contemporaries. As he said back in '85, &quot;The ones that say they don't use steroids are the ones that use the most!&quot;

 

[scientific muscle]

This has already been discussed here:
heavy duty discussion

 

[scientific muscle]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">
Mentzer never really worked out using heavy duty in his life. He got in great shape for the 1980 Olympia, but this was using arthur jones style HIT 2 or 3x/week, and he himself used alot more volume than he actually recommended in magazines, since he was on the gear. He only started using heavy duty 1X/week programs after he was fat and retired, but SUPPOSEDLY, his training clients had great results, and he had hundreds of clients. Of course if people didn't get the results like he claimed, he always blamed it on one of three things. 1)overtraining, (his favorite) 2)not going intense enough 3)bad genetics.
</div>
Quoting myself from the previous thread.

 

[quadancer]

Haha! That's funny! Hey, you're either overtrained or not intense enough!!!

PICK ONE!!!  

 

[Peak_Power]

The great thing about steroids is that it keeps hormones, and therefore protein synthesis (along with good diet) up for longer. Most pro BBers train a bodypart once a week, and they can get away with it.

Natty lifters hormones and pro synth go down after 48 hours, some like Dan Moore say 72 hours but hey that's still only 3 days, not 7. So at the most its 3 days growing and 4 days normal. &quot;Recovery&quot; is different from growing, that can take weeks and if you train to failure and burn out your CNS, it will take at least 4-5 days to recover. However, you do not need to be fully &quot;recovered&quot; to train again.

Training to failure has been proven to give no noticable improvements to strength and growth over not traing to failure, however it does help endurance. There is a study posted on this website posted not too long ago.

That's not to say HIT won't make you grow, its just the effectiveness to pain/effort ratio is way out, and the HIT guys didn't truly understand the physiology behind hypertrophy as HST/Bryan does.

 

[imported_domineaux]

Several things do bother my thinking about HIT.

The first being the extreme loading at each workout with the only joint preparation being a couple of warmup sets. I would think injuries would plague anyone on HIT.

The 15s after a couple weeks SD makes me feel a great deal more comfortable going into a cycle with HST. I do need to make it very clear... I haven't been injured, but once on HST and that was clearly a mishandling of the weights that injured me.

Just using HST I've also found it is darned easy to workout past a threshold of my body's tolerance. By that I mean it isn't too hard to hit the wall and not know it even with HST, where I'm not lifting to failure.

I knew I could lift plenty and get off great workouts on my calves (I've done it). I was doing standing calf raises in the machine with 200+ lbs on the stack. I was hitting 2 sets x 40-60 reps and going along like a juiced lifter. I wasn't feeling no pain, just a good hard burn and pump. My gosh I had to walk on my tip-toes for almost a week. I had so overtrained my calves.

So... in light of my little overtraining my calves I realize HIT might really stove me body up real bad.

One thing I really like about HST is not going to failure. It prevents so many injuries. The one problem with that is really judging just how hard to push it, since failure can be deceitful. I know many times I've done many more more reps when I was past my planned reps for the cycle. By that I mean I've frequently been able to go higher than 20 reps during aworkout where the previous workout I had trouble hitting the 5 reps.

I know that's not common, but it happens. I did try to just do the planned reps for the first couple cycles on HST. I justified not doing more when I could do more by thinking to myself &quot; I'll just use that reserve energy during the rest of my workout&quot;. THinking to yourself is bad practice. LOL

Now, if I think I can do more reps at the weight I'm working with &quot; I do the reps &quot;. I don't think about the next set or the rest of my workout. I get what I can get out of my body at that moment up to the point I know my next rep will be to failure.

 

[Sonny]

“Mike used a boatload of AAS”.
Mentzer never really worked out using heavy duty in his life.

How do you know this?
Regardless, you do not win a Mr. U with a perfect score with just doing gear.

He got in great shape for the 1980 Olympia, but this was using arthur jones style HIT 2 or 3x/week

That is true !
HIT is all about AJ

He only started using heavy duty 1X/week programs after he was fat and retired,
but SUPPOSEDLY, his training clients had great results, and he had hundreds of clients.

Hummm !

Of course if people didn't get the results like he claimed, he always blamed it on one of three things.
 1)overtraining, (his favorite) 2)not going intense enough 3)bad genetics.  

1) overtraining
Well ! As we know using HST that “1) overtraining” will keep you from advancing.
That’s why we do an SD .

2)not going intense enough

If you’re doing HST, I would hope that people understand that an intense workout is
what your looking for .Intensity is not trying to bust a nut with over load or carelessness .
IMHO! Intensity to me is when we go thru a workout we should have great concentration, focused power, conviction and dedication in our actions while training regardless of the style.
An intense workout is going from station to station with a dedicated desire to give it your very best shot with intensity.
Again IMHO !  No one can accomplish anything of any great importance without   great concentration, focused power, conviction and dedication.


3)bad genetics

That speaks for itself .
We all can’t be a Lance Armstrong, Mike Mentzer or Reg Park, but that doesn’t mean we should not give it our very best shot.

Mike is no longer here to defend his principles, but if he was I believe he to would agree with the principles of HST . Because for sure he wasn’t stupid  

Thanks

Sonny

Save a Chicken !
Eat a Cow!

 

[JonnyH]

One of the things i question is in the faq it says:

- HIT is based on how hard it feels to lift a weight.
- HST is based on progressively loading the tissue.

and that intensity as HIT describes it is based on perceived effort and doesn't necessarily really measure a sets ability to stimulate growth of the tissue itself.

But surely HST is also based on how hard it feels to lift the weight and percieved effort, or else why do we use our rep maxes as guidelines? or say we should start at a certain percentage of 1rm etc

just something i wondered about.

Also just wondering about the differences between HST and arthur jones style HIT as ive seen a few people say its very similar and ive hardly any knowledge of HIT whatsoever

Is it just that they pushed past failure everytime they worked out instead?

 

[Lol]

JonnyH: HST is not about perceived effort at all. It's about actual load and strain on the muscle tissue. Whether you perceive it to be heavy or not makes no difference to the effect it has on the tissue. If the tissue is in a suitable condition to respond to a load it will, if it isn't it won't.

In HST, RMs are used as guidelines because they are 'correct at the time of going to press' and so we can work towards them knowing that we can keep ahead of RBE on the way.

AJ's HIT had a lot of good points (eg. three times a week, fullbody training) except for the fact that momentary muscular failure was viewed as being the most important part of a set to stimulate muscle growth and that one, or at the very most two, sets were all that were required to get the job done, no matter what stage in your training 'career' you were at.

Whilst HIT exponents never talked much about work done as being very important in the quest for hypertrophy, they did espouse the use of drop-sets for more advanced trainees. I think it is correct to say that training so that even a light load feels heavy will help with endurance, but it will also get more work done and burn more calories.

Of course, Arthur J was looking at results and could only guess at what was going on. Trouble is, he wasn't right about a lot of things. Now the bio-chem guys have figured out a lot more about how and why muscle tissue grows and HST makes the most of that info.

Sonny: The fact that Mike M used a lot of AAS to get where he was is surely not surprising to you?  

If it is, well sorry to have to drop that one on you.  

I still have a very candid interview with Mike that John Little (a big fan of Mike's) conducted in around '85 for Bodybuilding Monthly. Mike's steroid use was discussed several times during the course of the interview. He mentioned that he couldn't possibly have attained his condition without them and that, in particular, they allowed him to gain muscle and lose fat while getting ready for a contest. Oh, how we all wish that was possible without AAS!

 

[Sonny]

I guess what I was alluding to, was the when he did gear he still had to put a lot into his workout to get where he was.
And old AJ as you mention didn’t have it all correct ,but he did have some .
But, then again it was over thirity plus years ago .
IMHO I can’t think of another who put so much into it .
I’m 53 and when I started at about 15 ,there wasn’t much else to pattern by .
And at the time I did make some really good gains.

I agree with you 101%.

Sonny

Save a Chicken !
Eat a Cow !

 

[JonnyH]

Maybe im thinking about this all wrong then, but in terms of the minimum effective load ive read for example its a good idea to start each mesocycle at atleast 70% of the RM for that mesocycle. In determining our rep maxes we keep lifting until our concentric rep speed slows significantly or we feel we're close to failure and then stop. Arent we then basing that on how hard the weight was to lift/perceived effort? I mean we're perceiving the fact that the weight was hard to lift at the same speed as it was for the previous reps, or that we think we're about to fail..so we stop.

So if thats correct it can measure a sets ability to stimulate growth of the tissue, because thats what we base the initial loads we use on.

Obviously though in terms of someone thinking &quot;oh this is easy to lift so it cant be doing anything for me&quot; it wouldnt measure a sets ability to stimulate growth of the tissue.  

Intresting also that since ive been with this forum ive learnt that more trained individuals need to do more work as you were talking about to achieve growth compared to less trained people.
Yet the main pages of hst without mentioning training state say:
&quot;Sets will be limited to 1-2 per exercise. There is no problem with a single set per body part as long as it is a maximum effort and/or the rep tempo and form is strictly controlled or the weight is extremely heavy preventing further sets. &quot;

And in the article timing frequency plan they give a study and conclude:
&quot;The take home message is that you needn't do more than a single work set to achieve the same relative gains of doing multiple sets. This makes incorporating a whole body workout into your schedule much more feasible.&quot;

Yet again ive learnt in this forum that you should do as much as you can without sacrificing your ability to train efficiently with sufficient frequency.
I know brian is a very busy man and isnt around much but arent these quite big differences that would mislead someone reading what HST's about?  

 

[vagrant]

Everyone can grow on one body part per day - if they train to total failure like with any of the HIT programs like Max OT, DogCrap, or whatever. The reason you don't have to keep a week between workouts (squat only on mondays or however you do it) with HST is because with HST we don't work to falure.

I've done each of the different training principals over time and they do all work. However, with the HIT type programs you will possibly build strength faster than your musculature is capable of supporting through nerual adaptation, which in my body led to injuries.

HST is different because we use submaximal loads and do more frequency.

Personally, I've learned that the higher frequency principles such as HST lead me to grow more with less injury than the lower frequency ways of HIT...but, we cannot say that the other methodologies are scientifically unsound or don't work because they do.

 

[scientific muscle]

I think Aj's 3xweek HIT is fine for a newbie. For advanced guys though, going to failure 3xweek would kill them. That is why most HIT advanced guys work out heavy duty style with very infrequent workouts. For me personally I grew doing basic HIT workouts 2xweek and 3xweek. When I switched to Mentzer's 1xweek or less I hardly grew at all.
The big reason I gave up on Mentzer and HIT, was when I read evidence that 1) You do not need to go to failure to grow, 2) One set is not neccesarily better than more sets, some studies show multiple sets to stimulate more hypertrophy than a single set. 3)Training 2 to 3 times/week is ideal, NOT mentzer's super-infrequent workouts.
I have read tons of Mentzer's articles and books and I learned alot from him, but he also lead me astray for years. Following his advice I was doing one set per bodypart, and doing each bodypart once/week. I hardly grew at all. Following HST principles I do more work per bodypart, and exercise my whole body at LEAST twice/week and usually 3 times/week. I never go to failure, and my strength and muscle mass is constantly improving.

 

[imported_domineaux]

I went back and watched the tape again. I forgot to mention this count regiment for each rep. He expects a full four seconds with a hold at extension for another 2 seconds then a slow return to restart of 2 seconds.

My gosh, I'm not disputing the value of getting everything out of a rep. I'm not sure what my take on this is.

Mentzer relates the intensity to prolonging and getting the most out of each rep, and moving directly to next l exercise and sets. That is pretty intense, but I'm wondering how much good it's doing when it's another 18 days until I repeat the same body parts workout.

Busting your hump for less than 1 hour every six to eight days, well I just don't see how you could get gains. It's probably got to be more like an earlier poster mentioned about getting the gains from the gear/juice, which is creating growth, stimulated by the weight training.

I do believe you can get stronger just from conditioning the muscles on such a routine. I just don't see where a natural bb can get gains that would equal a HST or almost any frequent training program.

 

[stevejones]

I don't think an advanced bodybuilder could get stronger on a routine like that, much less have gains..ESPECIALLY a natural one. Any advanced bbers who have done so, sound off.

 

[Lol]

JonnyH: I'll do my best to help answer a few of your questions but I'm no research scientist!  Also, I'm not particularly good at putting my thoughts into words, so please bear with me.

I think the use of perception of a weight being heavier than it really is is used in very different ways in HIT and HST.

As you know, when we perform an exercise in consecutive rep fashion, each rep is slightly more difficult to perform than the last. However, there comes a point when all the metabolic byproducts buillding up in the muscle are not able to be flushed away fast enough (the continual muscular contraction causes a certain amount of occlusion) and fatigue sets in. At that point the reps start to feel much harder and in a short while you will not be able to shift the weight at all no matter how hard you might try. Your perception is that the weight is now greater than your 1RM! (You could strain until your eyes popped out but you aren't going to be able to complete the rep.)

Unlike HST, this is what the HIT guys were striving for. So, according to HIT proponents, the last one or two 'all out effort' reps were the only ones that really counted. The others were viewed mainly as warm-ups for the hard, important ones.

Once you got to positive failure you could then do drop sets. The load would be lighter but it would still feel like it weighed much more due to your present level of fatigue.

'Pre-exhaust' was another technique used to make a lighter weight 'feel' much heavier than it really was, with the idea that this would cause just as much of a hypertrophic response as an actual heavy weight. Yes, it would help with your endurance and yes, it would help you get more work done. But, as far as strain on the tissue is concerned, it isn't the same at all.

HST tells us that every rep counts - because each rep causes strain on the tissue and with each rep, work is done.

If we were to continue a sub-max set past our required rep count (naughty, naughty!

), we would obviously arrive at a point where fatigue would set in and the load would seem harder to lift and consequently be percieved as heavier. With HST we stop at out required rep count because we know that the weight isn't really going to get heavier - the effect must be due to fatigue. The strain on the tissue isn't going up but the strain on our CNS is! We would rather do any extra reps after allowing our systems the luxury of a little rest (to lower the level of fatigue). Thus, we could match the total work done and strain on the muscle tissue caused by one long, all-out set to failure but cause much less strain on our CNS.

Eg. Say you are at the start of your 10s. You could do 15 reps to failure (HIT fashion) or do 10 reps, rest and then do 5 further reps (HST fashion). The same work will have been done with the same strain on the muscle tissue but, overall, there would be less strain on the CNS if the exercise was done HST style. If we had wanted to, we could have done even more reps and still taxed our CNS less than the HIT attempt.

Even for RM w/os, HST would have you manage fatigue better than HIT as you would stop when form dropped off, before that final 'death' rep, whereas HIT would have you trying to get that last rep as if your life depended on it.

So with HST we are trying to minimise fatigue so we can train the same muscles more frequently and get more work done without burning out.


With regard to a highly trained individual needing to do more work to continue growing, that could still be true for only one or two work sets. If the loads are heavier for a highly trained individual then the work done will also be greater. Because we are attempting to keep frequency high and fatigue low it could well be that 1 or 2 work sets are in fact enough for a highly trained individual.

It's really about finding out what works for you. Ideally, you might want to try ensuring that work done increases progressively throughout the cycle. This will obviously be the case if we keep to the same number of total reps throughout a cycle as the loads increase. That's one reason why it is now common practice to do 1x15, 2x10 (or 1.5x10) and 3x5 over a cycle. However, when the loads are really heavy during 5s, work done will be high even with only 2 work sets.

Phew! I need to eat something.  

 

[faz]

<div>
(JonnyH @ Nov. 09 2006,15:01)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">One of the things i question is in the faq it says:

- HIT is based on how hard it feels to lift a weight.
- HST is based on progressively loading the tissue.

and that intensity as HIT describes it is based on perceived effort and doesn't necessarily really measure a sets ability to stimulate growth of the tissue itself.

But surely HST is also based on how hard it feels to lift the weight and percieved effort, or else why do we use our rep maxes as guidelines? or say we should start at a certain percentage of 1rm etc

just something i wondered about.

Also just wondering about the differences between HST and arthur jones style HIT as ive seen a few people say its very similar and ive hardly any knowledge of HIT whatsoever

Is it just that they pushed past failure everytime they worked out instead?</div>
(quote) from bryan

One way to overcome to RBE is to increase the load and/or increase the time that the muscle tissue is exposed to the load. In other words, increase the weight and/or the volume. Both are limited by the CNS. The later is limited by the CNS’s ability to fire up the muscle and maintain contractions at a given intensity (i.e. endurance). The former is limited by the individual’s “strength”.

One other way that is unique to HST to overcome the stagnating effects of the RBE is by strategically deconditioning (SD) the muscle. The deconditioning effect allows weight loads the muscle has previously grow resistant to cause the desired effect once again. This is because SD helps to undue the RBE to a small extent.

So, HST uses SD to prepare the muscle to respond to less than maximum weight loads. This is important because maximum weight loads can’t be used often enough over time to really grow quickly.

Then, HST uses progressive load. This is critical to cope with the effects of the RBE.

HST does not require that you train to failure because that prevents you from training frequently enough. It’s better to train according to the recovery of the muscle (48 hours) than according to the CNS (up to a week or longer).

Finally, HST does not utilize useless techniques and methods pushed by bodybuilding magazines such as “muscle confusion”, “pre-exhaustion”, and “intensity” oriented training. All of which are affecting the CNS and not the muscle tissue itself.

Now, you want to know how many sets you have to use to grow your muscles. If you understood the principles as outlined above you would already know the answer to that question. If you want research on the matter, mechanical-overload studies show that a muscle can be loaded for days to weeks without being unloaded and experience tremendous growth.

So ask yourself, will any number of sets you could possibly do in one workout equal even 1 hour of constant load? So asking whether you should do 1 set or 2 sets isn’t really relevant unless you are simply interested in how to set up your routine. As far as muscle growth goes, the more time under tension the more potent the growth stimulus.

Once again, if you understand the principles of hypertrophy, you should be thinking, “My CNS could never handle loading the muscle for even 30 minutes in one session and still allow me to train again in 48 hours.” So, you must find the amount of volume you can handle and still train effectively in 48 hours. For someone who isn’t conditioned, 1 - 2 sets per exercise (~3-6 sets/week) is sufficient to cause muscle growth. If you have been training for many years (5+) consistently then it might take more time under tension. This person will either need to take more time training in order to accommodate more sets per exercise, or split up their workout into two sessions and train either twice per day, or 6 days per week. This is how guys like myself, Blade, Boris, and others train. I have been training for over 25 years, and it takes a bit more strain and time to overcome years of RBE. Does this mean that the principles of load and time under load have changed for me, as opposed to the new guy? Absolutely NOT!

Strain is what my muscles grow. It is what makes the new guy’s muscle grow. The difference? RBE. RBE makes my muscle more resistant to strain, thus, I need to either increase the strain or increase the time that my muscle is strained.

 

[Sonny]

Quoting Brian is fine, but what is your option on what he said ?
I always like to know what the other guy thinks .

Sonny

Save a Chicken!
Eat a Cow!

 

[faz]

<div>
(Sonny @ Nov. 10 2006,13:38)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Quoting Brian is fine, but what is your option on what he said ?
I always like to know what the other guy thinks .

Sonny

Save a Chicken!
Eat a Cow!</div>
sonny i take it you mean what bryan said and not m.mentzer.
having done HIT for a good while,i beleive what bryan said is correct,my cns was certainly burnt out doing HIT 3x a wk,and when i tried having 4 or 5 days between workouts i just got fat,never really gained any muscle.
having started training in the 70s doing 3x a wk fullbody going from sets of 12 reps to sets of 8 reps and getting good results,HST seemed like a good idea and it was.

i know your going to ask why did i change from what i was doing in the 70s well we didnt have forums like this then,all we had was the mags of the time and like everone else i bought into it

the guy who started me of was a bb called basil grant he got 2nd place to bill pearl  in the mr.u.i guess he knew his stuff,he was also natural which is why he never won it.