Mike Mentzer HIT vs HST

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check this load of rubish out this guy talks a load of crap
and check out him and his fat partner training
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http://www.baye.com/video/outright_hard_work.wmv
 
Thanks for the reply LOl i understand what you're saying in regards to intensity we do use it differently. So in HIT they believed the harder it was the more it was doing for them, which wasnt necessarily the best way to stimulate growth of the tissue over time as they were then doing more than their CNS could handle which resulted in them having to do less work than they could have.
I assume then for mentzer to have won mr universe using HIT, AAS must increase the recovery of the CNS aswell...making him more able to handle the fact they went to failure than someone natural would be able to.

Where as HST its viewed as a limitation, with each rep being as important as the last.

I also understand what your saying about 1-2 sets being alright for some individuals who are highly trained also, as they may be using much greater loads. But many on other less efficient programmes go through the problem of constantly trying to increase strength slowly taking no time off..which may lead to them making the smaller increases, theyre not necessarily going to be lifting large amounts of weight even though theyve trained a longer time if they werent doing it properly.

I think the way Brian's put it in faz's response would be better:

"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."

I think this is a better way of stating it. Though you could say if theyre intrested in the programme they'll read the FAQ anyway but then if its gonna be put like that in the FAQ why not put it like that on the main pages/articles, its the same audience in the end.
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(JonnyH @ Nov. 11 2006,13:43)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Thanks for the reply LOl i understand what you're saying in regards to intensity we do use it differently. So in HIT they believed the harder it was the more it was doing for them, which wasnt necessarily the best way to stimulate growth of the tissue over time as they were then doing more than their CNS could handle which resulted in them having to do less work than they could have.
I assume then for mentzer to have won mr universe using HIT, AAS must increase the recovery of the CNS aswell...making him more able to handle the fact they went to failure than someone natural would be able to.

Where as HST its viewed as a limitation, with each rep being as important as the last.

I also understand what your saying about 1-2 sets being alright for some individuals who are highly trained also, as they may be using much greater loads. But many on other less efficient programmes go through the problem of constantly trying to increase strength slowly taking no time off..which may lead to them making the smaller increases, theyre not necessarily going to be lifting large amounts of weight even though theyve trained a longer time if they werent doing it properly.

I think the way Brian's put it in faz's response would be better:

&quot;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.&quot;

I think this is a better way of stating it. Though you could say if theyre intrested in the programme they'll read the FAQ anyway but then if its gonna be put like that in the FAQ why not put it like that on the main pages/articles, its the same audience in the end.  
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johny check out the post above yours thats a typical HITer
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(faz @ Nov. 11 2006,08:17)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">check this load of rubish out this guy talks a load of crap
and check out him and his fat partner training
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http://www.baye.com/video/outright_hard_work.wmv</div>
going to failure is not that bad, this guy makes it sound like no one has the balls to go that far.
If you took two equally developed, equally strong guys. Have one lift his 8 rm, and on the 8th rep it is almost impossible, and he hits true failure. The other guy lifts the same weight, but instead of doing one all-out set of 8 reps, he does 5 sets of 5 reps with plenty of rest in between sets. Not only is the second guy doing a safer workout, but he is also doing much more work and I would argue he is stimulating more hypertrophy than the first guy, and he will probably recover quicker too because he didn't burn out his CNS.
Going to failure is not so great, this guy makes it sound like the most important aspect of training. Been there, done that, didn't work.
 
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 that first part where the guys talking was just embarassing. He was just trying to make himself feel superior and as if he had some amazing form of mental strength which most dont possess. Looked to me like he was just what most people going to failure do except trying pointlessly to keep going when he clearly couldnt and then getting the other guy to help him do a couple negatives at the end.
 
I just think it's funny that this guy has been training for decades but he looks like he's only been training for six months or so. I think I was already bigger than him after my second HST cycle. When something isn't working, you'd think that it would be common sense to find something else... but no, he just keeps right on at it. Moron...
 
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(stevejones @ Nov. 09 2006,20:59)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">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.</div>
Mike put me on his routine where you take 3 days off after every workout in 1996. I had been training about 23 years at that point. My strength jumped big time and I continued to make great progress ... for about 18 weeks. I then just hit a wall and couldn't progress at all. He had me train less and less and less ... and it didn't matter. I was just done. My strength increased again when I increased the volume and frequency and didn't emphasize failure so much. So, I think even an advanced bodybuilder (a natural one) can make progress for a while, but I don't think it is an optimum way to train long term.
 
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(leegee38 @ Nov. 11 2006,09:44)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"><div>
(stevejones @ Nov. 09 2006,20:59)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">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.</div>
Mike put me on his routine where you take 3 days off after every workout in 1996.  I had been training about 23 years at that point.  My strength jumped big time and I continued to make great progress ... for about 18 weeks.  I then just hit a wall and couldn't progress at all.  He had me train less and less and less ... and it didn't matter.  I was just done.  My strength increased again when I increased the volume and frequency and didn't emphasize failure so much.  So, I think even an advanced bodybuilder (a natural one) can make progress for a while, but I don't think it is an optimum way to train long term.</div>
It's been a long time since I've seen Mike's tape, but isn't 3 days rest a pretty short duration for HIT ? I thought his standard maximum workout frequency was once per week, while he had some do that really &quot;stupid&quot; stuff, like working out once every 3 weeks.
 
When I first met Mike in 1978 he trained on a 2-way split 4 days per week. He started inserting more rest days and eventually (I think when he wrote Heavy Duty 2) had 3 rest days between every exercise day. He said to insert more rest days when progress stopped until he eventually got folks to his consolidation routine, which was as low as 2-3 exercises once per week. If he went to anything less frequent than that I'm not aware of it. FWIW, Mike acheived his best condition while training at least 3 days per week. The &quot;more rest&quot; stuff was all theory and tested on his clients after he quit training.
 
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(leegee38 @ Nov. 11 2006,12:38)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">When I first met Mike in 1978 he trained on a 2-way split 4 days per week.  He started inserting more rest days and eventually (I think when he wrote Heavy Duty 2) had 3 rest days between every exercise day.  He said to insert more rest days when progress stopped until he eventually got folks to his consolidation routine, which was as low as 2-3 exercises once per week.  If he went to anything less frequent than that I'm not aware of it.  FWIW, Mike acheived his best condition while training at least 3 days per week.  The &quot;more rest&quot; stuff was all theory and tested on his clients after he quit training.</div>
When you say &quot;training at least 3 days per week,&quot; do you mean he worked each bodypart 3 days per week or worked each bodypart just once but over a 3 day period every 7 days?
 
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(leegee38 @ Nov. 11 2006,12:38)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">When I first met Mike in 1978 he trained on a 2-way split 4 days per week.  He started inserting more rest days and eventually (I think when he wrote Heavy Duty 2) had 3 rest days between every exercise day.  He said to insert more rest days when progress stopped until he eventually got folks to his consolidation routine, which was as low as 2-3 exercises once per week.  If he went to anything less frequent than that I'm not aware of it.  FWIW, Mike acheived his best condition while training at least 3 days per week.  The &quot;more rest&quot; stuff was all theory and tested on his clients after he quit training.</div>
EXACTLY! That is what I keep saying, Mike didn't actually use Heavy Duty as it is laid out in his books, he wrote those books after he retired from bodybuilding, and he was in crappy shape. Don't get me wrong he looked amazing back in the day, absolutely awesome physique, but that was NOT using infrequent workouts like he recommend's in Heavy Duty, and of course he was using roids, and had awesome genetics, just look at his brother Ray, those guys picked the right parents!
 
There is one area we really haven't mentioned.  CNS

I'm not sure one set to failure then moving onto another exercise that uses other muscles brings the CNS properly to levels where they should be.  IMO, I feel the second set is pretty well a minimum to involve my CNS.

I've never gone to one set on the HST, just because I don't have the feeling in my body that it's being worked properly.  Seriously,  I think I'm in touch with my body and my response to the exercises in my workout is a good indicator for me.  I &quot;think&quot; know when things are working well.

I make the first set my cyle rep requirement and then I try to make the second set my workset.  Let's face it, I'm practically at failure in the second set.  More often than not I pretty well ignore the cycle reps minimum on the second set,  if I can exceed that rep level I do it.

The CNS has gotta be tweaked and I'm not sure it is really tweaked unless it is worked thoroughly with more expended effort on respective muscle groups. I particularly think compound exercises are also crucial to CNS influence on muscular development.
 
That video is just embarassing, first he goes on and on about how nobody trains intense enough, nobody goes to failure enough, its too painful for 99% of people, blah, blah, blah, then he demonstrates this by doing some wimpy workout in a posh gym with nothing but fancy machines.
H.I.T. basically says fatiguing the muscle is important because it makes the exercise 'feel' 'more intense'. He should try Max-stimulation training. Max-stim basically says fatiguing the muscle is counter-productive because you can't lift as much weight for as many reps if you are fatigued. Anybody can do their 6 rep maximum for 6 reps and and then go far an assisted 7th rep (HIT), no big deal. In max-stim training, I and many other guys have used their 6 rep maximum load and done 20 straight reps!!! Of course we rest for a bit between each rep so fatigue does not accumulate and we can avoid failure and thus keep doing more reps! And I am not talking fancy machine exercises either. I am just a beginner/intermediate trainee, and I have personally loaded up the squat rack with 285 lb.s (my 6 rep max. at the time) and done 20 reps straight with 15 to 20 seconds between reps. One time I was tired from work, and I actually did hit failure on the 18th rep and couldn't get back up! I had no spotter so I instantly dropped the bar on the safety bars in my power-rack. I can tell you that the max-stim barbell squats are WAY more intense than that guys wussy machine workout. Big deal, he hit failure on a leg extension machine, try getting stuck under a 285 lb.s barbell with no spotter, and I was trying to AVOID failure and fatigue.
My point is the scientific definition of intensity is 1 rm load % and has nothing to do with fatigue. If HIT guy uses 85% of his 1rm and does 8 reps to failure, and max-stim guy uses 85% of his 1rm and does 20 reps with a brief rest between each rep, they both used the exact same intensity of tension, but max-stim guy accomplished far more total work and his muscles were under that intensity of tension for much longer than HIT guys 8 reps. And while max-stim guy isn't pushing his nerves to the limit to hit failure, HIT guy is and his nervous system will take longer to recover.
 
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(Old and Grey @ Nov. 11 2006,12:45)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">When you say &quot;training at least 3 days per week,&quot; do you mean he worked each bodypart 3 days per week or worked each bodypart just once but over a 3 day period every 7 days?</div>
Neither one, O &amp; G. He basically split his body in half and used an EOD split, so he trained each bodypart twice in 7-8 days. He normally did NOT take weekends off, but really trained EOD most of the time. Back then it was considered drastically less time in the gym than any other top guy.
 
Watching that video got worse and worse. He got so fatigued his girlfriend could have come in and beat him up! I'd like to take his total poundages, then have him do the same workout with proper rests/tempo/warmups and total that. I'll bet it would be at least 30% higher.
There are ways to get good results from failure training, but that ain't it. How long you reckon he can go like that before hitting the wall? At least he gets out of the gym really quick!
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&quot;Look mommy! After I've done my namby pamby leg extensions I can still use 6lbs on the leg press for a couple of reps. Boy am I training hard. One day I am going to be really huge like daddy and then he's going to show me how to use a stopwatch so I know when I've reached failure all by myself.&quot;

That was just hilarious. I reckon that guy lifted less weight in his entire workout than a lot of folks do in one set of deads (or one rep if your name's Steve
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(JonnyH @ Nov. 11 2006,13:43)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">So in HIT they believed the harder it was the more it was doing for them, which wasnt necessarily the best way to stimulate growth of the tissue over time as they were then doing more than their CNS could handle which resulted in them having to do less work than they could have.</div>
The guy in the vid is a prime example of that. He's giving his CNS a half-decent badgering but the overall strain on his muscle tissue is woefully inadequate for maximum hypertrophic stimulation. He does an iso, manages a rep or two before stalling on his compounds and then has to lower the weight because he's already fatigued his system so much. I bet he set the weight up before-hand too with a load that he thought was suitable.

Interestingly, in his initial spiel he keeps going on about getting the best possible results through training as hard as humanly possible, yet he's hardly breaking out in a sweat by the finish of the vid (but maybe that was just his warm-up for the real w/o to follow?  
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I'd like to see him try to get 15 reps (or, heaven forbid, 20 reps) with his 5RM for deads and then see how he feels.

We really do have to thank Bryan for pointing out what is now so patently obvious about the real failure with this method of training.
 
For the record, Casey Viator and Mike Mentzer's workouts were seriously intense, they used a sick amount of weight and used both free-weights and machines and most guys would puke or pass out doing workouts with them.  I have seen pictures of these guys using loads that are absolutely insane, I remember one picture where Mike is doing some kind of row with like 450 lb.s and it looks like his 22&quot;arms are going to explode and he is going to have a aneurism, this guy in the video doesn't even come close to intense compared to these champions of HIT.

*note-(not that I am an advocate of HIT, though I was once.)

(edit-I know I can't seem to shut up about this video, but this guy's arrogance and lack of any real intensity to back it up just really irked me!)
 
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(scientific muscle @ Nov. 12 2006,04:25)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">For the record, Casey Viator and Mike Mentzer's workouts were seriously intense, they used a sick amount of weight and used both free-weights and machines and most guys would puke or pass out doing workouts with them.  I have seen pictures of these guys using loads that are absolutely insane, I remember one picture where Mike is doing some kind of row with like 450 lb.s and it looks like his 22&quot;arms are going to explode and he is going to have a aneurism, this guy in the video doesn't even come close to intense compared to these champions of HIT.

*note-(not that I am an advocate of HIT, though I was once.)

(edit-I know I can't seem to shut up about this video, but this guy's arrogance and lack of any real intensity to back it up just really irked me!)</div>
Yeah, I think pretty much everyone trains harder than the guy in the vid (HIT or not). That's what makes it so funny. If I had been his HIT trainer I would have had him unable to walk or leave the gym for 30 mins plus he would have his head in a bucket!
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Many years ago I did HIT for a couple of years and used to make myself puke and quiver from the exertion on a fairly regular basis. For the first 6 months I made pretty rapid progress (well, there's a surprise) and then things pretty much ground to a halt even though I was constantly looking for ways to make exercises more and more 'intense'. It gets pretty depressing pretty quickly when you are almost killing yourself three times a week and seeing little if any results.

Breaking out of that modus operandi has been the best thing that ever happened to my training and now I am getting results.
 
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