HIT and Other Training Routines
HIT will target a single body part with one or two exercises, and generally a single set of 6-10 reps for upper body exercises and either 8-15 or more commonly 12-20 reps for lower body exercises, done to momentary muscular failure. Deadlifts usually have a rep range of 5-8 reps.
Cadence for a HIT workout is supposed to be smooth, but not always Super Slow. A standard HIT cadence is usually 3-1-4-1. For clarity, here are two examples of how the cadence would be for an exercise. On the Lat Pulldown exercise the cadence is as follows: 3 seconds pulling down (Positive movement), followed by a 1 second pause & squeeze (at full contraction), followed by a 4 second return (Negative movement), followed by a 1 second rest. This completes 1 rep.
On the Barbell Squat the cadence is as follows: 4 seconds lowering the bar (the Negative movement), followed by a 1 second pause (at the bottom), followed by 3 seconds raising up the bar (the Positive movement), followed by a 1 second rest at the top. This completes 1 rep.
HIT stresses intensity over repetition. Many weightlifters will use a HIT routine to help break a 'plateau' - meaning they will use HIT temporarily when another routine stops giving desired results. Some HIT trainees will use HIT exclusively as well - Arthur Jones believed HIT was all that was required.
Different strength training authors from Ellington Darden and Mike Mentzer to Dorian Yates and Gordon LaVelle have called their system HIT, with each individual having credited Arthur Jones for the formulation of its basic tenet principles. However, there has never been a clear and consistent guideline on how to utilize HIT. Darden advocated full body routines, while Yates recommended to split the workouts into four different sessions a week. Mentzer believed that no more than one set to muscular failure per body part was all that was required, yet Yates and LaVelle believes that more than one exercise per body part is necessary to get complete development as a bodybuilder.
Read more about this topic: High Intensity Training
Famous quotes containing the words hit, training and/or routines:
“In the range of things toddlers have to learn and endlessly review—why you can’t put bottles with certain labels in your mouth, why you have to sit on the potty, why you can’t take whatever you want in the store, why you don’t hit your friends—by the time we got to why you can’t drop your peas, well, I was dropping a few myself.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“When the child is twelve, your wife buys her a splendidly silly article of clothing called a training bra. To train what? I never had a training jock. And believe me, when I played football, I could have used a training jock more than any twelve-year-old needs a training bra.”
—Bill Cosby (20th century)
“It’s only too easy to idealise a mother’s job. We know well that every job has its frustrations and its boring routines and its times of being the last thing anyone would choose to do. Well, why shouldn’t the care of babies and children be thought of that way too?”
—D.W. Winnicott (20th century)