Mike Mentzer was a big advocate of High Intensity Training

Back in the 1970’s Arthur Jones, founder of Nautilus, popularized a training method for building muscle called High Intensity Training (or HIT).  The basic premise was to do high quality weight lifting exercises at very slow speeds to momentary muscular failure.  This increased "time under tension" would create greater muscle building adaptations and lead to that chisled greek god or goddess body faster than "normal" exercise.

Well, whether you’re an advocate of this type of training or not, it definitely worked for some people in the past (see picture above) and we’ve decided to bring it out of the closet at Athlon Elite and implement it in our famous group training program for a week to shake things up a bit.  And guess what…

It’s working!

Pete Freitas doing HIT Bulgarian Split Squats in Athlon Elite (three reps before the tears start flowing!)

I’ve gotten a few comments already from guys (and gals too) that they feel a little more "pump" in their muscles through the day and a "feeling of fitness."  And people are liking the break from the high metabolic training that we usually do.

So how would you like to take a week off of your usual training method and actually increase the amount of muscle tone and strength in your body.  Simply implement HIT.  Here’s how you do it:

  • Either use the same exercises that you usually do or find some new ones using the machines in Athlon or any health club for that matter.
  • Perform one regular warm-up set of 8 repetitions,
  • Then perform a single set of around 10 repetitions at the very slow pace of 2 seconds on the way up (the positive or "concentric" phase) and 3 seconds on the way down (the negative or "eccentric" phase) to complete muscular exhaustion (till you absolutely cannot do another rep because of lactic acid pain or muscular failure).
  • Then move to the next exercise.

And that’s it.  You usually want to perform about 5 or 6 exercises total in any given training session and then finish the rest of the one hour workout with some moderate cardio.

 

Here’s 13 year old Brandon Kim of the Puma Swim Club doing Sumo Deadlifts HIT style…
No wonder he smokes the competition in the water!

Make sure you get plenty of sleep while performing this routine.  And if you’re trying to lose fat be sure to watch your food intake, this type of training will make you really hungry!

If you want to learn some other ways of mixing up your training routine and get some serious results fast call us today at Athlon Elite and schedule a free private consultation with one of our lead trainers to discuss it: (805) 440-0215 or Click Here.

Happy training,

Ryan