those are the words on my brand new shaker bottle from nutrifirst. and it seems that was what the gym instructor at hilton was trying to tell me today, albeit in a hushed and politically correct manner.
you see, the gym boys have recently shifted our testosterone filled workouts from The Pines (bang has membership there), to the hilton hotel gym (very atas ah? actually no julia gabriels staff get to work out there for free so we sign the rest of the boys in.) everything was fine until we recently started on this thing called High Intensity Training or HIT for short.
in essence, the HIT workout demands that you pack heavy weights so you can only do a few reps, say 6 - 8 at very slow speeds (4-5 seconds up and 4-5 seconds down) which at the end of, you reach muscle failure. that's when everything goes numb and you cannot, for the life of you dish out another repetition. HIT encompasses all muscle groups, all exercises, everything. one set. max out and that's it. believe me, it's hell. all you can do is collapse onto a bench or worse still on the floor. according to its founder, Arthur Jones - inventor of the nautilus equipment - if you like doing an exercise, chances are you're doing it wrong. this fella has gone out of his way in research and development in the field of weight training and bodybuilding to prove conventional mainstream techniques and various training schools wrong. in fact, these low rep, less frequent, but vein popping routines are a sure way and probably the best way to build big and strong muscles...fast. tested and proven with people like casey viator, the mentzer brothers and others.
so how does this link back to the topic at hand? well like i said, performing HIT is hell. we grunt, scream, make faces as we feel tendons burn and veins bulge after only 4 reps. and to reach failure in each exercise from 5 guys at the same time, results in the enclosed gym filled with eyebrow raising sounds. let's just say it's not pretty to the ears of international guests wanting to just cycle or yoga their wimp asses in the gym. so when the guy came up to us, or to be more accurate, when he came up to me and told me to try and tone down, i felt insulted. i felt discriminated against. i mean it's a damn gym not a library. but okay we decided to lower the volume of our mating calls. (actually HIT tells us to not make faces and such cos you waste energy...but fuck you try it and tell me it's easy.)
i decided to shut it. at the risk of internal injury i held my breath. i tensed every fucking muscle up without a squeak. and then the guy comes up again and asks if we were into bodybuilding. one or two of us are... personally i just want a bigger frame, but nice and balanced. not arnold schwarzenegger big but big enough. (fyi arnold tried out HIT and couldn't take it...puked after one training and went home to austria)so my friend said yea we wanna build muscle. our HIT training manual was on the floor and the guy was like oh you're following the book? and we were like yea. he picks it up and the moment he sees the word HIT his eyes lit up and smiled and said "no wonder lahh!" no wonder we were making so much noise. the dude used to be under the nautilus company, trained under arthur jones himself and shit. and we were like what the fuck? what a fucking cool coincidence. at this point in time all disdain for this prick dissipated. so he checked our workouts, told us nostalgic stories, reaffirmed the effectiveness of this regime and helped us along. it's not often you get a gym instructor certify your workout, tell you you're on the right track and furthermore was once a HIT trainee himself. wow.
i've been on HIT for one week now and with daily intakes of whey protein and huge meals, results are showing. slight, cos it's still so early but showing nonetheless. it's mindblowing mate. before we left the instructor said we got him all excited about HIT after so long that he went to his desk to dig up his HIT book. fucking old school paperback piece complete with yellowed, freckled pages. in the end he turned out to be a nice fella. that don't mean i like him. but we're looking forward to seeing him on our wednesday session.
HIT's something serious gym goers should experiment with. if you can take it, good. if not, better still. it's not for everybody...that much i admit, but if you're man (or woman) enough to pick up the challenge, go for it. google it, youtube it if you're interested. split routines, high sets and reps, daily workouts aren't all wrong, but i think i prefer this method better. to each his own i say.
in the meantime, i'm gonna go rest.
"Lightweight baby!!" - ronnie coleman.
