No.
Failure
- Thread starter Leandros
- Start date
Ladies and Gentlemen,
When you consider that the late Mike Mentzer had trained well over 2000 clients and without exception, not one ever failed to make significant and continous progress. In my many conversations and meetings with Mike I reviewed countless records of his clients whose gains were significant to absolutely extraordinary. His clientele, just like mine (150+) have come from every walk of life. Mike, just like myself, have trained every race, color, creed, etc., who were never hand picked or "created" to respond to Heavy Duty.
The clientele ranged from those who were genetic "morons" to genetic "freaks" and everything in between. The evidence to support HD is mind-boggling. Although there are variations in people’s tolerance to exercise, the cornerstone of HD (intensity) remains universal.
Every person requires a high-intensity stimulus, ie., training to momentary muscular failure, to induce hypertrophy. The variations in people's tolerance to exercise requires a regulation in the volume and frequency, which seems to have created such a dilemma for people, apparently even for yourself.
I have been around long enough and trained enough people at this point that when I hear people say that HIT does not, has not, or will not work for them is BS. It is in direct contradiction of the universal principles which make the logic and effectiveness of HIT unassailable.
I have had two such recent clients who went to great extents to promulgate how ineffective HIT was for them. Both of these individuals possessed average genetics and after consulting with them, I found they, just like so many others, were training 3 days a week and doing split routines, upper body followed by lower body.
I had to conduct an in depth assessment of these indivduals to determine their training history and what, if any gains they had made over the course of their short careers.
Upon completing my assesment, I had both individuals take 2 weeks off from training and both of them were immediately put on a consolidation routine consisting of dips, pulldowns, and squats. Dips were alternated with bench presses and squats with leg presses. Considering their lack of progress thus far, I embarked on this experiment to see how well they would respond to High Intensity Training.
So far each client has been under my supervision for two months. Both clients train together and have completed a total of six workouts. I started them off by training every 10 days, with each workout lasting no more than 15 minutes. Warm ups are included within this time period.
Both clients were very lean to begin with and weighed in at 183 lbs and 195 lbs, respectively. As of this date they have increased their muscular bodyweight by 6 lbs and 10 lbs, respectively. Both of them made weight and rep increases on every set of every exercises. Their average increase was 20 lbs plus 2-3 additional reps each workout.
I will begin to insert an extra 2 days of rest to avoid any plateaus and continue to reduce their volume and frequency until they have reached their genetic limit.
Another thing to consider here is that I have had clients, just like Mike, who had to be reduced to just one set per workout before they starting making progress. The whole issue of volume and frequency is grossly underestimated. It's hard for some to accept the fact that they may be cursed with bad genetics and not gain much from any program they do.
The typical pattern for people is to mindlessly keep increasing the volume and frequency because they are under the notion that their muscle are stubborn and need to engage in marathon training to make them grow. The worst thing of all happens when this occurs, OVERTRAINING.
The repeated bouts of exercises do nothing more than to exhaust the individual’s recovery ability (as I mentioned in an earlier post) and result in atrophy, as opposed to hypertrophy.
This could go on forever....so I suggest you leave things be. Unless you enjoy this.
When you consider that the late Mike Mentzer had trained well over 2000 clients and without exception, not one ever failed to make significant and continous progress. In my many conversations and meetings with Mike I reviewed countless records of his clients whose gains were significant to absolutely extraordinary. His clientele, just like mine (150+) have come from every walk of life. Mike, just like myself, have trained every race, color, creed, etc., who were never hand picked or "created" to respond to Heavy Duty.
The clientele ranged from those who were genetic "morons" to genetic "freaks" and everything in between. The evidence to support HD is mind-boggling. Although there are variations in people’s tolerance to exercise, the cornerstone of HD (intensity) remains universal.
Every person requires a high-intensity stimulus, ie., training to momentary muscular failure, to induce hypertrophy. The variations in people's tolerance to exercise requires a regulation in the volume and frequency, which seems to have created such a dilemma for people, apparently even for yourself.
I have been around long enough and trained enough people at this point that when I hear people say that HIT does not, has not, or will not work for them is BS. It is in direct contradiction of the universal principles which make the logic and effectiveness of HIT unassailable.
I have had two such recent clients who went to great extents to promulgate how ineffective HIT was for them. Both of these individuals possessed average genetics and after consulting with them, I found they, just like so many others, were training 3 days a week and doing split routines, upper body followed by lower body.
I had to conduct an in depth assessment of these indivduals to determine their training history and what, if any gains they had made over the course of their short careers.
Upon completing my assesment, I had both individuals take 2 weeks off from training and both of them were immediately put on a consolidation routine consisting of dips, pulldowns, and squats. Dips were alternated with bench presses and squats with leg presses. Considering their lack of progress thus far, I embarked on this experiment to see how well they would respond to High Intensity Training.
So far each client has been under my supervision for two months. Both clients train together and have completed a total of six workouts. I started them off by training every 10 days, with each workout lasting no more than 15 minutes. Warm ups are included within this time period.
Both clients were very lean to begin with and weighed in at 183 lbs and 195 lbs, respectively. As of this date they have increased their muscular bodyweight by 6 lbs and 10 lbs, respectively. Both of them made weight and rep increases on every set of every exercises. Their average increase was 20 lbs plus 2-3 additional reps each workout.
I will begin to insert an extra 2 days of rest to avoid any plateaus and continue to reduce their volume and frequency until they have reached their genetic limit.
Another thing to consider here is that I have had clients, just like Mike, who had to be reduced to just one set per workout before they starting making progress. The whole issue of volume and frequency is grossly underestimated. It's hard for some to accept the fact that they may be cursed with bad genetics and not gain much from any program they do.
The typical pattern for people is to mindlessly keep increasing the volume and frequency because they are under the notion that their muscle are stubborn and need to engage in marathon training to make them grow. The worst thing of all happens when this occurs, OVERTRAINING.
The repeated bouts of exercises do nothing more than to exhaust the individual’s recovery ability (as I mentioned in an earlier post) and result in atrophy, as opposed to hypertrophy.
This could go on forever....so I suggest you leave things be. Unless you enjoy this.
Last edited:
hi there!
This was very interesting reading material on the topic of muscular failure and various ways of doing this.
The communication of information can be acceptable from the two individuals who shared there knowledge. At least it is something for you to look into if you need help.
I feel that the one thing that needs to be expressed and made clear is that exercise is not meant to be sore for the simple reason is because what makes exercise what it is, is the human body and its internal life systems. Disrupting the life force or inherent health of the body can lead to some unhealthy situations.
Why exercise your body to a point of soreness when this humanistic feeling is a sign/signal that you and only you have to contend with.
Now to what degree of soreness must one understand what is healthy for the body. I do hope you don't exercise with the old age motto of " no pain no gain", because it merely relfects "no brains."
Whatever principles are appiled to the method of your workouts, you need to come to a clear understanding of what it is you are doing and how it is being done. This make goals attainable in your quest to physical betterment. Now, people who share their knowledge through this web site do so by how accurate you explain you situation.Your desire to make the time to seek actual physcial help where you are is the immediate follow up. We on the ohter side cannot assest your actual performance during the exercise, which is important as far as provinding the most correct advise and suggestions. It's all good!
Collect your information but make sure that you can organize and maintain what you need to understand from it.
good health to you and...do your home work. You might discove things about your body you never knew about and of.
aloha!
dat's it for now!
mikey
This was very interesting reading material on the topic of muscular failure and various ways of doing this.
The communication of information can be acceptable from the two individuals who shared there knowledge. At least it is something for you to look into if you need help.
I feel that the one thing that needs to be expressed and made clear is that exercise is not meant to be sore for the simple reason is because what makes exercise what it is, is the human body and its internal life systems. Disrupting the life force or inherent health of the body can lead to some unhealthy situations.
Why exercise your body to a point of soreness when this humanistic feeling is a sign/signal that you and only you have to contend with.
Now to what degree of soreness must one understand what is healthy for the body. I do hope you don't exercise with the old age motto of " no pain no gain", because it merely relfects "no brains."
Whatever principles are appiled to the method of your workouts, you need to come to a clear understanding of what it is you are doing and how it is being done. This make goals attainable in your quest to physical betterment. Now, people who share their knowledge through this web site do so by how accurate you explain you situation.Your desire to make the time to seek actual physcial help where you are is the immediate follow up. We on the ohter side cannot assest your actual performance during the exercise, which is important as far as provinding the most correct advise and suggestions. It's all good!
Collect your information but make sure that you can organize and maintain what you need to understand from it.
good health to you and...do your home work. You might discove things about your body you never knew about and of.
aloha!
dat's it for now!
mikey
Where are we going with this? Results are what matters. I also believe variety is one key component in a training program. This includes training to failure, total sets per workout, sets per muscle group, order of exercises; just to name a few.
And for the response by Genius, "You cannot sit there and claim that HIT will work for everyone, because it will not." -- I feel that any training program will work for everyone in the short-term (<= 6 weeks).
I am not 100% educated on the HIT methodology as I would assume there are other variables involved as opposed to always training once every 10 days to failure with full body workouts. Does this eliminate the need to train at other repetition ranges? But I will continue to use what methods I have found work, just as I am sure Gil will.
The question remains as always, what do you do when someone stops improving or responding to a program? Do you know of other ways to train to avoid the plateau?
Well, you stated it before Jason, variety is the key. There are so many components of training and periodization to play around with, and so many exercises out there...so many different types of trainings (yes, including HIT)...it's the real beauty of this profession...you don't get bored 
How do i know when to stop working out? For example, when i'm working out my biceps. I do 3 sets of barbell curls with heavy weights and go to failure on the last set. Should i stop with that or continue to another workout like preacher curls, or something else. I'm just not sure when i should stop.
I am letting it be, because it WILL go on forever. I understand that HIT is an effective, research-based method of training, and I don't think anyone replying to the post was challenging that. What some of us were merely stating is that HIT would not work as effectively for everyone and not all the time. Just like volume training or any other type of training will not work all the time. Obviously, it is not by "mindlessly adding sets and reps" that one periodizes a training program. However, I can't personnally see myself creating a whole macrocycle using only HIT, partially due to the fact, of course, that I don't know enough about it (yet). However, I can see HIT fitting in somewhere in a macrocycle, particularly because of the recovery allowed. As I said, I am reading up.
Cheers
Cheers
There are many effective ways to stimulate growth if growth is exclusively the goal. When training for functional strength one needs to keep in mind that some real dynamic movement is helpful, like plyometrics or oly lifts. I am particularly happy with the foundations I have helped to create doing foundation lifts like powerclean, squat jerk, frontsquat push/press complex, and of course some RDL's, bench press, and chin-ups. That being said, I don't see how HIT can fit into this mold.
I find it slightly presumptuous that anyone can bascially shun volume training. That was designed based on real science, learning how the body adapts to stress and supercompensates. Who do you think would have had more luck training an olympic lifter? Mike Mentzner or Mel Siff? Talk about comparing crab apples to hydroponic mangos...
Mikey was a steroid pumping body builder and quite fundamentalist about his ideals. He had a few zealots, like Dorian Yates. What does that tell you? Do you see a link here? Both were blown up beyond normal human shape from all the years of gear. Naim (pocket Hercules) could lift more than either one of them! Mentzner was locked in the 80's training concepts, working with athletes who were not normal. His concepts would not have transfer to real athletes in sport.
Mel Siff was a scientist. A real scientist! He and some others slogged through incrediblely large volumes of Russian strength journals to do his own research on athletes to transcend their boundaries of human PERFORMANCE. Not getting BIG, but performance. There simply is no comparison whatsoever. Whatever knowledge Mentzner possessed was not universal by any stretch.
That is not to say that you haven't gotten results. You take someone who has been doing nothing and plug in stimulus like HIT, and they are going to make progress. Does that mean its the best program for them? Maybe in some cases, maybe not for most cases.
One thing is that I think people have different definitions of "failure". To me, failure occurs at the moment perfect form breaks. Looking at HIT, it seems as though when you hit failure, you still have a few set past negative till you have completely collapsed with fatigue. The problem I have with that is that when your primary movers have been told by the CNS that it's quittin' time, that's IT. They're done. Guess what has to do the lifting them? The support muscles, and they aren't designed to move heavy loads, which is why so many people who train with high intensity wind up with injuries. For that reason, it is not age appropriate for most of my clients.
This seems like a good place to bring up the efficacy of "autoregulation", but I am really tired and I have to get up early, so hopefully tomorrow I can jump back on this thread and type out something meaningful instead of this rambling.
I find it slightly presumptuous that anyone can bascially shun volume training. That was designed based on real science, learning how the body adapts to stress and supercompensates. Who do you think would have had more luck training an olympic lifter? Mike Mentzner or Mel Siff? Talk about comparing crab apples to hydroponic mangos...
Mikey was a steroid pumping body builder and quite fundamentalist about his ideals. He had a few zealots, like Dorian Yates. What does that tell you? Do you see a link here? Both were blown up beyond normal human shape from all the years of gear. Naim (pocket Hercules) could lift more than either one of them! Mentzner was locked in the 80's training concepts, working with athletes who were not normal. His concepts would not have transfer to real athletes in sport.
Mel Siff was a scientist. A real scientist! He and some others slogged through incrediblely large volumes of Russian strength journals to do his own research on athletes to transcend their boundaries of human PERFORMANCE. Not getting BIG, but performance. There simply is no comparison whatsoever. Whatever knowledge Mentzner possessed was not universal by any stretch.
That is not to say that you haven't gotten results. You take someone who has been doing nothing and plug in stimulus like HIT, and they are going to make progress. Does that mean its the best program for them? Maybe in some cases, maybe not for most cases.
One thing is that I think people have different definitions of "failure". To me, failure occurs at the moment perfect form breaks. Looking at HIT, it seems as though when you hit failure, you still have a few set past negative till you have completely collapsed with fatigue. The problem I have with that is that when your primary movers have been told by the CNS that it's quittin' time, that's IT. They're done. Guess what has to do the lifting them? The support muscles, and they aren't designed to move heavy loads, which is why so many people who train with high intensity wind up with injuries. For that reason, it is not age appropriate for most of my clients.
This seems like a good place to bring up the efficacy of "autoregulation", but I am really tired and I have to get up early, so hopefully tomorrow I can jump back on this thread and type out something meaningful instead of this rambling.
Some reading to supplement this thread:
Great thread on lifting to failure.
This is an excellent discussion (in an advanced forum) on overtraining.
Great thread on lifting to failure.
This is an excellent discussion (in an advanced forum) on overtraining.
jpfitness said:
There are a lot of trainers out there these days that really know very little about what they speak of. However, JP, you have my 100% confidence. You are not afraid to change your philosophies and training styles when you find something that works better. Everything you said makes 100% sense.
-How can you not claim it failure when you are not performing the rep without perfect form? If you cannot complete the last rep with good form then it is as if you did not perform the rep at all. I agree here 100%.
-The new workout gimmicks are mainly targeted at new lifters because they are usually the only ones who will actually experience gains off of using them! You take lifter x who has never lifted a weight before, start him on a lifting routine in combination with a caloric surplus and 'BAM', of course you are going to see some gains because they are lifting in general. Agree here also.
-The failure point a lifter lifts to usually is not a failure of the muscle groups in which the lifter actually wants to fail. Agree here also.
Once again, JP, you are a breath of fresh air after coming across many trainers lately who have training styles that are old, dated, and not practical, and at the same time are afraid to adapt and change when new information is given.