The Real Draw of High Intensity Strength Training
For nearly 28 years, I’ve engaged in what has been coined “High Intensity Training” (HIT). Not to be confused with “High Intensity Interval Training” (HIIT), HIT emerged in the 1970s and has been summarized as:
Intense strength training. Taking each set to muscle failure or very close to failure (and sometimes beyond failure).
Brief workouts. Because each set is so intense, we simply don’t need to do as many sets and exercises (and in fact, we can’t tolerate more sets and exercises).
Less frequent training. Our physiology adapts and improves not when we engage in a workout, but instead when we are recovering from the workout. The workout serves as an intense stimulus, and we need a few days of recovery between that stimulus.
Perfect form. Lift the weight under control with the intention of minimizing momentum, transition from lifting to lowering deliberately, and lower the weight slowly to focus on eccentric muscle contractions. Avoid contorting the body in order to gain a mechanical advantage.
Utilize machines, free weights, manual resistance, and body weight. Most people who were “serious” about strength training assumed that free weights were superior to machines. HIT trainees judiciously used a variety of machines as well as free weights and body weight because any form of external resistance can be effective. Today, most trainees, personal trainers, and strength and conditioning coaches still incorrectly assume that free weights are superior to machines.
Safety. Your workout should make you healthier and stronger, and thus, we should avoid any exercise that poses an increased risk of acute or chronic injury. Every exercise decision needs to be made through the lens of “First, do no harm.”
Over the last 30 years, seemingly every month, a significant study has been published that deepens our understanding of the six aforementioned elements. Today, these elements serve as the cornerstone of an evidence-based approach to resistance training—and our approach at Discover Strength for almost 20 years.
Undoubtedly, the elements that resonate most with our thousands of clients are Brief Workouts and Infrequent Workouts. Perceived lack of time tops the list of barriers to exercise for most Americans. Logically, a 30-minute workout performed only one to two times per week represents a time-efficient way to maximize the innumerable benefits of resistance training. People love short, time-efficient strength training.
But this isn’t what initially drew me to HIT. When I was introduced to HIT, I was 17 years old and had strength trained very seriously for five years. I enjoyed lifting weights three to four times per week, I performed four to six sets of every exercise, and my workouts lasted hours. I loved being in the weight room, and I loved the process. If you told me I could produce the same or better results in 30 minutes, twice per week, I wouldn’t have been interested. I had time, and I liked spending time in the weight room (see footnote below).
In 1997, I started a mentorship program offered through my high school. I secured a mentorship for my senior year with the head Strength and Conditioning Coach for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, Steve Wetzel. Wetzel met with me weekly in one-on-one classroom sessions where he introduced me to the theory and science of HIT, and he also personally trained me in the Vikings’ facility for an entire year.
As a 17-year-old who was passionate about strength training, I was most drawn to the emphasis on form (lifting the weight more slowly was more effective in recruiting muscle fibers—and you could feel the difference the first time you did it!) and the importance of taking each set to the point of failure (training to failure, or at least very close to failure, maximized motor unit and muscle fiber recruitment and, in short, stimulated one’s muscles to get stronger). To me, HIT was about FORM and INTENSITY. The fact that the workout was shorter and performed less often was icing on the cake.
Today, I appreciate the brevity of a Discover Strength workout (this is likely a sign of becoming an adult 😊). But the real magic, for me, is the FORM and INTENSITY. Even if you stayed in the gym for an hour or two, a focus on form and intensity is the foundation of great strength training.
Note: To be clear, most of that time was spent walking around and looking in the mirror, not actually performing an exercise.
