If you are visiting this page, you may have been directed here from one of our other sites. We have a firm and continuing commitment to the privacy of personal information provided by those visiting and interacting with any website controlled by High Intensity Business and have created this policy to apply across our various websites and apps.
We hold the privacy of your personal information in the highest regard and this privacy notice provides you with details of how we collect and process your personal data through your use of our sites to enable you to make informed decisions about your personal information.
By providing us with your data, you warrant to us that you are over 13 years of age
When we talk about ‘us’ ‘we’ or ‘our’, we mean High Intensity Business or Corporate Warrior Ltd, 11 Ingleby Road, Ilford, Essex, UK, IG1 4RX and we are the operator of the website from which you accessed this privacy policy and any other websites or apps controlled by High Intensity Business (collectively ‘website’). We are the data controller and we are responsible for your personal data.
When we talk about ‘you’, we mean you as a participant or user of this website or services of this website.
‘Personal information’ is information that directly identifies you, such as your name and email address, or data that could be used, on its own or in combination with other data, to identify you.
It is very important that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. Please let us know if at any time your personal information changes by issuing a ticket at support [email protected]
1. Staying Anonymous
You can browse our online services anonymously. However, if you request information, sign up for our communications or podcast or purchase any of our products or services, you will need to identify yourself and at that point we will collect your personal information. If you do not give personal information to us, it will affect our ability to provide you with requested information or to deliver our products or services.
2. Collecting personal information
At all times we aim to only collect the minimum information we need for the services we are providing and to only use the information for the purpose it has been provided. For example, if you sign up to our newsletter, we will collect and use your email address to send our newsletter. As you would expect, the more involved you are with us, the more information about you we will collect.
There are some unusual terms in new legislation that affect how we tell you about the way we manage your personal information. One is letting you know the ‘lawful ground’ for what we do. This just means we are letting you know that there is a provision in the legislation that says it is alright for us to collect or use your information for a purpose that is considered a ‘legitimate interest’ of our business.
The main way we collect information about you is when you give it to us and this can happen in a variety of ways. We may process the following categories of personal information about you:
- Communication data: which includes any communication that you send to us. This might be when you join our mailing list or when you contact us through the contact form on our website, through email, text, social media messaging, social media posting or any other communication that you send us. Communication data may also include geographical data if you enable this within our app so that we can send you communications relevant to your geographical location. We process this data for the purposes of communicating with you, for record keeping and for the establishment, pursuance or defence of legal claims. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interest in replying to communications sent to us, keeping appropriate records and to establish, pursue or defend legal claims.
- Customer Data: which includes data you give to us when you purchase goods and/or services from us including any of our business training programs or events. This will include basic information about you and the information we require for billing purposes such as your name, title, billing address, delivery address email address, phone number, contact details, purchase details and your card details (last digits only). We use third party services for processing payments such as PayPal, EWay and Stripe and we do not receive or store your full card payment information. We process this data to supply the goods and/or services you have expressed an interest in or purchased and to keep records of such transactions. Our lawful ground for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps at your request to enter into that contract and our legitimate business interest of keeping records for accounting purposes.
- User Data: which includes data about how you use our website and any online services together with any data that you post for publication on our website or through other online services. We process this data to operate our website and ensure relevant content is provided to you, to ensure the security of our website, to maintain back-ups of our website and/or databases and to enable publication and administration of our website, other online services and business. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interest in properly administering our website and our business.
- Technical Data: which includes data about your use of our website and online services such as your IP address, your login data, details about your browser, length of visit to pages on our website, page views and navigation paths, details about the number of times you use our website, time zone settings and other technology on the devices you use to access our website. The source of this data is from our analytics tracking system. We process this data to analyse your use of our website and other online services, to administer and protect our business and website, to deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and to understand the effectiveness of our advertising. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interest in properly administering our website and our business and to grow our business and to decide our marketing strategy.
- Marketing Data: which includes data about your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences. We process this data to enable you to partake in our online services, to deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of this advertising. We may use surveys or contests to request information and you are not required to enter or use these services. Our lawful ground for this processing is our legitimate interest in studying how customers use our products/services, developing our products, growing our business and to decide our marketing strategy.
- We may use Customer Data, User Data, Technical Data and Marketing Data to deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you (including Facebook adverts, YouTube advertising or other display advertisements) and to measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve you. We may use pixels for retargeting to do this. Our lawful ground for this processing is legitimate interest in growing our business. We may also use such data to send other marketing communications to you. Our lawful ground for this processing is either consent or legitimate interests (namely to grow our business).
3. Collecting information from third parties
As discussed above, we collect personal information about you when you give it to us and when it is collected by our website however we may also collect personal information that is given to us or available to us by a third party (for example, information that is on a publicly maintained record or that you have made available on a public platform).
We may automatically collect certain data from you as you use our website by using cookies and similar technologies.
We may receive data from third parties such as analytics providers like Google, advertising networks such as Facebook, information providers such as Google, providers of technical, payment and delivery services, such as data brokers or aggregators. These third parties may be within the EU or outside of the EU.
This information forms part of the personal information described in this policy. We will not intentionally collect personal information that is unintentionally disclosed.
4. Collecting sensitive information
We do not intend to collect sensitive information about you and request you never disclose information about your health, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs or sexual orientation on our website or any blog or social media account associated with our website or business. If you include your photograph in our online forum please be aware that other forum users may make assumptions about your racial or ethnic background.
5. Children’s privacy
Our services are not designed to be used by minors under the age of 13 and we do not intend to collect information about such minors. We will make reasonable endeavours to delete any details of users under the age of 13 years where a parent or guardian has notified us that any such details have been obtained. By providing us with your data, you warrant to us you are over the age of 13. If you are over 13 but under 18 you may be able to use our services however only with permission and guidance from your parents or guardian and we request that their personal information be used not yours.
6. Testimonials
If you provide us with a testimonial, you give us your consent for the use of your name, likeness and the date of service delivery to be displayed on our website or in our other marketing material, together with the content of the testimonial that you provide. We may edit your testimonial but will only do so where possible without changing the meaning of what you have said. We may store and/or use your testimonial for a period of up to 7 years from the date it is given. We process this information based on your consent which you may withdraw.
7. Marketing Communications
Our lawful ground of processing your personal data to send you marketing communications is either your consent or our legitimate interests (namely to grow our business). Sometimes we may recommend sharing your information with a third party for their marketing purposes. Before we share your personal data with any third party for their own marketing purposes we will get your express consent.
You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by emailing us.
If you opt out of receiving marketing communications, this opt-out does not apply to personal data provided for other transactions such as purchases.
8. Social Networking Services and links to other websites
You can connect with us via our social media pages on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn.
We may provide links to other websites or use social networking services to communicate with the public about our work. When you communicate with us using these services we may collect your personal information. The social networking service will also handle your personal information for its own purposes and have their own privacy policies. You should become familiar with the privacy policies of any service you use.
9. How we use Cookies and other identifiers
We use a range of tools provided by third parties including our website host, third party service providers and search engine browsers to collect or view access and traffic information for statistical, reporting and maintenance purposes. Third party providers have their own privacy policies. We also may also use tracking pixels, cookies and session tools to improve your experience when accessing our online services.
The data collected by cookies does not usually identify you but may be combined with other information to identify you. If we identify you using information from cookies, we may use that information to track how you use our online services and send you information more specific to your needs, or to invite you to purchase our services.
The kind of information that can be collected includes:
- device specific information such as mobile network information
- server logs including your IP address, the times you use our services and system activity
- location information including IP address, GPS, and Wi-Fi access points
- local storage availability
We use the information to help to track your use of our online services to improve your user experience and the quality of our services.
10. Use and disclosure of personal information
In summary, as a legitimate business interest, the personal information we collect about you is used:
- to verify your identity
- to enable you to use our services
- to process orders, registrations and enquiries
- to provide you with information about events, products and services that may interest you
- to provide you with personalised service or special opportunities
- to allow you to participate in interactive features of our online services
- to run competitions, prize draws, and promotions (if any)
- to facilitate our internal business operations
- to improve our products or services and in planning new products or services
- to conducting market research surveys
- to monitor compliance with our Terms and Conditions.
With your consent or at your request we may:
- share your contact information with third party organisations who offer products or services that may be of interest to you (if you agree to receive such information)
We never sell, lend or lease your identifiable personal information.
We may also disclose your information to:
- Other companies in our group who provide services to us.
- Third party suppliers we engage to provide services which involve processing data on our behalf, for example IT and system administration services. In this case, we will require them to use that information only for the purpose of providing the services we have requested, and in compliance with the provisions of this privacy policy.
- Payment third parties if there is a dispute over a payment. For example if PayPal contacts us regarding a dispute over a payment, we will provide PayPal with user activity information such as IP address and activity linked to the IP address, billing details on our system etc to allow the payment dispute to be resolved.
- Professional advisers including accountants, lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers.
- Government bodies that require us to report processing activities.
- Third parties where we are required to in accordance with the law and reserve the right to fully co-operate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requiring or requesting us to disclose the identity or other usage details of any user of our online services, or in accordance with a properly executed court order, or as otherwise required to do so by law.
11. Security and overseas recipients
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure to industry standards however no system can be 100% secure and, provided we have acted in accordance with this policy, we are not responsible for loss you may suffer should your personal information be unlawfully accessed. Using the Internet to collect and process personal data necessarily involves the transmission of data on an international basis.
Not all countries have the same level of privacy protection as the country within which you reside. You acknowledge and agree to our processing of personal data across international borders in this way. We will do our best to ensure your data is protected to a similar standard as set out in this policy by using third party providers with similar privacy protections.
We will also take reasonable steps to protect all personal information within our direct control from misuse, interference, loss, unauthorised access, unlawful or accidental destruction, modification or disclosure. To prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we use respected hosting services, firewall and other electronic security procedures and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect from you.
We have procedures in place to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach if we are legally required to.
12. Opt-out/ unsubscribe
If we provide you with the opportunity to receive information about products or services from other carefully selected organisations (our business partners) about the products or services they offer, and you elect to do so, you can change your preferences at any time using the unsubscribe function within their emails.
Similarly, our marketing emails/newsletters will also have an unsubscribe option if you would like to opt-out. You can also update your subscription settings if you are a subscriber.
If you continue to receive communications you have unsubscribed from, please contact us by issuing a ticket at support [email protected] and we will remedy the problem.
13. Data retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
When deciding what the correct time is to keep the data for we look at its amount, nature and sensitivity, potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure, the processing purposes, if these can be achieved by other means and legal requirements.
For tax purposes the law requires us to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for five years after they stop being customers.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
14. Third Party Links
This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, applications and advertisements. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements or content. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
15. Updates
We regularly review and may update our privacy policy from time to time. The updated provisions will apply from the date they are posted on our website, so we recommend that you re-visit this privacy policy when you use our online services.
16. Accessing and correcting your personal information – Your legal rights
Under data protection laws you have rights in relation to your personal data that include the right to request access, correction, erasure, restriction, transfer, to object to processing, to portability of data and (where the lawful ground of processing is consent) to withdraw consent (note: some of these rights only attach to individuals located within the EU).
You can see more about these rights at: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us by issuing a ticket at support [email protected]
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive or refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response. For record keeping purposes, we will record and store all information exchanged during an exercise of your rights under this clause. These records will be stored securely and separate from our main active business systems.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you.
If you request to have your information erased (also known as the right to be forgotten), we will, if appropriate, delete your personal information from our active business operating system. Your personal information will however continue to be stored within our backup(s) as we are unable to delete specific items from our backup. It will be deleted at the next scheduled backup deletion. We will keep a log of your request to be forgotten so that, should our backup be used to restore our operating system while your personal information is still stored, your personal information will again be removed from our active system upon restoration.
If you are not happy with any aspect of how we collect and use your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office in your country. For instance, in the UK contact the Information Commissioner Office at www.ico.org.uk. We would be grateful if you would contact us first if you do have a complaint so that we can try to resolve it for you.
Looking forward to listening to this one! Have a lot of time for James Fisher!
Thanks Matt. Let me know what you think!
Great episode!
20 sets per muscle group is ridiculous. Can’t help but think that’s a recommendation for serious Bodybuilders who lets be honest are probably using various ‘supplements’ and or are genetically blessed.
Most people are just gonna get injured and/or become chronically overtrained doing that.
Apart from that though don’t really have any real issue with the table.
Thanks Matt!
Yes, and you have to also remember that that’s 20 sets predicated on many sets not to failure, and probably no where near the level of intensity that most HIT proponents are accustomed too. Moreover, they’re also coming at it from a higher frequency perspective.
Personally, I think that 1 set a week to failure in our context is sufficient!
Yes true agreed!
Question for James, what’s his current view on progressive overload?
Thank you for the great interview. I always like hearing James Fisher.
Question, you recommend single sets. How many exercises for a given large muscle group (back, chest, legs) in a given session to to maximize hypertrophy?
Thanks,
Marc
Hey Marc – listen from 18:40, let me know if this answers the question for you.
It doesn’t look like it based on the show notes but I’ll ask anyway.
Did you happen to bring up Ellington Darden’s new 30-10-30 thing from his new book?
Thanks,
Keith
Hi Keith – no, we didn’t bring that particular book up. We brought up The New High Intensity Training, which I like a lot.
I didn’t really like Bodyfat Breakthrough (30-10-30). IIRC, there was a little too much hyperbole and not in line with the preponderance of evidence. It’s fine as a basic HIT guideline though. I just don’t think there is anything special about 60s negatives when it comes to hypertrophy / fat loss.
I know that the scope of the episode didn’t encompass nutrition but I’d be interested in hearing Jame’s opinions on the matter.
Rationally thinking I’m not that interested in hypertrophy for its own sake (irrationally of course I’m as obsessed as the rest of you). So, I’d be interested in hearing what James thinks the less tangible benefits of RT are (aside of course from “pure strength”)? With that in mind I’d be interested in knowing what, as a general guide, levels of hypertrophy can be used as a proxy measure of?
…with regard to positive adaptations, general amd specific health benefits etc.
Thanks Andrew. We’ll probably look to cover this in a separate pod, since Part 2 will be primarily focused on Qs related to muscle growth and not the benefits of hypertrophy. I’ll note this for future podcast.
Thanks Lawrence. Anyone that has good information on this would be of interest. It’d be nice to have a comprehensive view on the matter so one can justify their “obsession” with more than the perception of being vain.
Interesting discussion, as always.
Regarding the science of strength training: By now, your various interviews have covered the prevailing scientific theories around this. I suspect that you will find progression of this knowledge going forward will happen at what seems like a glacial pace.
I found your comments regarding claims by some that HIT gave them much better results than conventional training to be interesting. The debate usually seems to revolve around whether or not you can get a little more by doing more volume. I don’t think I’ve every seen a study where the HIT protocol turned out to be clearly superior to more conventional higher volume training. On the other hand, I recently listened to the podcast that Doug McGuff did with Abel Csabai. Unless I misunderstood his comments, I thought he stated that he didn’t get much in the way of results UNTIL he switched to HIT (lower volume and more intense). Perhaps there are a group of outliers who actually get better results from HIT than higher volume?
I did hear James Fischer utter the phrase “true muscular failure”. So as part of your follow up, perhaps you could ask him what true momentary muscular failure looks like from a physiological perspective. I’m currently of the opinion that MMF is simply a functional definition, that at a particular point in a very specific exercise, the assembly of muscle, bone, and connective tissue that provides the motive force can no longer overcome the resistance provided by the machine or free weight. If something physiologically significant occurs at that point, what is it? As a followup, I might then ask: when you take a compound exercise to MMF, how do you tell which muscles have reached MMF, and which haven’t? Have you then failed to stimulate the muscles that didn’t get to MMF? And what happens in an ARX set, where there is no clearly defined point of failure? It seems with that machine you just inroad until you decide that you have had enough, and then you quit.
Regarding the 20 sets per body part: Schoenfeld recently published a study that claims to show additional hypertrophy from using up to 30 sets/week for the upper body, and 45 sets/week for the lower body. He has gotten some push back on that, even from folks who believe there is value to doing more that 1 set to failure. Also, to point out the obvious: there is a lot of space between 1 set per week and 20 or 30 or 45 sets per week. For me, 20 sets per week per body part is way too much to ever contemplate. But doing 3 or 4 sets per compound exercise per week need not involve an extraordinary amount of time.
Hey Greg – agree regarding glacial pace!
IIRC, Doug McGuff did very high volume prior to what he does now. So could be an example of an extreme change in volume helped him get better results. What I didn’t say was that I have been reducing my volume and increasing my intensity before I came across HIT, and this was a consequence of building up my knowledge base around exercise overtime. I went from bro-splits with multiple sets and throwing tons of crap down my throat to The Spartan Health Regime, which was far more abbreviated and focus on multi-joint movements but still 4+ times a week, and then I reduced further with HIT to once or twice a week.
Great question regarding MMF. Will consider for Part 2.
Oh boy do i have a lot to say! A lot of what Bret says in his table is NOT scientifically supported.
FE: “…and you can’t so SuperSlow reps..” Where is the evidence to support this claim? I’ll say more later.
I REALLY enjoyed and agreed with James on virtually everything he said. He was very clear and stuck to logical and scientific thinking UNTIL he got to rep tempo. Then things fell apart.
First, some of what he said was grounded in research. Excellent.
However, when Dr. Fischer got into the Tempo segment, he then lost sight of science and fell into the same opinion-trap, paradigm-paralysis that virtually every other trainer falls into. On this subject, he fell into the “I hate superslow reps and I think it’s boring so screw the science on the subject and let me offer my opinion as if it’s science” way of thinking. Really too, too bad.
FE: He said using 10 second reps requires a light weight. The research by Dr. Wayne Westcott showed this isn’t the case – in 3 different studies comparing 2/4 rep tempo to 10/4 and 4/10.
In his research ALL groups were required to reach muscle failure in 48-72 seconds. In order to reach muscle failure in a 10/4 rep tempo as compared to a 2/4 rep tempo, the resistance for the 10/4 tempo MUST be higher. Nothing else is possible. In this way, fewer reps will be performed, but the weight will be heavier. (BTW, repetition number requires scientific study – IOW, does repetition number matter at all for hypertrophy?) FE: What will work better for the biceps hypertrophy: Performing 3 reps to failure using 130 pounds in a 10/10 count or 8 reps to failure using a 2/2 count using 100 pounds?
That Bret Contreras would single out a 10 second superslow rep and suggest it’s inferior – without even mentioning the lighter weight issue – clearly shows his bias. Dr. Fischer should have pointed this bias out – but he didn’t. And he didn’t because he holds the same bias.
As an aside, Dr. Ellington Darden in his work (not a formal study) showed extremely good hypertrophic gains from 30/30 rep tempos in his book Body Fat Breakthrough.
Here are the facts: Research on the subject of slower rep tempos, using a similar load, taking a set of an exercise to failure always shows equal or better hypertrophic and strength gains using the slower rep tempos. Opinions on how it feels to do slow reps like boredom, pain, etc. are irrelevant to how rep tempo affects hypertrophy.
Thanks for this podcast. Loved it!
“FE: What will work better for the biceps hypertrophy: Performing 3 reps to failure using 130 pounds in a 10/10 count or 8 reps to failure using a 2/2 count using 100 pounds?”
Based on stuff I have seen published recently, I thought the emerging consensus was that, for hypertrophy, load doesn’t matter as long as you go to failure.
“In order to reach muscle failure in a 10/4 rep tempo as compared to a 2/4 rep tempo, the resistance for the 10/4 tempo MUST be higher. Nothing else is possible.”
Does Westcott’s paper show that heavier weight was required to reach failure for the slower tempo rep?
Thank you Fred. Really appreciate the comment and your thoughts.
Hi Lawrence,
Really enjoyed this episode. Was thinking of a question which you actually did ask at end but he gave a quick answer! It’s in relation to perhaps doing a second or even third (heresy I know!) set when using free weights or regular gym machines. I and I’m sure most people dont have access to med ex etc so end up doing HIT workouts either with free weights or with whatever machines are in their local gym. I know you heard Dr Doug’s recent podcast when he thought maybe it did warrant more than one set when not using a top class machine. I’m probably biased in that anything Doug says I take to be the gospel! But I was interested that James didn’t agree and would love to hear more. I’ve started doing more sets recently as an experiment and it’s hard to tell. I can use the same weight, do say 5 reps by 6 sets til MMF (with rest in between but not much and still a quick workout) or say sets of 8 reps, 4 reps, 3 reps with maybe just 4 deep breaths in between, but half the volume is getting done. It’s as if 5 reps doesn’t get me near failure so I can keep doing 5s whereas if I do 8 reps I’m much closer to failure and then can only get out 4 and 3. I also did pull ups to failure and then kept adding sets of 1 rep and could get quite a few more 1 reps in. I’m playing around with things a bit now, being careful not to overtrain and am enjoying it, but I always like to know the optimal and to figure out the above scenario…I.e. if I can get more volume in with same weight by just taking about 4 more additional minutes, and not on a med ex machine, is that better than the lesser sets/reps (or indeed 1 set). As someone said above also,, in compound movement how do you know which muscle is actually worked to failure. I k how Ted Harrisson always liked a bit of extra volume because he said he was vain! Sorry for such a drawn out message!!!
Thanks, Simon
Thanks Simon. Great question. I’ve pondered it too. I think James would say it probably makes no difference. Just go to MMF (all things being equal). Remember, that each variable (volume, frequency, intensity, etc), all depends on each other and the answer will change. I think Doug’s belief is that there may be something to the increasing number of “contractions” as opposed to longer TUL. I’ll consider this talking point for Part 2.
Any reason my comments haven’t shown up, it’s just the first time I’ve left them since the change over?
Ignore above^^^ do’h!
Awesome content!
Thank you Musculo.
Lawrence
Good info. MMF is for me not the goal but a concequence. Deep muscular fatigue is what I’m after in a timeframe from about50-90 seconds. There will be the combination of muscular damage, metabolic stress due to high rate of ATP use and increased lactate production and the most amount of fiber recruitment in combo with max motordrive. That’s simply what I’m after. Might mean proceding with partials or doing RP reps to continue.
Science can show a lot that we can use on a individual base. I think that doing slow reps (say not faster as 4 seconds) with adequate resistance takes a learning time for the feel and the application of good turnarounds. Doing fast reps with however controlled turnarounds are for me hard to imagine. The intend to move as fast as possible while being enough fatigued so movement is slow is a logical concequence if max intensity is understood.
Then we have over the years good and bad workouts based on circumstances of life etc. If results don’t show allways up that doesn’t mean the process was wrong. Dougs application of a year shedule, switching for recovery, is sound IMO. However, he never said to do exact his example. As far as I know does he use this idea according to the life/work circumstances of the moment e.g. a period of nightshifts and longer hours ask for short 3 way split workouts to enhance recovery.
Keep the basics in mind, apply them to the best possible, if not genetical having won the jackpot………..you still can build and keep musclemass above a level that’s needed for a long healthspan. With that in mind, get a life do not waste life because some science ‘showed ‘that that was necessary to get a life (as far as musclemass is concerned).
All IMO and nevertheless it is just interesting stuff to discuss………..so the debates and ask for “proof’ will continue.
Wise words as always Ad. I always enjoy learning more from your perspective. I have to say, and this may have come through during the episode, that whilst I am interested in muscle hypertrophy, I know my limitations, and I’m just not as obsessed with it anymore. I just enjoy the process and make my decisions based on health first and let the rest follow, as you taught me. So, I’ll train once or twice a week, and that suits my schedule, lifestyle, stressors, sport commitments. If I were doing 3 or 4 times a week, I’d probably have to compromise in other aspects of my life in order to provide more recovery and not feel like crap all the time. Not worth it for me. And doesn’t seem to yield better results anyway!
Good for you Lawrence, as far as I can Judge how you like to live life. Been there, done that is what I can say as part of me growing older and experiencing what the “wrong”perspective can and will do to life (my life in this case). After all, why are we after “being swole “? In 99,99% of the cases it is to impress with masculinity based on exaggerated the muscle part of it. It’s like a women pump up her lips and/or breast etc…….you get he idea. So, health first and the body expresses itself within the possible and broad range. Comments are fine……..but all is IMO.
Ad hit in on the head when he said …
“The intend to move as fast as possible while being enough fatigued so movement is slow is a logical concequence if max intensity is understood.”
IMO … The only time you should try to move faster in a set is right before you can’t any longer … but trying harder to will keep you at the pace you are trying to stay at. Slow reps look slow but as you deal with reducing strength you have to try to move faster … this is what wipes you out … slowly down to much brings friction into the equation and can stop movement when muscles did still have the strength to keep moving by contracting harder (trying to move faster).
Great episode and nice summaries from James here. What’s the ETA for Part 2?
I think the main thing we need to keep in mind, and that most research will have obvious limitations on, is whether HIT vs. multiple sets will make you bigger in the end. I don’t think so, as genes and hormones will ultimately determine whether you will be huge and muscular or just average.
And even if you see higher growth rates in the short-term from doing more sets, it could also lead to faster stagnation since both blood/oxygen/nutrient supply and connective tissue have slower turnover rates and need more time to adapt to the needs of a given muscle size.
I do think the answer is somewhere in the middle. The fatigue from going to all-out failure can be more neuromuscular rather than muscular, and thus limit how much total volume and frequency you can do – and may also lead to overreaching symptoms.
I have even seen this in the Sustainable Self-Development program I created where it’s 1 Myo-rep set per muscle group 2-3x/week and even with guidelines for varying intensity of effort (through Reps In Reserve – RIR periodization), many people had overreaching symptoms and did better when they switched to 2-3 straight sets.
I tend to use an auto-regulation method these days of allowing 2-4 reps (usually 3) as the allowed drop/cut-off before ending training for that muscle group. So to provide a few different scenarios, with 3 as the rep cut-off:
1. pushing to failure and/or having lower work capacity and/or being under-recovered:
100lbs x 8,5 reps
2. training submaximally and/or having higher work capacity/endurance and/or being perfectly recovered:
100lbs x 7,6,6,5,4
I find this to work very well and you can even see how varying frequency (i.e. every other day, to every 3rd day, up to once/week) changes total volume and progress. I think progressive overload by doing more weight and/or reps over time is essential, and in a perfect chicken-or-egg paradox I think it is both a driver and a consequence of productive training.
Thanks Borge. Part 2 is here https://highintensitybusiness.com/podcast/james-fisher-phd-muscle-hypertrophy-and-exercise-selection/
Thank you for sharing your thinking and systems. Scott Myslinski has used your program and reports great results. I do find the strategy very interested, and I may give it a go sometime!