HIT can be summed up in the following GENERAL guidelines. These guidelines - or ones very similar - have formed the basis of strength training programs for years:
1. TRAIN WITH A HIGH LEVEL OF INTENSITY. Intensity is defined as "a percentage of momentary ability". In other words, intensity relates to the degree of "inroad" or muscular fatigue, made into muscle at any given instant. Research, going back almost 100 years now to studies done by German scientists, has conclusively shown that intensity is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR in obtaining results from strength training.
It has been shown that the HARDER that you train (intensity), the GREATER the adaptive response. A high level of intensity is characterized by performing an exercise to the point of concentric (positive) MUSCULAR FAILURE, i.e., you've exhausted your muscles to the extent that the weight cannot be moved for any more repetitions.
Failure to reach a desirable level of intensity - or muscular fatigue - will result in little or no gains in functional strength or muscular size as low intensity workouts do very little or nothing in the way of stimulating muscle size/strength. Evidence for this "threshold" is suggested in the literature by the OVERLOAD PRINCIPLE.
Essentially this principle states that in order to increase muscular size and strength, a muscle must be stressed - or "overloaded" with a workload that is beyond its present capacity. Your intensity of effort must be great enough to exceed this threshold level so that a sufficient amount of muscular fatigue is produced.
1. TRAIN WITH A HIGH LEVEL OF INTENSITY. Intensity is defined as "a percentage of momentary ability". In other words, intensity relates to the degree of "inroad" or muscular fatigue, made into muscle at any given instant. Research, going back almost 100 years now to studies done by German scientists, has conclusively shown that intensity is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR in obtaining results from strength training.
It has been shown that the HARDER that you train (intensity), the GREATER the adaptive response. A high level of intensity is characterized by performing an exercise to the point of concentric (positive) MUSCULAR FAILURE, i.e., you've exhausted your muscles to the extent that the weight cannot be moved for any more repetitions.
Failure to reach a desirable level of intensity - or muscular fatigue - will result in little or no gains in functional strength or muscular size as low intensity workouts do very little or nothing in the way of stimulating muscle size/strength. Evidence for this "threshold" is suggested in the literature by the OVERLOAD PRINCIPLE.
Essentially this principle states that in order to increase muscular size and strength, a muscle must be stressed - or "overloaded" with a workload that is beyond its present capacity. Your intensity of effort must be great enough to exceed this threshold level so that a sufficient amount of muscular fatigue is produced.