My Experience With High Intensity Training (5 Months in)

For those that don’t know about my exercise background, I worked out every day for nearly 2 years. I did this under the false belief that all exercise is beneficial and healthy.

In January of 2009 a friend recommended a new book called “Body by Science“.

Reluctantly, I began reading the book. Less than 2 days later I finished it- before even buying it (I read it IN the Barnes and Noble). The book was incredible, and seemed to fill in the “cracks” left in my mind from conventional exercise lore (and my progressively worse results from doing more and more of it).

Body by Science is essentially an introduction to proper exercise- also known as high intensity training, which you can read about on my old blog here.

In that post I also detail my experience and results up to that point with the training- which was limited to once per week 15 minute or less sessions.

You might think I gained body fat from working out only 15 minutes a week (I ate the same), or lost muscle mass. However, quite the opposite is true.

I exercised 1 day a week instead of 7, and gained about 7 pounds of muscle, while lowering my body fat nearly a full 2%.

Sound to good to be true? It does, but that’s only due to commonly held beliefs about exercise physiology that have no basis in science, fact, or even rational thought most of the time.

That post was made April 10th. It’s now nearly June, time to update.

To kick start the update, here is the video from my second to last WOW (workout) performed at Rollins College on MedX equipment. This was done 4 days after the previous workout which was my shortest time gap for recovery, ever (in HIT).

Seated Row- 270 lb/69 seconds
Chest Press- 310/84
bicep machine- 140/46
pullover-180/58
seated dip-210/75
prone leg curl- 160/73
leg press- 498/80

Despite the short time gap (4 days rest) from my last WOW, I was stronger in all exercises. Currently I perform my workouts every 5 or 6 days. I would have worked out at this frequency from the start in January however I taught jump rope at UCF during the spring semester and did not want to risk over training.

I feel that at my age, genetics, sleep schedule, and nutrition allow for this frequency. If any one of those factors were significantly different you would only see me working out once every 7 days, or longer.

My last workout (performed 6 days after the one in this video) showed significant jumps in strength yet again, in particular with my lat pull down and overhead press.

So, it appears I have yet to really plateau out. While this sounds arrogant to some extent, I don’t see this happening any time soon either (but hey, I could easily be wrong).

I’m still 20 years old, and from what Ive read, as males, we continue to grow until about 25 years of age. This includes muscle growth- exercising properly or not.

I also believe that I’ve learned a lot of discipline through HIT. If you notice in my workout video from April 5th, I occasionally wince and grimace. This is because, well high intensity training is intense. It hurts, a lot. Over time your pain tolerance goes up though, and through practice you learn to control your body better- including your face- despite being able to dig deeper and inroad your muscles to even greater degrees.

Notice in the latest video I don’t grimace or make any noise.

In short, I believe if I continue to allow adequate rest between workouts, and my intensity continues to increase without “cheating” (grimacing, valsalva, et cetera), then alongside getting older I will continue to get progressively stronger.

Significant changes will continue to come in bursts, but steady progress will also likely continue.

As for my weight/bf %, I haven’t checked either in a while. I am however the strongest I’ve ever been- only my chest/deltoids (I used to barbell bench 320 pounds for a 1 rep max) have ever even been close through high volume training to where I am now, everything else is stronger by leaps and bounds. I am also the leanest I’ve ever been. I suspect my body fat % is hovering between 9 and 10% (the 8.8% was probably too low to be an accurate measurement).

So this is where I’m at right now. I’m measureably stronger than I have ever been, and feel equally as good. For anyone interested in HIT…I highly recommend trying it. It will take some time to figure it out on your own, but Body by Science should help a lot. HIT trainers are also available nation wide if you want to go that route (which I defintely recommend if you can afford it).

If not I still recommend going through a few sessions with a long time HIT trainer to have him correct anything you may be doing wrong mechanically.

And yes, I believe it works for everyone. Fat, skinny, whatever. Everyone has individual genetic traits, but the principles that underlie HIT are solid and apply to everyone.

Do you need any form of extra exercise to “bulk up” or burn fat? No, not in my experience, opinion, or from what I’ve read that makes any logical sense.

Throw cardio out the window, give it a shot, and have patience.

-Dream