Bodybuilding Forums

I'm on my 10th week of THT 4, Volume 1 cycle, so I'll be moving on to do the HIT cycle soon. So far, THT has been great. I've lost over 25 lbs of fat and I'm the strongest I've ever been in my life. But I'm a little concerned about the HIT routines. It seems so bizarre to me that doing 1 set per exercise can actually put enough stress on each of your muscles to induce effective muscle growth. I'm just looking for some of your thoughts/encouragement from people who have done the HIT cycle. Is it just as effective at building muscle? If so, why?

If building muscle was only about volume then people would not lift heavy and just do more sets and reps. If your lifting as heavy as you can and you go to failure then you have done your job and your body will be forced to adapt. You will not be abe to repeat that effort and you would only end up doing less reps. This would only further stress the muscle increasing the muscles recovery time while not providing any additional benefits. The key is your going as heavy as you can and going all out for that one set. The other key is to ensure your either doing more reps or adding more weight the next time you perform that exercise. I used HIT to put on more then 20 lbs of muscle so it definately works.

Vanguard,
Your pictures are getting better, thank god.
I'm not talking about your muscles, just your pictures.
Glad you got rid of that one where you were hugging yourself.

Dude how rude can you be? I don't see your picture up so for you to be making negative comments about mine is pretty f---ing lame in my book.
I was not hugging myself it was a side chest with my arm more straight to emphasize my tricep like this picture.

I must say, I've been following Vanguards weekly diary and all I can say is wow ! I think he's made a pretty big transformation in terms of muscle...guess you always get one as I think Marks even been noted to say.

Just a little back on topic - Vanguard when you did HIT did you do a warm up set for each exercise or literally just one set per exercise. I've read somewhere that the squats should be an effective warm up for the whole body but I always seem to get a better lift if I do a single warm up set of about 50% my working weight per exercise first.

Thanks for the kind words LoadedScissors. Yes even though your only doing one set at your max weight its still important to make sure you do some warm up sets. I have not done Mark's HIT program yet, I was doing Dorian Yate's version. Here is the link to the video series. If anyone thinks you can't build muscle using HIT after watching that I would be amazed.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/dorian-yates-blood-guts-6-week-trainer.htm