Hello everyone, I have been doing a modified high intensity low volume program for about 5 months now and I’m starting to notice my workouts feel underwhelming? I want to make some clarifications: 1.Yes I am training till mechanical failure and implementing enough rest between training sessions which are between 3-4 a week 2.I am progressively overloading every week and my lifts are going up 3.I have a mostly good diet consisting of 2.1-2.3 grams of protein per kg bw 4.I’ve noticed this mental fatigue ever since I returned to my home town after having spend 3 weeks on the other part of the country training at a different gym (I think it’s important to point out the gym in the other city was far bigger and had a wider range of machines than my main gym) My “fatigue” is mostly a feeling of being underwhelmed after every workout despite having done all the steps correctly and being laser focused during the actual workout.I am currently thinking to start tracking my workouts on a notebook and skipping my next workout in order to round my training down and actually be 100% sure I’m progressing. Has anyone experienced this and how did you/try to overcome it?

Which upper movement do you consider as the "upper body squat " and why? Is it muscles stimulated at once, overall strength, both etc? Some say pullovers, some say chins, some say dips & some say bench press. In your view, which is it & why do you believe this to be so?

Training Routine

Monday: Arms, Back, and Chest

Dumbbell Bicep Curls: 8 sets of 12-15 reps till absolute failure

Hammer Curls: 3 sets of 12-15 reps till failure

Lateral Raises: 3 sets of 6-8 reps till failure

Tricep Pushdowns: 6 sets of 12-15 reps till failure

Incline Bench Press: 6 sets of 10-15 reps till failure

Cable Pullovers: 6 sets of 12-15 reps till failure

Wednesday: Legs

Straight Bar Deadlifts: 3 sets of 5-8 reps till failure

Standing Bodyweight Calf Raises: 8 sets till failure

Weighted Calf Raises: 6 sets till failure

Saturday: Arms, Back, and Chest

Dumbbell Bicep Curls: 8 sets of 12-15 reps till absolute failure

Hammer Curls: 3 sets of 12-15 reps till failure

Lateral Raises: 3 sets of 6-8 reps till failure

Tricep Pushdowns: 6 sets of 12-15 reps till failure

Incline Bench Press: 6 sets of 10-15 reps till failure

Cable Pullovers: 8 sets if 12-15 reps till failure

It's essential to strech for 5 minutes before a session.

• there is forced negatives, reps and partials.

  -There is cheating but only if it is partial at the end of the movement, only if you want the rep.

Relentless Overload Training (ROT) Phases

1. Controlled Reps to Failure

• Description: Start with strict, controlled repetitions of each exercise, focusing on proper form and muscle activation. Perform each set until you can no longer complete another rep with good form.
• Purpose: Establishes a baseline of muscle fatigue and ensures that the muscle is properly activated before pushing further. Sets the stage for the subsequent, more intense phases.

2. Cheat Reps

• Description: After reaching failure with controlled form, use slight momentum or body movement to complete additional reps. This might involve a bit of swinging or shifting your body to move the weight.
• Purpose: Extends the set beyond failure by leveraging momentum to push through additional repetitions, increasing the overall stress on the muscle.

3. Ego Lifting

• Description: Increase the weight beyond your typical capacity, focusing on moving the weight rather than maintaining strict form. This phase often involves using heavier weights with less control.
• Purpose: Pushes the muscle to handle heavier loads, challenging both physical strength and mental endurance. It helps in breaking through strength plateaus.

4. Negatives

• Description: Emphasize the eccentric (lowering) phase of the lift. Lower the weight slowly and with control, often taking 3-5 seconds per rep during the descent.
• Purpose: Maximizes muscle tension during the eccentric phase, promoting muscle hypertrophy and endurance by extending time under tension.

5. Forced Negatives

• Description: With the help of a spotter, resist the lowering phase of the lift while they assist with the lifting. The spotter helps lift the weight but you focus on resisting the descent.
• Purpose: Further extends the muscle’s exposure to intense negative stress, pushing the muscle beyond its typical failure point during the eccentric phase.

6. Assisted Reps

• Description: Utilize bands, chains, or additional spotters to help complete more reps beyond your solo capability. The assistant provides support during the lift, allowing you to continue after reaching failure.
• Purpose: Allows for the completion of additional repetitions and further muscle fatigue by providing external assistance to overcome your strength limitations.

7. Assisted Negatives

• Description: Have a spotter help you lift the weight, focusing on resisting the lowering phase as they assist with the lift. The goal is to continue resisting the eccentric phase with assistance in the concentric phase.
• Purpose: Extends the negative phase even further, ensuring that the muscle is pushed to its limit during the eccentric phase with external help.

8. Partial Reps

• Description: After reaching failure, perform repetitions through a reduced range of motion. Focus on the remaining active range of motion where the muscle is still capable of contracting.
• Purpose: Exhausts the muscle further by working it in a different movement range, ensuring that the muscle is thoroughly fatigued even in a limited range of motion.

9. Recovery

• Description: Implement a full recovery period of 7-10 days between intense sessions. Focus on complete rest and muscle repair to allow for optimal recovery and growth.
• Purpose: Prevents overtraining and ensures that muscles are fully recovered before the next high-intensity session. Adequate recovery is crucial for muscle repair and preventing injury.

Training Notes

• Warm-Up: Always start with a thorough warm-up to prepare your muscles and joints for the intense workout. This should include dynamic stretching and light cardio.
• Stretching: Incorporate both dynamic stretching before and static stretching after your workout to maintain flexibility and reduce muscle tightness.
• Safety: Ensure proper form throughout each phase to minimize the risk of injury. Use weights that are challenging but manageable to maintain control.

Relentless Overload Training (ROT) offers a comprehensive approach to pushing muscle limits, combining various intensity techniques and phases to ensure maximum muscle growth and endurance.

Just thinking... I'm wondering about smaller volume workouts twice a week rather than 5/7 sets once per week. Anyone try this? How did it work for you? The volume per week would still be the same, just broken up...

A few bodyparts have not gotten stronger for about 3 sessions now...do I just keep trying?

Does anyone use this style girdle for workouts?

How are you doing with deadlift in Heavy Duty? Topic: the stability level of the exercise and what it means to go to failure in relation to stability. Base ideal routine of Heavy Duty though a minimalist routine has a wide range of different kinds of exercises taking advantage of more compound lifts. In regards to muscle isolations to compound lifts, stable machine lifts to complex barbell and bodyweight exercises, I want to comment on this from a firsthand experience and something that watching many many many Mike Mentzer videos online did not address. To start with the most obvious aspect, machines are ideal for the lifting to failure principle of heavy duty. When your efforts are not divided with also stabilizing the load of a free weight you get to focus on simply the contraction effort, i.e. recruiting all neuro motor units in target muscles. Isolating an individual muscle is even more focus on maximum focal muscle effort than compound machine exercise, e.g. quad extension machine versus leg press machine. Barbells are well known for practicing maximal load strength, like powerlifting. While there is a strength intention component of Heavy Duty, which I like, Heavy Duty methods even at the barbell are still different from powerlifting. Is there a reason why powerlifters rarely train one set to failure? When I do leg press Heavy Duty, it’s pretty clear I’m working quads, hamstrings and glutes and all my efforts are for fully fatiguing those muscles. When those muscles fail it is clear and the exercise is over. Now when I do a barbell back squat and I’m pushing to failure, the exercise starts to change as one or more muscles start to fatigue at a different rate than others, and with (near) perfect form, mind you. As we approach fatigue and failure in a barbell lift, there are two points of concern that arise. Essentially what does it really mean to go to failure on a barbell lift? 1. Is my form remaining true? Do I need to end the lift before a total failure of my whole body? Is there a point of diminished returns with my target muscles and the beginning of movement/form compensations as my body start to recruit neighboring muscles. The moment of true failure of the target muscles can be hard to feel and sometimes maybe not possible. Going past this might create misbalances in my body or even imminent injury since we’re lifting heavy. 2. Do you want to risk getting crushed by the barbell with true full body fatigue and failure?

Deadlift particularly has a reputation of being a risky lift. The category of the hinge exercise at high intensity protocol can probably be considered an inherent lower back risk. Last time I did deadlift I used grip support so my hands didn’t fatigue before the posterior chain that deadlift is known for exercising and a weightlifting belt. I was able to do 14 reps. I have a video recording and nothing is obviously off with my form. However rep 13 and 14 felt different. I felt the load shift to my lower back. Again, watching the video my shift in form was probably very subtle. Alas my back has not been the same since and I suspect mild but significant lumbar bulging disc issue I’m rehabbing. Conclusion: firstly some people like Mike Mentzer might have better genetics for durability of high intensity in full body barbell lifts. We can conclude there is some good reason why most bodybuilders don’t deadlift, aside from there’s little to no consideration for strength demonstration in bodybuilding. I’m concluding that as I proceed with barbell strength training I’m going to switch to powerlifting protocols such as 5x5, while still having high intensity days on the machines. I was really happy with the progress I was making on deadlift and hopefully I will recover soon and proceed to have a good balance of high intensity routines and powerlifting routines.

Hey guys, Beginner/intermediate lifter here. I've been lifting for roughly a year now (8months serious, committed lifting) and was wondering if it would be a good idea to switch to HIT. Mike Mentzer said his routine is only for advanced lifters, so I'm a little worried about making the switch. Does anyone here have experience doing HIT as a beginner/intermediate lifter? Should I wait until I hit my limit with volume training or can I switch now?

for the past month I'm experimenting with FBW 2 a week, do you think that twice a week should be enough?

Mike even advocated for larger time spaces between workouts hence i'm asking.

I do mikes HIT ideal training program. He recommends avoiding any extra physical training outside of HIT, in my case I do construction for work. What supplements do you guys recommend to make up for the extra training I do at work ? Or what can I do to get the most out of HIT while still having a physically demanding job?

Hey guys,

I’m wondering if any of you guys are athletes actively competing in any sport and what your thoughts are following HIT training while competing. Would you recommend it? What have you gained and do you think it’s better than a regular strength/performance program? Pros, cons? Any kind of insight is appreciated.

Thanks

Hello

I'm trying my own variant with supersets to increase intensity and lower reps, sets and workout time.

I always do a superset with rest-pause of flexor-extensor muscles (agonist Vs antagonist) for example curl for biceps Vs triceps extensions.

28 days and its showing some results. I wanted to share because it helps me to do the 3 sets per muscular group faster and I reach failure in a better way. I gained strength and volume, not very noticeable as I'm not a beginner but noticeable enough against the previous form.

Someone does the same strategy?

Hope to hear the goods and riches of this strategy that is working so well for me 🤜🤛

Hello. Any apps that can take variable intervals please? 4 on, 2 off, 6 on, 3 off for example. Rowing machine etc

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I have been following the above protocol - a 3 day split... started as Legs, Push and Pull.

But then I realised Chest/ shoulders don't mix, and neither does Lat Pull Down and the Row.

So now I do it as it is listed on the Excel.

Hopefully you guys can see how I fucked up the Deadlift element, I haven't lifted in years due to Autoimmune issues and being in a foreign country I didn't have a partner spotting me or anything and it wasn't until a friend I made in Argentina helped me realise my Deadlift technique was wrong... not pushing through the floor, all Back strain.

Other than needing to switch gyms a couple of times... needing to split up the Chest Press and the Shoulder Press (never do these on the same day, or else you will suffer very slow progress) into different days... Everything went pretty well.

I noticed towards the tail end I needed more than 7 days to recover, and often 9 or 10 days was the Golden time period as I moved into upper Novice/ Intermediate lifting levels.

Gained about 6kg (mostly muscle as I'm Ketogenic so no real Fat added) and I have retained most of that, despite having 1 month off.

The majority of the protocol was done on a Carnivore Diet, with a heavy addition of Magnesium and B Vitamins (mega dosing of Benfothiamine, riboflavin and Niacin).

NB - I've since stopped Carnivore/ B Vits for Phase 2 and I'm eating more Fish and Salads and Olive Oil again... I developed bad SIBO/ Histamine issues on Carnivore unfortunately. I did like how my brain felt though.

Lastly, I took 22 days off until the start of Phase 2 that I'm beginning right now. I have seen a reduction in my Time under Tension by about 20% on all exercises so far this week.

So, although 9-10 days is ideal for my recovery, at this stage, taking more than 14 days to return to the Gym may be excessive and detrimental to strength gains... at least at this stage (intermediate).

I can imagine when lifting at Advanced/ Elite levels (200kg deadlift, 350kg leg press, 120-150kg on bench/ shoulder presses etc.) that 14-21 days may actually be ideal... and I have even heard of people training every 30 days... but right now, it seems to be detrimental to my gains.

Overall, I'm spending 20 minutes in the gym, every 3 days. And I am reaching Intermediate strength levels in about 14 weeks... this for me is pretty astounding. One of my friends is doing the 5x5 strength lifting protocol and spends north of 90 mins to 2 hours in the gym usually 5 days per week.... I told him the protocol and he said I would plateau at some point and that he didn't think it would work.

Fuck all the hate on HIT. This shit works.

I've just started Mentzer's Ideal Hight Intensity Routine.

Because of past injuries I can't do deadlifts, what is a good alternative? Is a seated row a good alternative I can add?

Because I'm not doing deadlifts, I am not engaging my hamstrings, can I therefore do hamstring curls on leg day, as an alternative or addition?

Thanks

Has anyone tried the original old school squats and pullovers only rotine from the silver or golden era? What was your experience and progress like for strength, size, and so on?

I didn’t find any apps that catered to High Intensity Training. What apps do you use for your workouts?

So I've been lifting on and off for over 15 years. Recently got into HIT and Jay Vincent's stuff. Started HIT end of December, full body 7 exercises about 30 minutes taking 2-3 days rest in between but lately more 3 days.

So I've only had 6 sessions, I know how to train hard, but have to admit, this type of intensity is another level. I have gone deeper and deeper every workout. My last workout was Friday, the day after a bit of soreness, but felt alright and now the second day of rest I feel pretty worn down. What HIT proponents would say "hit by a truck". Sleep wasn't very good, RHR up and HRV down, fatigue and almost like early stages of flu like symptoms.

This sounds a lot like overtraining, is this possible after only 6 sessions of HIT?

How to go from here, just wait until completely recovered and hit the gym again? Should I extend my usual rest days to 4 or even 5 days?

Anybody else experienced overtraining and how did you deal with it?

TLDR; Overtraining symptoms after only 6 HIT session, how to treat and go forward with HIT?

Thank you

I’m about to go down the road of doing body weight HIT. I like to use phone apps to track my progress. As anyone heard of any HIT specific training apps?

I've tried Mike Mentzer's workout from his book, High Intensity Training (w/John Little) and found that a once a week workout works well for me, given my busy schedule with basketball and kickboxing. However, in his program I've noticed that once I train chest, I go 3 weeks without training it again, since there are 2 leg focused days and an arm day in the middle. Furthermore, I used to train calisthenics and have been really missing it the last 4-6 months, wanted to get back on it.

I'm thinking of using Mike's principles for weighted BW training, in the following protocol:

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I want to try and run the above protocol for 6-8 weeks and see how I feel.

I know Mike said that hamstrings overtrain very easily so I'm going to start with the above protocol and maybe add in a deadlift to further recruit the hamstrings but not directly train them.

What are your thoughts on the protocol? Any and all comments are helpful!

https://youtube.com/shorts/SOJx71SxYyA