Greg Roman showing what it's all about on overhead presses
It is my humble opinion that most people DO NOT train with sufficient intensity, and I also feel that is the reason that those people do not make the progress that they expect. Some people will say that HIT doesn't work, and revert back to more nonsensical ways of training. Some people will reduce volume and frequency because they think they are overtraining. However, if these people actually trained HARD then they would probably not have to worry about a lack of progress, because they would be adding weight to the bar on a workout-to-workout basis. And yes, it is much more than going to what most people think is failure. It is going to complete and utter muscular failure, going until you simply cannot perform another rep no matter how hard you push. It is giving 100 percent mentally as well as physically. And once you have trained as hard as humanly possible, there is little doubt as to its effectiveness. One of my football guys said to me the other day "this can't NOT work! If this doesn't make your body get stronger, I don't think anything will." How true.
One of the biggest reasons that people do not train hard is because they do not know how. If you don't know what hard training is, then how are you supposed to do it? When I first started HIT I really thought I was training hard, when in fact my intensity was laughable compared to what it is now. After interacting with people like Dr. Ken at Trigg's board, I began to question my effort. Maybe I wasn't training as hard as possible. I tried to train harder, and I did. I LEARNED how to train hard. Then I went to visit Bob Whelan, and that raised the bar even more. All summer I was learning how to train harder and harder until I reached a point where I felt that I was giving a complete and total effort on each and every exercise. The process of learning how to work with a complete effort took from April to August. It is not something that you just walk into the gym and do the first time, and it is just as much mental than it is physical. Right now I think that I can and do train just as hard as anyone. However, this was a product of concentrating solely on increasing my intensity over a few months. You really need to work at it consistently.
How many people actually concentrate on their intensity that much? It seems that everyone is worried about how many reps to perform, what exercises to utilize, what rep cadence to implement, and what machines to use. Intensity is taken for granted, because it is assumed that the person will train at 100 percent. However, that is almost never the case. Getting too caught up in minor details often makes people forget what is the basis for productive exercise in the first place. Training as hard as possible needs to be emphasized over every other aspect of HIT. If you that hard, then everything else takes care of itself.
If you really are training as hard as humanly possible, the principle of low volume will be pretty self-explanatory. It is not possible, if you are training all out, to perform more than one set of squats for 20-30 reps. The same goes for other exercises; one set should be all that you are able to perform. It is also not possible, if you are training with 100 percent intensity, to perform a lot of exercises in one workout. You cannot maintain the level of intensity that I speak of for more than about 45 minutes, and most people can't do it for more than 30 before they vomit or pass out. Even so, it is not even necessary to go that long. The frequency variable takes care of itself as well. I could not possibly train any more frequently than once every 4-5 days, because I am so sore and weak that I could not even think about training. Everyone can realize that if you are still feeling it from the previous workout, then it is best to take a few more days of rest. Finally, progression will be natural if you are going as hard as you can. There will be a point where you have to add weight simply to stay in your rep range. If you are training hard, the progress will come. PROGRESSION IS THE GOAL, AND INTENSITY IS THE MEANS OF ACHIEVING IT.
So how do you go about learning how to train hard? Well, I could tell you to give me a call and come over here to train (and if you live in the Philadelphia area, it may not be a bad idea). I'll show you what intensity feels like…hehehe. However, you can always do what I did. Concentrate SOLELY on going in every workout and training harder than the last one. Accept nothing but an all-out effort from yourself. Don't quit when you don't think you can do anymore. Keep going. Squat until you can't come up from the bottom position with a maximum effort and you have to dump the bar - don't rack it, leave it on the pins. Deadlift until you cannot complete a full rep in good form. Chin until you fall off the bar. Dip until you can't raise out of the bottom position at all. When you can't complete a rep, keep pushing as hard as possible until you have absolutely nothing left. If you feel that you can do another set, or you think that you didn't train hard enough, don't punish yourself. Come back next workout and seek to train even harder. All you have to do is just give it your all in one set, and let everything else take care of itself.
