The Muscle Couple is obviously enthralled with our results from HIT Training.

We do realize many people are satified with their current training styles or are unwilling to commit to HIT because of the physical demand it requires.

We respect that and want to offer you specific HIT principles to incorporate into your current workout/training style.  All/any of these techniques will provide an optimized stimulus for advanced/accelerated physique improvement.

First we will define the term and then give you ideas or specific samples of how to best utilize them.

***Partial Reps***

Partial reps or “partials” are when your execution of the rep occurs in only one of the 3 ranges of motion-top, middle or at the bottom of the movement. When you can learn to forcibly contract your muscle fibers in a very narrow portion of the ROM of a set, your strength will improve significantly. EXAMPLE: 1 and a Quarter Reps as one full rep on a Tricep Pushdown.

***Negatives***

Negative work or reps is resisting the eccentric(downward movement) of a heavy weight.  In TMC’s opinion, learning to utilize negative/eccentric training correctly can produce shocking aesthetic improvememts in the form of muscular density/tone.  Usually, unless you are using a machine with a fixed path chain of resistance, perform negative training with a spotter/trainer only.  Also, only use negative training sparingly as it can be brutal and overwhelm your CNS if ample recovery time isnt being given between sessions. EXAMPLE: Standing Barbell curl with a weight 10% heavier than your max. Utilizing a spotter, resist the bar for as long as possible on its eccentric pathway(shoot for 10 seconds or more to get to bottom of your range of motion)-at bottom immediately have your spotter aid u in returning the bar thru the concentric portion of the movement to the top of your rep range and repeat until you are unable to resist the bars downward path at all.

***Static Holds***

A static hold is forcibly contracting your muscle fiber(s) for a specific length of time at the peak of the concentric portion of the rep. EXAMPLE: Holding the fully contracted/squeezed together portion of the Nautius Pec Dec for 60 seconds ..squeezing your chest musculature as hard as possible while resisting the natural inclination to give up/let go.

This is TMC’s favorite HIT principle to utilize as it can dramatically alter your venous architecture (through improved mitochondrial density)and make your musculature sharper/harder.(awesome for women wanting to appear leaner/toned in their upper arms). There is a lot of focus and psychogical energy necessary to harness the full power of “statics”.(more on that soon-;)

***Forced Reps***

This intensity principle should only be used by advanced lifters who have full control over their neural muscle pathways.  Performing a forced rep is taking a movement beyond initial muscular failure with the help of a spotter. EXAMPLE: You perform a set of Hammer Incline Chest presses and you fail at rep 11. Your spotter through the force of leverage will then assist you moving the weight concentrically past your “sticking point”. Here you will assume full control of the rest of the rep hopefully able to forcibly contract the muscle at the peak of the concentric.  At most (even with super advanced lifters), you should not be able to perform more than 3 partial reps.  If you can, you’re not training hard enough in your other sets.(time to take up HIT?-;)

***Rest-Pause***

TMC has spoken and written about Rest-Pause training ad-nauseum already.  If you arent already incorporating it in your training, you are supremely missing out.  Rest-Pause training is taking brief periods of rest (deep breaths for 10-15 secs long)during the execution of a set to squeze out more reps.  The rest periods or “pauses” are usually inserted right before muscular failure to give the CNS a brief rest/recovery enabling the performance of a few additional reps providing deeper and more intense muscular contraction. EXAMPLE: Bodymaster Squat Machine performing 9 reps-10 sec rest pause breaths-4 more reps-15 sec rest pause breaths-2 more reps-Doneski!

No matter your training style or program, adding in any of these HIT principles will offer significant aesthetic and/or strength improvement depending on your individual goals.

We encourage your comments and questions.

This post is dedicated to the multiple people who have been asking for better explanations and descriptions of HIT principles and intensity techniques.  Look for a followup post detailing videos of each soon.

Have a great weekend!

MIHWCS