Apologies for the delayed response. Went back through a bunch of old studies to make sure I wasn't misremembering or steering people wrong.
Has anyone been doing HIT for a number of years at this point? I'd love to know about your experience - what worked, what didn't, what needed to be adjusted, etc. Was it boring, was it sustainable long-term, did you have any problems, etc. Or even if you had better success achieving your goals (whatever they may be) via some other method instead.
The longest I ever stayed consistent was when I was doing martial arts (a blend of Jeet Kune Do/Kali/Hapkido) training about 20+ hours a week and doing full-body HIT workouts 2 (occasionally 3) times a week for about 2 years. Got to my most muscular at that point and weighed about 165-170lbs at 5'10" with maybe 15% bodyfat while keto.
If I'm remembering correctly, of course, as this would have been about 11 years ago now.
The biggest thing that contributed to my success back then was, I think, my consistency. You mentioned consistency later on in your post and I wholeheartedly agree with what you said. It doesn't matter what your goal is, your priority in regimen formulation should be to select methods that will keep you consistent. Some methods are more effective or efficient than others for reaching particular goals. However, those methods are useless if you aren't going to be consistent in applying them.
HIT is great in a number of respects when considering consistency because a big barrier for people is time. One big downside to HIT, however, is that the level of intensity thought to be required for single set training to be effective is intolerable long-term for a lot of people. Negating the upside of the time efficiency.
Thankfully,
a study from 2024 showed that even doing one set twice a week with sub-maximal effort can stimulate muscle growth, strength increases, and so on. Which means that absolute failure, and the discomfort from it, may not be required for one-set training to be effective. It just won't be as effective for hypertrophy as failure training would be, though it may have similar strength benefits. This is consistent with
other research suggesting that even having 3-5 reps-in-reserve can lead to strength and hypertrophy gains, at least in multi-set approaches.
This means those who like the idea of one-set training because of the time efficiency but are put off from being consistent with it because of the discomfort of absolute failure can consider a sub-failure one-set training regimen as a potential method of resistance training.
Another downside to a minimalist HIT approach is that it may not actually the best at any particular thing. In doing everything at once, it may provide sub-maximal hypertrophy stimulus, sub-maximal cardio-metabolic stimulus, sub-maximum strength gains, and so on. Doesn't mean a significant amount or even a majority of the benefits cannot be achieved with a minimalist approach, but to reach the most of any particular aspect of fitness or health the dose or stimulus should be adjusted appropriately to focus more on that particular aspect.
This
recommendation paper regarding hypertrophy in athletes is a good overall look at the topic because while the lead author is Dr. Brad Shoenfeld, who is a firm believer in the ability of intervention to improve outcomes and has papers on the dose-response effect of resistance training on hypertrophy and strength, it also lists Dr. James Fischer and Dr. James Steele as co-authors. These two researchers are HIT guys and their influence on the paper is quite apparent.
It comes down to these simple questions: what do I want, what am I willing to sacrifice, how much am I willing to invest, and what am I actually going to stick with?
The best advice is to simply start a program that you will be consistent with and will bring you closer to your goal with acceptable amounts of investment and sacrifice then adjust over time as you check in with yourself and evaluate your records to objectively assess your progress. Newbie gains are easy in that you almost can't fail unless you really aren't trying or aren't showing up.
Don't be afraid to try things every few months and see if positive changes occur by checking your records and measurements. Try more days off, try adding more sets, try substituting an exercise, try more lifting days, and so on.
I had a decent 2-year run until 2022 which is when I had a family tragedy and fell off and never got back on the horse until now. I followed basically the HIT approach - 1 set til failure mostly focused on the big-5 with a few additional exercises. My cadence wasn't quite as slow as McGuff - maybe 3-4 seconds up, and 3-4 seconds down for each rep. I also didn't stick to a strict frequency of once every 7 days per muscle group - mine was closer to once every 4-5 days or so as I felt recovered enough in that time frame. I also split the workout over 2 days instead of hitting my entire body all at once. I felt less "systemic fatigue" this way.
Yeah, a SuperSlow cadence isn't necessary and the once every 7 days is very conservative.
Over the course of those 2 years I gained a considerable amount of muscle, was probably near my genetic limit for strength etc. I never experienced any joint pain or injuries following this approach. I've worked out in the past using a more traditional volume/frequency/cadence, and definitely experienced pain/injuries doing it - tennis elbow, painful rotator cuff, etc, without any more "gains" than I got from HIT.
Sounds like you found something that works for you, then.
Here's my current routine that I'll be doing for the next however long:
Day 1 - Push, pull, squats, calf raises
Day 2 - shrugs, lateral raises, ab exercise, lower back exercise
Days 3/4 - rest, stretch, yoga, stuff like that.
Day 5 - repeat.
Don't be afraid to add in more exercises.
See below.
A few things I learned:
1) Don't switch up exercises for no reason - and especially not when you think progress has slowed or because you're bored. You don't need to "shock" your muscles with variety, that's an urban myth. The strength gains during the first 6 months or so are mostly from neuromuscular adaptations - your brain gets more efficient at engaging your muscle fibers. After that's done, the gains come from actual muscle growth. The rate of your strength increase will slow down and that's normal. If you switch exercises when strength gains slow down, you're just going to go through a new neuromuscular adaptation period for the new exercise. Your body only grows new muscle when it *has* to because muscle is metabolically expensive and your body is lazy, so actual growth only happens when it has no other choice and it has exhausted all other things it can do.
There's no need to "shock" muscles but different exercises recruit muscle fibers differently and that will have an effect on the size or shape of some muscles.
For example, a regular bench press doesn't stimulate the upper pectoral area as effectively as an incline press. Similarly, a hammer curl more effectively stimulates the brachialis when compared to a regular bicep curl.
Therefore, a change of exercises every so often could ensure a given muscle is being stimulated effectively and that all supporting muscles are stimulated as well. A rotation of exercises would also help with overcoming sticking points with particular exercises either by stimulating the major drivers of the exercise in a different way or in stimulating the secondary muscles more effectively.
So while a large portion of strength or hypertrophy gains can be attained with just doing dips, chin ups, and squats over and over, for example. It will leave some gains on the table so it's worthwhile considering other exercises for the sake of overall development.
Assuming overall development is desired, of course.
2) Slow reps really do work just as well if not better than fast reps, and are much safer than jerking a weight around. The only reason to do fast reps is because slow may be boring, but that comes with injury risks and a lot more wear and tear on your joints over time. Partly because you're doing more volume (you can do more fast reps than slow reps), partly because a weight that quickly reverses direction exerts powerful forces on your joints at that moment.
One reason to do fast reps is power production for strength development or powerlifting benchmarks.
Even in those cases, though, there's some control as the lowering phase is done with control and the lifting is done explosively.
Keep the weight under control and you're good. No need to try and go SuperSlow.
3) Most people have average genetics and muscle-building potential. Social media creates very unrealistic expectations for what a drug-free lifter can achieve, even after many years of lifting. Look at the bronze era body builders to get an idea of what it looks like. More like a greek statue, less like Arnold. Also world-class athletes are all on drugs.
Most people will not only look strong and healthy but will be strong and healthy, and that is a worthwhile goal.
4) I never paid attention to my dietary macros - fat/protein/carbs, and I never counted calories. I just ate food - lots of meat especially, and that seemed to be perfectly fine without stressing about the details. And I never "bulk" or "cut" as that isn't necessary and probably not healthy to do to your body anyway. Just eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full.
Unfortunately, that is likely a you thing as many don't have that luxury.
Whatever the reason, and there are many, they need to consciously do one or the other.
Which is perfectly fine either way. If you don't have to track things, great. If you do have to track things, then that's just a good. Either way, one is becoming the better and healthier version of themselves which is the real goal.
5) When I have a consistent workout routine, I tend to eat healthier too, spend more time outside, drink more water, etc. And conversely, if I fall off in one area I tend to fall off in others. So that's one thing I learned - I kinda have to do all the things together and they reinforce each other.
Yes, having a consistent exercise routine can lead to other positive choices that leads to more positive choices and so on.
The trick is to not let it all go if you miss a workout or two, lol.
6) Quality sleep is very important - my motivation, energy, will power, and other things fall off when I don't sleep enough or don't sleep well. After a week of bad sleep I start to struggle to stick to my routine, I'm more tempted by bad foods, and I'm more lazy and less likely to go outside, or basically do anything that I'm supposed to be doing. It seems to be more pronounced as you get older too. And of course, workout recovery is greatly affected by sleep and health hormone levels, not just protein or age.
Yep.
7) Consistency over time beats pretty much anything else.
Amen.
Your workout routine looks decent, however, when saying rest on day 3/4, do rest. Both yoga or stretching although not as exhausting as strength exercise are still perceived a workout by your body. If you insist about doing something, grab this
book from Kelly and Juliet Starrett and follow few simple practices.
This is overly cautious. Yoga and stretching isn't nearly intense or demanding enough to impede recovery.
Most people don't need to give up the physical activities they enjoy in order to recover from exercise as the activities aren't demanding enough to have a meaningful impact on recovery ability.
4. As mentioned previously, watch your protein intake. For growth it should be in range of 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per 1 kg of your body weight. So 80 kg male should be eating somewhere around 120 - 160 grams of protein a day. The rest of macro-nutrients (carbs and fat) will "auto-adjust" exactly as you said. Eat till you are full. This may vary slightly from day to day since we are not robots.
Careful with the "auto-adjust" idea.
Most people, including peeps on this forum, have no idea how many calories are in food and how to gauge what is an appropriate amount of calories for them. Especially if they've never counted calories, tracked how much of what foods they eat in a given week, are sedentary, and so on.
Counting calories may be a necessary step, at least for a time, until one can actually gauge what is appropriate. Focusing on getting enough protein is a good first step but many may need to take it a step further to make sure they're not eating too much or are eating enough.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
I want to do this method properly, but without damaging myself… 
nothing wrong there. Consistency is achieved with setting goals and working your way towards them and that is exactly what a training does.
