Body by Science / HIIT Experiment

[Beorn]

That is because left and right side of the body is not totally symmetrical. If one arm gets tired much sooner than the other it is best to use a barbell. With a barbell, the stronger arm will compensate the weaker and in time both sides will become more symmetrical in strength and then you can use dumbells.
It worked for me.
It is best to have someone next to you so he/she can monitor your form. In moments when the weights are heavy, we all tent to twist our bodies just to keep those weights moves. Or it is a good idea someone to make a video clip while you are doing the exercise so you can then see if you are doing anything wrong.

It was more of a pain in the center of my palm rather than muscle soreness but a barbell might help to give that arm more stability. I'll give it a week to recover and see what happens next time.

 

[genero81]

It was more of a pain in the center of my palm rather than muscle soreness but a barbell might help to give that arm more stability. I'll give it a week to recover and see what happens next time.

If you're not using workout gloves that will help. I have gloves that are slightly padded on the palms.

 

[A Jay]

A note about stretching: in the BBS book I was shocked to see the research on stretching, throughout my massage course and in the health and fitness field we are told that stretching is integral to reduce risk of injury, it was quite surprising to see that the research suggests it can actually increase the risk of injury to an athlete! Maybe stretching to improve posture is still OK, it's just stretching before exercise that is the issue?

Yes, that's my understanding. Stretching before exercise increases the risk of injury, but stretching just because it feels nice to stretch out tense or sore muscles when one isn't planning to do strenuous physical activity right after is fine.

 

[Bastian]

Hello and thank you so much Scottie and all for the informations shared here !

But please note there is probably a confusion in your thread title and description between HIT and (what's generally called) HIIT :

Starting in January, a few of us began to do the Dr. Doug McGuff Body by Science workout. It's a type of High Intensity Interval Training

HIT means High Intensity Training (among these methods, there are the super slow ones like the BBS one).
HIIT generally means High Intensity Interval Program, also called high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) or sprint interval training (SIT), which is a complete different kind of trainings.
(I guess that "intensity" has not the exact same meaning in both names).

To my understanding (but I'm not an expert), the BBS method would be better labelled (holy ! ) "SSHIT" : Super Slow High-Intensity Training.

Please refer for instance to :
High-intensity interval training - Wikipedia
High-intensity training - Wikipedia
(Super Slow - Wikipedia)

My two euro-cents.

 

[Scottie]

But please note there is probably a confusion in your thread title and description between HIT and (what's generally called) HIIT :

I think I read somewhere that McGuff's protocol was more like HIT, and then I saw it written HIIT, and that stuck in my head.

So, I'll just change the acronym to: High Intensity Insane Training

 

[Bastian]

So, I'll just change the acronym to: High Intensity Insane Training

That's a good one !

And what about BUHLSSHIT : Bear Under Heavy Load Super-Slow HIT ? (Just kidding.)

 

[A Jay]

I think I read somewhere that McGuff's protocol was more like HIT, and then I saw it written HIIT, and that stuck in my head.

Well, HIT is HIIT, but not all HIIT is HIT.

The term “high intensity training” was coined by Ellington Darden, PhD, during a presentation at Duke University in 1975 to describe the Nautilus training principles:

• Intensity – train with a high level of effort, performing each exercise to the point of momentary muscular failure
• Progression – gradually increase the resistance you use as you get stronger and better conditioned
• Form – always maintain strict form to more efficiently load the targeted muscles and minimize risk of injury
• Duration – keep your workouts brief to avoid overtraining, perform only one set per exercise
• Frequency – allow adequate time for recovery and adaptation between workouts, training no more than three non-consecutive days per week
• Order – as a general rule perform exercises in order of the sizes of the muscle groups worked, from largest to smallest

The above principles apply to McGuff's BBS workout, Ken Hutchin's Super Slow, Drew Baye's workouts, Mike Mentzer's Heavy Duty, etc.

However, they don't apply to the great majority of HIIT workouts and classes promoted within the exercise industry (such as Crossfit) by various exercise gurus, local gyms, etc.

So, I'll just change the acronym to: High Intensity Insane Training

Or Highly Insane Training?

 

[A Jay]

Also, given that the book says to shoot for 45-90 seconds, yet videos of Buff McGuff show him doing upwards of 2 minutes on some exercises, AND given that McGuff himself has mentioned that some of the stuff in the book was sort of marketing fluff from the publisher... Well, it seems like "shaking things up" and experimenting a little bit is the way to go.

Speaking of "shaking things up" I wanted to share some info that may be helpful for when reaching sticking points of one kind or another.

Maybe you're stuck at the same weight and time for multiple weeks. Maybe you're tired of the same routine. Maybe you're looking for new ways to "torture" your workout partner.

Whatever the reason, the question is what can be changed or adjusted without messing up the BBS formula?

Time Under Load: You can vary the weight used for different exercises to either increase or decrease the time it takes to reach momentary muscle failure. I know in the book McGuff says that between 60-90 seconds is optimal, but anywhere between 45 seconds to 2.5 minutes can be effective. So maybe experiment and see what time works for your muscle fiber makeup?

Additional or skipped exercises: You can add in extra exercises after hitting a big muscle group to better stimulate the smaller muscles, such as doing a barbell curl after the pulldown and row. It's counter-productive to add too many extras, so maybe just one or two here and there for "fun". The other side would be taking out exercises and only doing the Big Three (chest press, pulldown, leg press), or skipping one exercise while still doing all the rest to give your body extra recovery for that movement.

Substitutions: Change up the exercises by doing the bent-over-row as opposed to a row machine, dips instead of a chest press, etc.

Order: If last week you didn't go up in weight or time on overhead press and you did it last, then the next time do it first so that you're arms are fresh and you can give it your all.

Frequency: Maybe add in an extra rest day or exercise a day earlier.

Hope this helps!

P.S. - From the experience of my trainer's and my own personal experience it's best to exercise in a cool (low to mid 50s F) environment. If you're doing it at home and/or you can't get the place you're exercising that cool, then a box fan can still do wonders.

 

[Konstantin]

Since I started to read the book about 3 weeks ago I decided to try this program exactly as it is described by the author and compare it with the previous variations of training that I was doing and I did describe them in some of my earlier posts. One of them was to push faster the weight in the positive portion of the movement and to lower it slowly or even add extra weight in the negative portion of the movement.

These 3 weeks I was executing the exercises as described in the book and looking not for a number of repetitions, but for a time under load.
Performing very slowly in the positive and negative portions of the movement is a waaaay more efficient.

Trying not to count repetitions but total time under load was a little strange at the beginning because I was not used doing that. Even my exercise friends in the gym were looking strange on me and one day I told to one of them to try to do a 10 min training session this way with me and then we can go home.

We did it together and he said that he hasn't felt such a muscle pump and muscle failure in a such a short time ever. He was amazed by this training program.

I am too. I am combining a free weights version and machine version and will continue this way next few months and then I can see the real difference.

 

[genero81]

Since I started to read the book about 3 weeks ago I decided to try this program exactly as it is described by the author and compare it with the previous variations of training that I was doing and I did describe them in some of my earlier posts. One of them was to push faster the weight in the positive portion of the movement and to lower it slowly or even add extra weight in the negative portion of the movement.

These 3 weeks I was executing the exercises as described in the book and looking not for a number of repetitions, but for a time under load.
Performing very slowly in the positive and negative portions of the movement is a waaaay more efficient.

Trying not to count repetitions but total time under load was a little strange at the beginning because I was not used doing that. Even my exercise friends in the gym were looking strange on me and one day I told to one of them to try to do a 10 min training session this way with me and then we can go home.

We did it together and he said that he hasn't felt such a muscle pump and muscle failure in a such a short time ever. He was amazed by this training program.

I am too. I am combining a free weights version and machine version and will continue this way next few months and then I can see the real difference.

Yeah, I'm loving it too. I'm increasing muscle mass while saving hours of gym time, which I can now spend reading. How awesome is that?!

 

[Goemon_]

I did 11 sessions in a row (every 7 days), then 1 week without a session, then 3 other sessions in a row, then 2 weeks without a session. And today I did another session and I had to add some weight to keep the timing per exercise about the same. So I guess it is best for me to have more rest between 2 sessions. I will try to do a session every 10 days for some time and see how it goes.

 

[Oxajil]

In case it might be helpful to others, I thought what he wrote about how to breathe (and why) during the exercises is interesting:

Breathing throughout the performance of each exercise should be continuous and natural, and it should be performed with an open mouth. As an exercise becomes more difficult and the lactic acid begins to accumulate in your muscles, causing that "burning" sensation, you should deliberately breathe faster, or hyperventilate. This step will help you break the urge to hold your breath and employ the Valsalva maneuver (the holding of one's breath while exerting; technically it's a closing of the glottis or vocal chords, or getting a gulp of air in the chest and then pushing hard against it). We don't want you to do this, for several reasons:

1. It unnecessarily raises blood pressure.
2. It raises intravascular pressure on the venous circulation.
3. It increases intrathoracic pressure, which decreases venous return to the heart.
4. Within muscle, it provides an internal mechanical assist, which is why power lifters will hold their breath in straining to make record lifts. However, doing so undermines our goal of fatiguing and inroading the muscle, as it essentially short-circuits that process. So, not only is it a potentially dangerous thing to do, it also runs counter to the inroading process that we're trying to achieve.

I also found his following example helpful about how the body responds to these exercises:

This whole process occurred over a span of roughly two minutes, but in that time, your muscles became 40 percent weaker. This occurrence represents a serious "threat" to your body, because it was not aware that you were simply in a gym making weights go up and down. For all it knew, you were fighting for your life with a mountain lion. To the body, this was a profound metabolic experience, and at the end of that experience, it couldn't move. Mobility is a preserved biologic function: if you can't move, you can't acquire food, and you can't avoid becoming food for other prey. This experience represented a profound stimulus, to which the body will respond, if given sufficient time, by enlarging on its strength reserves so that there will be at least some strength left over the next time such a stimulus might be encountered. Of course, now that you understand this process, you will employ slightly more resistance during your next workout to stimulate your body to produce another round of metabolic adaptation.

Makes sense to me! Looking forward to continue with the workout sessions, and see how it goes.

 

[Laura]

I did 11 sessions in a row (every 7 days), then 1 week without a session, then 3 other sessions in a row, then 2 weeks without a session. And today I did another session and I had to add some weight to keep the timing per exercise about the same. So I guess it is best for me to have more rest between 2 sessions. I will try to do a session every 10 days for some time and see how it goes.

I think every ten days works better for me, too.

 

[luc]

I think every ten days works better for me, too.

Interesting, same for me. It seems that at the beginning, one week might be ideal, but once you get better at it, 10 days or so might be better. At that point, I feel that my full strength has returned and I can feel how my body starts wanting to lift weights!

 

[whitecoast]

Interesting, same for me. It seems that at the beginning, one week might be ideal, but once you get better at it, 10 days or so might be better. At that point, I feel that my full strength has returned and I can feel how my body starts wanting to lift weights!

It's true. The more I lift the more I enjoy it. I'm starting to miss being able to go to the gym three times a week, since my muscles are still repairing themselves during those intervals. I wonder if maybe I should just switch to a low intensity exercise instead like yoga or LIRT. My brain feels really really good when I exercise. I want to see if I can find a way to do it at least once every two days.