New Article - Short and Kinda Fun

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

?One All Out Set? vs Multiple Sets ? Andy Baker

[Giri Kotte]

Excellent article. The points about how neurological efficiency and testosterone levels can determine the programming path forward were insightful.

[Jake Del]

Nice work. I kinda wonder though, wouldn't these accomplished pros like Yates and Mentzer have moved on from that training model if it only produced real results when they first tried it?

Also, if someone wanted to follow in your footsteps for a period of swoleification, would you recommend your old college split? A chest and arm day and still hitting everything twice a week? I can feel the gains coming.

[Kevin Lee]

Nice work. I kinda wonder though, wouldn't these accomplished pros like Yates and Mentzer have moved on from that training model if it only produced real results when they first tried it?.

I think Andy is referring to the hordes of people who made huge gains on it after switching from a 5 or 6 day split and claimed that the HIT method was superior without realizing they were overtrained. I don't think he is saying the HIT method only works at first but that it seems to work so well because of the overtraining.
On the flip side, the people who say it doesn't work just don't have the pain capacity, or neural efficiency.
I'd be interested in hearing if women can have success with the HIT method. Typically being less efficient but being able to grind out more reps at a higher % of their one rep max, I'm not sure how that would pan out.
In Strong Enough, Rip mentions a woman he was training and how she was able to do 9 or so reps of behind the head presses until failure but then with his help was able to do 15 controlled negatives before fatiguing. That's a hell of a way to end an intense set.
The program my wife's trainer put her on is definitely an Arnold style high volume program. 6 days a week, 4 or 5 exercises per part, 4 or 5 sets per exercise and 12-20 reps per set, and she is doing well on it, but that could be chalked up to newbie gains, though her trainer is jacked and she's been doing it for a long time now.

Another thing I'm interested in is whether certain muscle groups respond better to the different types of training and if that can change much person to person.
Not sure if I ever saw Yates doing an all out one set to failure on his calves or abs on his videos. (He may have I just don't remember)
And (almost) everyone loves to load up the barbell every now and again and do some lower rep hi intensity work on deads and bench.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

My position is that the best result will come from the mixture of the two types of training. Not necessarily Dorian style HIT specifically, but just high volume vs low volume/high intensity. So whether its every couple of workouts or every couple of weeks or every couple of months. Depends on the person and the goal and the programming etc etc.

You can't go high volume all year. But low volume all year won't last either (for most people). And I'm talking about size and strength.