Time’s up-let me help you out a little.

If it were duration, aerobics instructors and marathon runners would have Mr. Universe caliber physiques. 

If it were duration, the best way to get really big and strong would be to lift weights literally all day long.  And there are people around who do have all day to workout.  But nobody does this, because on some level they realize there’s a limit to how much intensity the body can withstand.  I’m sure you realize how ridiculous it would be to see somebody in the gym working out all day, from the time the gym opened in the morning until the time it closed that night.

So it’s not duration.

Intensity is the crucial variable in a workout responsible for building muscle.

And if the intensity of your workouts is high, the duration of your workouts will, by default, be brief.  That’s the trademark of a productive workout-brief and intense. 

So what exactly does intense mean?

Recall that the definition of intensity is the percentage of possible momentary muscular effort being exerted.  The higher the percentage, the better the muscle building results, with the ultimate goal being to exert 100% of your momentary ability.

Your goal with every set that you do is to reach a point where the muscle cannot possibly perform any more work at that moment.  Doing so insures that you have crossed every possible muscle growth threshold, and given proper time and resources to recover, the muscle will be forced to become bigger and stronger.

Intensity means going all out.  It’s not just working hard; it’s putting forth a maximum effort. It means performing rep after rep (with good form) until you can’t do any more-and then attempting one more anyway. 

This is what is known as training to failure.  In order to get the most out of your training, you must regularly attempt the momentarily impossible.

Training to failure, with brief workouts performed infrequently (1-2 workouts/week), will yield excellent results for a majority of trainees for quite a long time.  However, at some point a plateau will be reached.

Even though you are lifting heavy weights until you can’t lift them anymore, you are keeping your workouts brief, and you are providing enough rest days between workouts for full recovery, the time will come when that won’t be enough to stimulate more size and strength.

The reason is that even though you are taking each set to a point of failure, where you can’t possibly lift the weight any more, the truth is there is still a lot of strength left in that muscle.  And in order to continue making gains, you have to tap into that unused strength.

The way to do that is to incorporate techniques that will exhaust these remaining strength levels—and that’s what Hyper Intensity Training is all about.

(Excerpted from Hyper Intensity Training, Chapter 2)

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In the accompanying video, you’ll see Michael “Big Mike” Potts, former NCAA Wrestling National Champion, demonstrating what I’m talking about.  (You’ll know why I call him Big Mike as soon as you start watching–the dude is a freakin’ giant.)  He performs a set of pulldowns with a maximum effort, going all-out (I guarantee he gets 1 more rep than you think he’s going to get).  Then he takes a few seconds rest, followed by a “static hold” rep to tap into his unused static and negative strength levels.

That is what 100 percent intensity looks like–transcending positive failure, and moving into the Hyper Intensity Training zone.

(Note: The full-length video of Big Mike’s entire workout is part of the Hyper Intensity Training program, which will be available next week.  Friday I’m going to be offering a fun way for somebody to get the program FREE, so check back here Friday.)

Comment on Big Mike’s workout below 

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To better understand the Survival Instinct, a quick review of basic human physiology is helpful. The goal of every autonomic subsystem within the human body is the perpetuation of the survival of the organism. In other words, everything that happens within your body is designed to keep you alive and healthy.

For example, when you cut yourself your blood coagulates to form a clot at the site of the cut to stop the bleeding. If this did not occur automatically, you would obviously bleed to death. Similarly, the actions of blinking your eye, coughing, hunger, acquiring a suntan etc. all exist for the same reason- they are all protective mechanisms responding to potentially harmful stimuli.

Muscular hypertrophy can be viewed in the same light. In response to a potentially harmful stress applied to a particular skeletal muscle, that muscle grows larger and stronger in order to protect the organism from possible future exposure to that stress.

The key point is this: in order for the process of hypertrophy to be carried out, the stimulus must be perceived by your body as a threat to your survival. For this to occur, you must work at or near the limit of your existing capacity.

The practical application of this principle is something almost everyone reading this can relate to. Imagine the first time you ever did a certain strengthening exercise- let’s say it was the barbell curl. Suppose you did 10 reps with 80 pounds. Since this was your first time doing it, that set represented a 100% increase in intensity over what you had done before (which was nothing).

This dramatic leap in intensity will activate your Survival Instinct, stimulating your biceps to grow a little bigger and stronger to protect you from this perceived threat in the future, just in case you decide to do it again. And if you did do it again, and you were fully recovered, it was a lot easier the 2nd time around- the result of added muscle tissue to your biceps.

The next step is very important: if, from now on, you don’t try to do more than 10 reps, more than 80 pounds, or both, you are working well within your existing capacity and your Survival Instinct will lie dormant. Since your body has already built your biceps up to the point where they can handle 80 pounds for 10 reps, anything less than or equal to that is not perceived by your body as a threat to your survival and there is no reason for you to grow, no matter how many sets you do. It is that little extra, moving into new territory in weight or reps, that will cause your Survival Instinct to kick in and propel you toward the higher levels of muscular size and strength you desire.

How can this concept be systematically applied in each workout? By utilizing a repetition range. A repetition range refers to the establishment of upper and lower limits on the number of repetitions that will be performed in any given set.

For example, a trainee may select a repetition range of 6-10 for upper body exercises (I like 6-10 for upper body and 10-15 for lower body). Thus, the trainee would select a weight for each upper body exercise which would cause him or her to reach a point of momentary muscular failure, where no further volitional movement was possible, somewhere between the 6th and 10th repetition.

Doing so will insure the trainee is working to the limit of their existing capacity. If at least 6 reps cannot be performed, the weight is too heavy and should be reduced to allow 6 to 10 to be performed. Once more than 10 reps can be performed, the weight should be increased the next workout to once again allow for only 6-10 repetitions.

Note that the set should not be terminated arbitrarily just because a certain number of reps have been achieved. Always push to your limit if you want to involve the Survival Instinct, then adjust the weight accordingly the next workout.

To illustrate this point, let’s say a person is currently able to perform 8 reps on the bench press with 150 pounds and is unable to complete a 9th rep. Using a 6-10 rep range, this person would stick with 150 pounds each workout until, as the result of getting stronger, he or she is able to perform 10 or more reps with 150.

Once that happens, the weight should be increased to 155 the next workout and as many reps as possible performed. Once 10 reps can be exceeded, the weight goes up to 160 on the next workout, and so on. This system insures that both intensity and progression are being effectively utilized.

In summary, don’t leave anything on the table when you workout. Push to your limit on each and every set, and increase reps and/or weight whenever you can. By doing so you will harness the power of your Survival Instinct and elevate yourself to new levels of muscular size and strength.

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Next thing you know, I run across a very nice, complimentary e-mail:

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“Hi Dave. I vist your site and listen to some of your interviews on a regular basis and enjoy them.

I don’t know if your aware of this but there was recently a couple guys who did a 60 day experiment using Mentzer’s Training Program and diet recommenedations while video taping and blogging the whole thing a long with posting pictures and measurements of the results at theboiseexperiment.com

I just thought if you could get one or maybe both of them to agree to an interview that it would probably be pretty interesting.”

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Since I had not heard anything about this before, I went over to the website he mentioned to check it out.

I have now officially found my second-favorite website.

The Boise Experiment is the brain child of 2 guys who go by the blog names RonnieB and BigAndy. Apparently, last fall they decided to conduct a transformation experiment on themselves: they would attempt to add as much lean body mass as possible (and in BigAndy’s case, lose some body fat as well) in 60 days, using Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty program straight out of “High Intensity Training The Mike Mentzer Way”, while strictly adhering to the nutrient percentages and calorie recommendations out of the book at the same time.

That’s pretty cool right there, but the way they went about it is really cool. Like the guy said in that e-mail, they recorded, down to the last minute detail, everything they ate, each workout rep by rep, and what their impressions were every step of the way–on a daily basis.

This included video blogging, which is a picture-in-picture type deal where you see them performing their workout in the main video, and you see RonnieB in the inset video offering his thoughts on how things were going at that point in the experiment.

Really cool stuff, unlike anything I’ve seen before.

And the workout videos are very real–no fancy lights, no second takes–just these guys doing their Heavy Duty workouts, imperfections and all. Watching them brought me back mentally to a very fun time, when I first discovered High Intensity Training and threw myself into it in a similar fashion.

I can tell you without a doubt that Mike Mentzer would have been very proud of these guys, as I am. They (like many of us) patiently stuck with the program exactly as written, I’m sure dealing with the stares and under-the-breath comments of the know-it-alls at their gym–and were rewarded with OUTSTANDING RESULTS.

Check out their transformations after ONLY 9 WORKOUTS IN 60 DAYS:

RonnieB’s Before and After

BigAndy’s Before and After

All their exact before-and-after measurements, bodyweight, bodyfat percentages, etc are all there on the website, along with the workout videos and video blogs. In addition, they have a cool calorie counter on there now that they are offering FREE.

Here’s a sample of what you’ll see:

Workout #1: Chest and Back

Workout #4: Legs and Abs

CLICK HERE TO CHECK THE BOISE EXPERIMENT WEBSITE

CLICK HERE TO CHECK THEIR PARENT SITE BUY BULK WHEY .COM

Comments Please!

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Only one problem–you’re not making any progress. You look and lift the same as you did 6 months ago.

Why is that?

Well, there is one legitimate reason-you’ve done everything right for a few years, and you have now reached the limit of your genetic potential for building muscle beyond normal levels. You’ve reached you’re pinnacle. You can’t get any better, no matter what you do, and you are now lifting just to maintain what you have.

If that’s the case, you have no reason to be dissatisfied, because you look, feel and function fantastically.

But if that’s not the case (and I have met very few people who believe that they have reached that point), then there’s a reason.

Just like there’s a reason for everything in the Universe, based on the Law of Causality, a.k.a. the Law of Cause and Effect, there’s a reason for your lack of satisfying progress, and the number of possibilities are not infinite.

In fact, we can pretty much boil it down to one of 5 things.

The Top 5 Reasons for Lack of Training Progress:

1. Intensity is too low.

Intensity is the stimulus that triggers muscle growth and increased strength. Intensity means the percentage of momentary effort being exerted. If the intensity of each set is insufficient, increases in muscular size and strength will not be stimulated. Since nobody is too sure what the least amount of intensity required really is, and because of the difficulty in measuring intensity, the best way to insure you have passed over every possible growth threshold is to exert 100% intensity-that is, train to failure on every set (excluding warmups).

2. Duration is too high.

Intensity and duration are inversely proportional-that is, the higher the intensity is, the lower the duration of the workout must be, whether you want it to be or not. Just as nobody on earth can sprint all-out for a mile, nobody on earth can lift weights with 100% intensity for long periods of time.

If you are training to failure on every work set, take a careful look at your workout duration. Is there too much overlap present in your routine? Are you training the same muscle groups repeatedly with different movements unnecessarily? Can you eliminate anything?

Remember, the more you do, the harder it is for your body to recover and overcompensate. Instead of asking yourself “how much exercise can I tolerate?”, ask yourself instead “how little exercise do I require”?

3. Frequency is too high.

If your workouts are intense enough and brief enough, the next step is to make sure you are leaving enough time in-between workouts to allow for both recovery and overcompensation.

When you get finished with a high intensity workout, you don’t feel the same as you did before you started. You feel exhausted-something was “used up”. Think of it as digging a hole in your recovery ability.

The first thing you have to do is fill in that hole. Once things are back to their pre-workout levels-the hole is filled in-then, and only then, can you over-compensate and build some new muscle on top.

All of this takes time. If you don’t allow sufficient time in between workouts, you short-circuit this process.

How much time you need between workouts is an individual thing. I would say that 2-3 days between workouts, which equates to working out about twice a week, is an absolute minimum of days between workouts. If the intensity and duration are right, and you’re still not making progress, add an extra rest day between workouts until progress is apparent.

4. Not Enough Sleep.

Your body’s preferred time to rebuild and grow is while you are sleeping. That’s why babies and teenagers sleep a lot-because those are the times in people’s lives when they are going through heavy growth periods. If your training is intense enough, brief enough, and infrequent enough, maybe you just need and extra hour or two of sleep every day.

5. Insufficient Nutrition.

Food provides the building materials needed for new muscle tissue, and for the energy required to perform high intensity workouts. Make sure you are consuming a well-balanced diet with sufficient calories for your daily maintenance needs, plus a little extra to provide for increased muscle tissue.

Properly balancing these 5 factors is what makes training challenging, but it’s not as complicated as a lot of people make it out to be. If you think in terms of principles first, then figure out the specifics, it will all come together for you.

So remember the 5 principles of getting bigger and stronger:

Train intensely.
Train briefly.
Train infrequently.
Sleep enough.
Eat right.

Do each of those well, and in no time you will be on the satisfying path of consistent progress.

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The chest exercises I used were the Nautilus 10 degree chest fly, followed immediately by the Med-X chest press. 

The 10 degree fly isolates the pecs, and does an extra good job of it by applying the resistance directly to my upper arms.  Unlike a standard fly exercise, I don’t have to hold anything, so there’s no strain on my wrists, elbows or grip.  This chest exercise can even be done on this machine if you have a broken wrist or hand, or even no hands.  I also get lots of resistance in the fully contracted position by squeezing the pads together.  On this one I like to achieve failure in a range of 7-10 reps.

After the chest fly, I go immediately to my next exercise in the chest workout, the chest press.  My pecs are already on fire, and on this one my deltoids and triceps are still fresh and can help drive my pecs to a deeper level of fatigue.  I like to keep the reps low on this one, usually 3-8.

Of course, if you don’t have access to all this fancy equipment, you can still do this chest workout. 

Using free weights, you could start with flat bench dumbbell flyes and go immediately to the barbell incline press or dips.

Using conventional machines, you could start with a pec deck or fly machine, and then proceed directly to a Smith Machine incline press, or any type of machine chest press to finish things off.

Remember to keep accurate records of the weights and reps, so you can make sure you make progress from one chest workout to the next.

Try this sequence on your next chest workout and let me know how it feels!

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Essentially everybody is performing their exercises very quickly. They throw the weight up. They let it drop back down. Mindlessly flailing their limbs with no apparent focus or concentration, often talking to someone at the same time. They rattle the barbell plates. They let the weight stack slam together. Momentum is utilized to the fullest extent possible. There is no pausing at any point in the entire set. The only time all this high speed of movement stops is between exercises, when the average trainee rests for several minutes, often while socializing, re-setting their I-Pod, texting somebody, watching television or checking their cell phone. It almost seems like they can’t wait to get their set out of the way, so they can get to these other activities with minimal disruption.

Why do people train like that?

I think that one reason they do it is since they see virtually everybody else doing it, they assume it’s the right way to do it, and that the one guy in the gym not doing it (me) is some misguided weirdo who is doing it wrong. This is the way a lot of people make all of their decisions-they go along with the majority, avoiding the painful job of thinking critically for themselves.

Once the trainee starts utilizing this method, they discover that moving the weights faster allows them to lift more weight more easily. Although less effective from a strength and muscle building perspective, this method is more satisfying to the ego. Fast reps also produce less muscular discomfort than slow reps, and avoiding pain is desirable for most people.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is inferior results. Moving the weights quickly lowers the intensity of the activity; and intensity is the stimulus required to cause an increase in muscular size and strength. Thus, the higher the intensity is, the more effective the workout will be. To maximize the intensity of each repetition, the weight should be lifted and lowered slowly, under full muscular control, utilizing the force of muscular contraction alone without momentum.

Going slow is also safer. Increased speed of movement increases the risk of injury. If you have ever witnessed, or been in, a car accident, you already know this.

In addition, going slower makes the workout more time efficient. You put more tension on your muscles in each set, allowing you to place a greater workload on your muscles in one set than the fast lifters get in 3 or more sets.

What exactly do I mean by slow? Here’s how I described proper form in my e-book, “High Intensity Muscle Building“:

“The lifting of a weight (including the weight stack on a machine) should take 2 seconds to perform. The lowering of a weight should take 4 seconds to perform. You should pause in both the start and finish positions on each rep. Thus, every rep you do should take approximately 7-8 seconds to perform. Simply put: lift in 2 seconds; pause; lower in 4 seconds; pause; repeat.”

The goal of your strength training program should be to get the best possible results in the shortest possible time with the least possible amount of effort. Performing slow, controlled repetitions is fundamental to achieving that goal.

Keep it slow to grow,

Dave Durell, MS, CCS, PTA
Author of High Intensity Muscle Building

P.S. This article was originally published in the High Intensity Nation E-Newsletter. For a FREE issue, AND advanced training video AND special report, enter your name and e-mail address to the right or below. I hate spam as much as you do and will never share your e-mail address.

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I have just upgraded my High Intensity Muscle Building course to include 2 FREE MP3 downloads and 8 weeks of FREE e-mail coaching!

Click here to grab your copy with the FREE MP3′s and e-mail coaching

I’m doing this as a way to say THANK YOU to all the people who read my blog and
e-newsletter.

Click here to claim your copy with the new bonuses now

Here’s everything you get with the High Intensity Muscle Building program:

1. The 76 page training manual with printable forms and workout cards-your step-by-step, easy-to-follow road map that will show you the shortest, fastest and most direct way possible to achieve your training goals!

2. *NEW* The 2-part MP3 download going over every detail of the High Intensity Muscle Building program and training philosophy!

3. Unlimited access to the “Members Only” area of the High Intensity Training Video Vault-Live-action full-length training videos to teach and inspire you, and take all the guesswork out of how to perform the workouts correctly (very hard to do from pictures alone).

4. The High Intensity Muscle Building Nutrition Guide with printable grocery shopping list-cut through all the hype and get the basic facts about nutrition to get the most out of your High Intensity Muscle Building program.

5. 12 month subscription to the High Intensity Nation monthly e-newsletter-stay motivated, entertained, and educated with up-to-date info on muscle building and strength training, delivered right to your e-mail in-box every month!

6. *NEW* 8 weeks of personal e-mail coaching-Now you can have me as your personal coach, right by your side, no matter where you live-helping you every step of the way on your muscle building journey!

WHEW!

That’s a lot of stuff-and you get it all when you try my High Intensity Muscle Building program.

Click here to claim your copy right now!

Talk soon,

Dave

P.S. Try High Intensity Muscle Building risk-free for 60 days with our 100% money-back guarantee!

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Get “unstuck” today,

Dave Durell, MS, CCS, PTA
Author of High Intensity Muscle Building

P.S. Leave A Comment Below!

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Jim is a 17 year-old tennis player who wanted to add some muscular strength and size.

Tennis players are almost always ectomorphs.  Ectomorphs are those real skinny people that anybody on a diet would like to kill, because they can eat whatever they want and not gain weight.

Also, tennis players run around a lot, in case you never noticed.

These factors make it extremely difficult for this type of person to gain muscular bodyweight.  It’s like they’re starting out with 2 strikes against them already.

We know from experience that ectomorphs are dead in the water if they try a multi-set, 6-days-a-week type program expecting to gain weight.

We also know their tolerance to very high intensity activity is limited.  It’s easy to make an ectomorph throw up or pass out while training.

A fine line indeed.

So here’s what we did with Jim:

From October 3rd, 2009 to November 9th, 2009, Jim performed 7 High Intensity Muscle Building workouts.  That’s 7 workouts in 37 days.

Here’s a peek at one of Jim’s workouts:

Here is a glimpse at his body composition measurements:

So if you are a “Jim”–an ectomorph, a.k.a. “hardgainer”, who has had a tough time adding some extra muscle, but someone who is highly motivated, coachable, and willing to work hard-maybe it’s time to give High Intensity Muscle Building a try.

To new muscle,

Dave Durell, MS, CCS, PTA
Author, High Intensity Muscle Building