The New High Intensity Training - The Best Muscle-Building System You-ve Never Tried Description:

The New High Intensity Training : The Best Muscle-Building System You've Never Tried review:
3 stars (Unbelievable and bizarre) - There is some good body building information in this book. Unfortunately the good is buried within bizarre tales about the psychological quirks of some of the characters, and by some blatantly false stories of what HIT supposedly did.



An example of a false story is someone supposedly losing 52 pounds of fat in 66 days. This was with a 1500 calorie diet and three short weight-lifting sessions per week as the only exercise! Mathematically a pound is 3500 calories, so it would take at least 30 miles of day of running to even theoretically lose weight that fast. The reality is that no one could physically or psychologically tolerate a 2750 calorie per day deficit for long.



The author clearly worships Arthur Jones, and he approvingly tells tales of how Jones would threaten to beat up anyone who dared speak in his presence (including Arnold Schwarzenegger) or disagree with him, because Jones felt he was due that "respect". Jones is also quoted telling stories about animals in Africa, which supposedly prove the body building system in the book is true.



Another bizarre anecdote is a rumor that body builder Mike Mentzer sometimes believe that Jones was God, and that Mentzer was the Son of God. Those Jones and Darden disagree with are trashed by the anecdotes in the book, while we hear only impossibly good things about those they like.



The diet material, as mentioned above, is unbelievable.



The weight lifting information is good, and covers half the book, which is why I have given the stars. There are detailed workout plans, along with pictures and comments explaining each exercise. There is also a discussion of the principles of high intensity training.


5 stars (What HIT is all about) - I'll be consise:



You don't need to spend all that endless hours in the gym, as Schwarzrnegger and Weider are claiming.



Researches (regardless to this book) show insignificant difference in muscle strength and hypertrophy, when comparing 1 set to a 3 sets workout.



The best efficient, non time consuming way to do it, is the Arthur Jones way, detailed and summarized remarkably in this book.



Strongly recommended as a main title to learn from.
1 stars (How was this published?) - Darden uses one fourth of the book to raise himself up, and another fourth is full of meaningless stories. The advice on the HIT part is somehow unrealistic for most people. Training to failure can be dangerous and lead to injury, especially with beginners; and unless you are really committed you will burn out easily.



The part that worries me the most is the `nutrition' part. Darden advises that in the initial two weeks of the program you should drink during the day a solution of water, creatine and a load of SUGAR! That will basically send your insulin levels thru the roof and keep them up there all day long! Insulin is poisonous to neurons, so imagine what you will be doing to your brain for two weeks! Anybody with basic nutrition knowledge will tell you that it is not the wisest thing to do.



He claims that the individual he used to test the program was able to gain two pounds of muscle a day!! Well, do you really need somebody to tell you that that is IMPOSSIBLE? Even if it is that will be such a strain to your heart that again any serious professional will advise against it.



Summarizing, if you are really interested in HIT training this is not the advice you should be following. There are much better books out there.