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

I would recommend this book to anyone who has lost what they once had and want to regain it. I purchased this book a couple months ago and read it from cover to cover. Years ago I used to train for 2 to 3 hours a day and I was in pretty good shape. Then life got in the way (school, job, etc) and working out became a hassel. Over the course of about 6 years of not lifting a single weight, I lost the muscle and definition that I once had. The biggest thing that kept me from getting back in the gym was the fact that I didn't, and still don't, have the time to spend 3 hours a day in the gym; then I found this book. A friend and I have been following the ideas/principles set forth in the book for just under 6 weeks now. In that time I have lost 15 pounds and have regained most of the muscle that I lost in the 6 years of doing nothing. The biggest thing that really got me motivated to give the HIT ideas a try was/is the fact that it calls for 3 days a week of training and leaving everything you have (strength) in the gym. We lift 3 days a week for about an hour and fifteen minutes, max, for the two of us to get through the set. If you are wanting to regain the strength, definition and confidence that you once had, while still maintaining a life outside the gym, I highly reccomend this book!!

After 4 weeks of a 1500 calorie diet and super slow lifting 3 times a week, I am down to 179 from 189 and definitely have more muscle and strength. So I probably lost more than 10 lbs of fat because I certainly gained some muscle mass. If you have the guts to eat 1500 calories a day and have the stamina to do 15 second reps, you will see success. The book is not written by Shakespear, but there are valuable pages of exact programs to follow and detailed exercises.

This book is so, so good. This is the best book I've ever read on the subject and I've read hundreds. It is informative, entertaining, and an magnificent read. This is the most fun reading on fitness/bodybuilding you will find. I loved this book. High Intensity Training is the most efficient, most effective workout system ever devised. No question about it. It works so well it has to be experienced to be believed. But, it is not easy. It is brutal if done right. It takes some serious will power and want power to do it right. I had the good fortune of training with a man named Chad Coy, who is now a strongman competitor and owns Powerhouse Gym in Kokomo, Indiana. When I trained with him, he was a 21 year old exercise physiology student at Purdue University. He was a very intense, driven young man. He taught me how to train extremely hard and I made the best gains of my life. We followed Ell Darden's protocols, modified slightly, but we trained very, very hard, to the point of puking many, many times. No one wanted to train with us and thought we were crazy. But we were two of the biggest, strongest men in the country at that time. Chad is even stronger now, ranked nineteenth in the world in strongman competition. We trained hard and brief. This book tells you everything you need to know to make great progress, but are you willing to train hard enough? That is the magic question. If you are willing to commit to busting your _ss, this book is a must. It takes time and effort to learn to break through your inhibition about training this hard. You have been conditioned since early childhood to watch out, don't hurt yourself, and don't work too hard. You have evolved for millions of years to save your energy and resources for when you had to have them to make the kill or escape from the tiger. You have to learn to leave it all in the gym. You have to have the attitude of the warrior in there. If you learn to do it right, it is the most rewarding experience of your life because you will feel what it means to have personal power and use it. You will get stronger and more confident. The fitness industry needed this book. There is so much B.S. going on right now with training. I saw these goons on the golf channel the other night showing these goofy, ineffective, and downright dangerous exercises using swiss balls and putting the body in the most biomechanically unbalanced position to show how to build golf specific strength. What a joke. Plyometrics and explosive lifts are a sure path to ruin your joints and tear muscles. But what does every strength coach in America have its players doing? Guess. Ell Darden tells some great, inspirational, informative, and funny stories in this book and I believe all of them. He has a penchant for the truth and the details. This book is worth it's weight in gold when you figure the amount of time you save by not following long, inefficient, b.s. routines. Ninety very hard minutes a week is all you need. So save y

I have known Dr. Ellington Darden for 20 years, and have read almost every one of his books. I consider Dr. Darden my mentor, and realize that most of what I know in the area of strength training I learned from him. Without question, his latest book, The New High Intensity Training, is the best he has ever written. It is not only highly informative, but incredibly interesting to read. Dr. Darden's history of high-intensity strength training is as motivational as his exercise protocols are educational. And the best part is the practical application...this book is clear and concise with easy-to-follow instructions for implementing Dr. Darden's HIT programs. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading The New High Intensity Training book.

This latest book, by Ellington Darden, who has written more than three dozen books, including The Bowflex Body Plan, is perhaps one of his best. It is a unique treatment in that it provides a provacative background (with many surprising stories and insights) of high intensity training (HIT), a term that he coined about thirty years ago, together with training direction that is unparalleled in the philosophy and discipline of HIT. Dr. Darden begins by explaining the training methods that Arthur Jones established, to help revolutionize the exercise industry, his initial machine creations that led to the advent of Nautilus, his work with Casey Viator, The Colorado Experiment, the West Point Study, and Jone's experiences with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbu, Boyer Coe, Frank Zane, the Mentzer Brothers, and Sergio Oliva. Apparently some of these "hard core" bodybuilders were not so hard core (Mike Mentzer and Arnold fans may be surprised)! Dr. Darden provided this entertaining and educational background to explain Jones' reasoning and the HIT philosophy (relative to the then current dogma) that then merges nicely into the fundamental principles and how they support HIT, including intensity, lifting form, progression, duration, frequency, and exercise order, as well as issues of recovery, layoffs, and sleep. As a side note, it may surprise the reader as to how many strength and conditioning coaches actually apply HIT training with their athletes, including Superbowl winners. As Dr. Darden explains through experience, explosive, ballistic training is unnecessary to develop a strong, muscular body in the average person or a star athlete, although it is ideal if you want to increase the risk of injury. Thereafter, Dr. Darden provides the "usual" exercise photos and descriptions for purposes of education and cohesion, then breaks from tradition (insofar as books go). He provides beginner and intermediate routines, followed by advanced techniques and specialized routines (for the focus of select muscle groups). These may sound "typical" for a bodybuilding/strength training book as well, but what he has done next is completely original and much needed. He has provided a six-month, four phase plan that can be applied from beginner to advanced trainee, in a step-by-step process. Whether a person is new to HIT, new to the methods provided, or even an advanced HIT disciple looking to re-establish him or her self with structure and direction, the routines provided are the ticket!