Initially, the muscle gains were significant. I saw about a 1/4 inch increase in flexed upper arm circumference within a few weeks. Using the machines in the prescribed manner very quickly led to overtraining, however. Based on my experience with the machine, maximum effort hyper or negative reps are tremendously effective, but only in very, very small volumes, and very infrequently.

I found the idea and set-up intriguing. It would be interesting to incorporate this type of equipment/training as part of an overall year-long periodization program. However, please don’t take my next comment personally, but the young child in the video was very annoying and distracting. I’m sure the parent of the child does not share my opinion, but I thought I’d share my point of view as an outsider looking in. His behavior is completely acceptable during play time, but seems inappropriate while attempting to educate people, especially to those whom are serious about training.
Good luck! Dave Barry

I think such workouts might be overdoing it a bit. While I don’t think it applies to the majority of people who don’t even really know what hard training is, much less train anywhere near hard enough, for someone who does train very intensely it may be possible to reach a point of diminishing returns where the demand on recovery ability becomes disproportionate to the benefit of the workout. For example, if significantly increasing your intensity using some method stimulated a 50% greater strength improvement but required a doubling of recovery time your rate of progress would be reduced.

This was years ago, but if I recall correctly he performed one set of one exercise every 10 to 14 days. He rotated a multi-joint leg movement, upper body pulling movement, and upper body pushing movement. I do not know for sure, but I think they were leg press, pull down and chest press.

Looks like a great piece of equipment. I am actually in the same boat as Rich (train in MMA, 5 days a week, etc.). I would love to use something like this to compliment my training regime (one that gives a sufficent inroad & does not require too much time spent in a conventional gym, which gives me more time for bjj, muay thai, etc.).

Good luck with its testing & development, I am eager to see the developments that take place with it’s usage.

Take care,

Steve G.

As an afficionado of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), would hyperreps training on this type of machine complement the anaerobic training I need to do to be in fighting shape? (e.g. 5 minute rounds of max number of burpees, followed by 1 min of rest) Or, would the brutal conditioning of MMA get in the way of recovery?

Conversely, could this HIT training replace the anaerobic conditioning training one needs for MMA?

Karthik

In your article, “The Minimum Amount Necessary”, you mention that you know a man who performs one exercise a workout every 10 – 14 days. Could you elaborate?

Does he only perform one set (excluding warm – ups) to failure?
What exercise does he perform? — or does he alternate exercises?

The reason I ask this is because I am considering following a similar program of one set of squats to failure, once every 1 or 2 weeks.

Thanks,
Moiz

I tried the “Done in One” workout described by John Little on the Bodybyscience.net site. You talk about feeling like being hit by a truck. More like the guy backed it up and ran over me a few extra times just to make sure it was a thorough job. It was 3 sets, one rep positive and one negative, with the goal of hitting 45-60 seconds each direction. I didn’t really get that tired at the end of the set or the workout but I’m still really fatigued and feel well below baseline 5 days later. By my crude calculations I achieved close to a 70% inroad and Darden and Jones always recommended a 20%. I’m not planning on doing another workout like that.

Thanks,
David