Saqs Health & Fitness Blog: High Intensity Resistance Training

Part 4 – High Intensity Resistance Training

As I said in Part 3, high intensity resistance workouts are the superstars of this entire program. When performed properly, they elevate your BMR, drastically increase your EPOC and burn a fair amount of calories per workout.

But all you need to know is that they:

Increase metabolism for up to 36 hours post-workout
Drastically outperform diet and aerobic exercise in fat loss studies
Maintain muscle mass in subjects on a Very Low Calorie Diet

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H.I.R.T. Workouts

Overview

Always remember that the goal of this program is to burn as much fat as possible, while preserving your current level of muscle mass.

To achieve this goal, your program needs to focus on:

Total Body workouts
Pushing yourself until your muscles burn with lactic acid
Perform super-sets, tri-sets, giant sets, etc…
Compound exercises – squats instead of leg extensions
Big muscle groups – legs, back and chest instead of arms and shoulders
Performing sets of 5 to 15 repetitions

How you put together all of these elements is up to you. Your physiology is different than mine. Your history of injuries is different than mine. Your availability to equipment is different from mine. Your tolerance for exercise intensity is different…

But even with all of these differences, two things need to be the same. We both need to ensure that we:

Maximize the Intensity of Each EXERCISE, and
Maximize the Intensity of Each WORKOUT

So, how do we do that?

Old School v.s. New School

High Intensity Resistance Training (HIRT) has been around for a long time. There is a ton of information available to help you design your own program. It’s the stuff you see in the bodybuilding magazines.

To be honest, I couldn’t care less about the Old School HIRT training. Not that it doesn’t work. It just bores me.

However, if you are interested, here are a few links:

Now that I have given such a glowing review about Old School HIRT training, let me introduce you to the New School.

Let me introduce you to FUSION training.

FUSION Training

I have been playing around with this type of training for the past few years.

Here is the general concept.

We already know that for fat loss training, generating exercise and workout intensity is key.

That is why Compound exercises (Squats, Deadlifts) are better than Isolation exercises (Leg Extension, Leg Curl).

Fusion exercises and workouts raise the intensity bar even higher.

Imagine an exercise where you combine a deadlift, a snatch and an overhead squat.

All in one move. You do not put the bar down until you have completed the set.

That is a Fusion exercise.

Now imagine a workout where you string together set after set of these Fusion exercises.

That is a Fusion workout, and it WILL kick your tail.

Build Your Own Fusion Workout

The Basics

3x per week Maximum
At least 24 hrs. rest between workouts
Put the most complicated Fusions at the beginning of the workout
Put the most intense Fusions at the beginning of the workout
Hit all of the major movements each workout
Change repetition schemes each workout
60 seconds between sets
The weakest exercise in the Fusion will determine the exercise weight
Be prepared for nausea…seriously

Sample Workout

Here is a workout I designed for a client earlier this month.

The client is training 3x per week – Mon/Wed/Fri
I have designed 2 different workouts to ensure that each week will be different
Week 1 will consist of workouts A, B and A – Week 2 will consist of workouts B, A and B and so on…
Each workout will have 4 Fusion exercises
Monday’s workout will consist of 5 sets of 5 reps of each Fusion exercise
Wednesday’s workout will consist of 4 sets of 8 reps of each Fusion exercise
Friday’s workout will consist of 3 sets of 12 reps of each Fusion exercise
In addition to fat loss, this client needs to bring up leg and core strength – exercise selection will reflect that goal

Fusion Workout A

Exercise 1: BB / DB Hanging Clean to Thruster – 60 sec. rest between sets