A little history of HIT

The so-called high-intensity training HIT has its fame, but it also has its history. Would you like to read it?

Around the 1980s, the name Arthur Jones was known throughout the industry because he invented the Nautilus equipment and HIT as well.

Long before today’s major gym chains were established, Nautilus gyms existed in almost every city.

Everyone who trained had either used, or at least seen, those ubiquitous black-upholstered, blue-styled machines with a bicycle chain attached to the weight stack instead of a cable.

Jones also had a unique training philosophy to accompany his invention: he firmly believed that the key to developing muscle was training so hard that you reached the point of momentary muscular failure, when you could not perform another repetition with proper technique for that particular exercise.

Referring to the level of effort, he called this philosophy “high-intensity training,” or HIT.

The HIT Philosophy

Jones theorized that there was something about reaching the point of muscular failure (complete exhaustion) that acted as the trigger for muscle growth.

Anything below that threshold was considered suboptimal or even ineffective, as if stopping a set too soon meant the whole thing had been a waste of time.

In addition to the claims that HIT was a superior training method, another benefit based on efficiency emerged. Because the intensity was so high, its proponents explained, it was not necessary to train “a lot.”

In some cases, the athlete was only asked to perform one complete set to failure per exercise; the number of sets and exercises varied depending on the trainer, but in every case, the training volume was very low.

“Hard and brief” was the hallmark of the HIT method.

The promise was not just more muscle, but more muscle in less time—an attractive and marketable sales argument.

HIT was promoted as fast, but unlike most other fitness trends, it was never promoted as a very easy workout.

In fact, an almost macho culture of work ethic, pain, and suffering emerged, but this did not diminish its appeal; instead, it added a challenge and another level of mystique.

HIT Followers

Beginning in the 1970s, HIT gained momentum through the bodybuilding boom of the 1980s, and in this setting, the top trainers and athletes jumped on the bandwagon and declared themselves fans of it.

Some did so under the “Jones-Nautilus” brand, while others improvised their own systems and planted their own flags.

In any case, most of them called it HIT for short (not to be confused with HIIT, high-intensity interval training).

One of those independent figures was Mr. Universe Mike Mentzer, who created the “Heavy Duty” training system after being influenced by Jones’s theories.

Others followed, and thanks to the support of famous professional bodybuilders, one of the most popular high-intensity training trends continues to be very popular today.