That can’t be right?! I must’ve read that wrong. ONLY 20 minutes per week to get physically fit? It’s true if you know about and practice high intensity training. Don’t worry; it’s not as bad as it sounds. It is high intensity, but only to the extent that your body is able to handle it. Let me share with you a little bit about what I know about the concept and share my personal experiences.

First of all, let me recommend the book, Body by Science.  It does an excellent job of explaining the whole concept of high intensity training and details the science behind the concept.  It also goes into the exercises that should be used in high intensity training both with the nautilus type machines and with free weights.  And the best part is that my wife’s and my personal trainer, Vee, has his picture on page 98.

The whole premise of high intensity training is that you work the muscle to complete exhaustion and allow sufficient time for it to recover.  Instead of the conventional workout with 3 sets of 5-8 reps, you lift the weight very slowly (10 secs) for the positive rep and 10 seconds for the negative so that one repetition takes about 20 seconds total.  You do this until you can’t move the weight anymore and then move on to the next exercise.  About 5 exercises covering various muscle groups and the workout is done.  The muscles have been so wiped out that it takes them a full week to recover fully, but the best part is that you really are sore afterwards.

The benefits versus conventional weight training become obvious once you have done this type of exercise. The movement of the weight is so slow that it is only muscle strength that is involved. There is no momentum that helps you move the weight. This helps to reduce the risk of injury. In the 4+ years that I have been working out, I can only recall pulling a muscle two or three times and only once in the last 2 years. That was because I was trying hard to get another rep on the leg press and tried to push quickly and gain some momentum (it was my own stupid fault). I also had hurt my knee (not by weight training) so Vee decreased the weight and I could still isolate my hamstrings and work my muscles to exhaustion by increasing the total time. I usually only manage 4-5 repetitions on each exercise. Once I am hitting 1 minute 30 seconds of lifting time, Vee will increase the weight.

As mentioned even though I am tired when finished, I am not sore. I can also recover quickly enough (though not back to 100%) that I am able to go to work afterwards and have played golf and softball within a few hours after my workout. Usually Vee just takes it easy on my low back on those days. I can’t say enough positive things about high intensity training, nor Vee or Bo Railey who is the owner of Exercise, Inc. in Indiana. I have been with them as a client for about 5 years now and tell lots of people about them especially when they ask if I have been working out. I am stronger than I have ever been (even more than when playing football in college) and have added about 50 yards to my drive in golf. It has been kind of hard to score well in golf when your 7 iron goes from your 120 yard club to your 150-160 yard club. At the start of each season, I usually find myself hitting over the green into trouble. Be sure to catch a view of the videos that I have linked. They show Vee doing a portion of his workout so you can get an idea of what I am talking about. My goal is one day to catch up to Vee on the leg press. He is doing 605 pounds. I am at 565. It’s gonna take awhile.