MD Training Camp: Dorian Yates #3

High-Intensity Training Key to Muscle Growth

There has been ongoing debate as to whether your style of training is HIT, particularly at one HIT site. The site has a very orthodox Arthur Jones point of view, but there are some very open-minded members. One side says that HIT is a broad term and that your style easily falls under it. Another camp feels that anything other than Jones’ type of HIT is not HIT, and should not be called HIT. What are your views on your training style as it relates to HIT?

I consider the type of training I did and still advocate to be high-intensity training. So what is HIT? Anyone can have their own definition and keep it as specific and narrow as they like, but to me, HIT simply acknowledges that the relative intensity of exercise is the key trigger to muscle growth. This extremely intense training needs to be balanced with rest and recovery, so respect has to be given to limiting training frequency and volume. Does that mean one set per exercise, or two, etc.? That’s all up for debate. All I can say is that I experienced excellent results with my own variation of HIT, and so have many others. If people want to argue forever about whose type of HIT is the “one true way,” that’s all well and good. To me, it’s just not something I’m concerned with.

Working Around Lower Back Injury
Did you ever suffer a back injury like a bulged or herniated disk? Do you know if you can heal completely from such an injury, and what is the best way to train with such a problem? Three months ago, I overtrained and deadlifted with bad form at the end of a workout. Since that time, I have some recurring back pain. I don’t feel it all the time, though, and it doesn’t irradiate in my lower body. I only feel pain when I bend over for a long period of time and when I try to deadlift or squat again.

The simple solution would be to find alternatives to squatting and deadlifting. The leg press or Smith machine squat can be a good substitute for squats, and you can do partial deadlifts from the knees up on back day. If even those bother you, just work as hard as you can on various rows and pulldowns. In my case, all my injuries were related to muscles or tendons, and thankfully I never had lower back issues. But I did see a chiropractor on a regular basis as well as an acupuncturist who specialized in the spine. The chiropractor would adjust me so that my spine was always properly aligned, and the acupuncturist dealt with nerves to make sure everything was getting the proper electrical impulses from the brain.

I have also tried extended ultrasound treatments to rebuild bones that have degenerated. Regular medical doctors won’t use an ultrasound for more than 10-20 minutes at a time, but one practitioner I know has patients getting up to six to seven hours a day. Does it work? I’ve seen “before and after” X-rays with patients like retired ballerinas who had terrible problems with their feet and ankles, who were able to restore them to what they were in their younger years. I don’t know if your type of injury could be helped by this type of treatment or if it will eventually resolve itself as long as you take it easy and work around the area, but it’s quite interesting to see what doctors outside the mainstream methods have come up with and how effective their techniques can be.

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