HIT is less stressful on the nervous system and overall physical system? Really? You base this assertation upon what?
I agree that less work is performed but the intensity of effort required places a huge demand on the body. Again, this varies with one's overall degree of development.
Your point about 30-40 minutes is a good one. One component of training for anyone should be overall fitness and caloric expenditure. Your heart certainly gets very little work training 30-40 minutes per week. In addition, you just don't burn many calories with exercise that way.
i agree with the calorie expenditure part and it is a very good point. i immediately thought of that when uk gold pointed out how he got strong and fat.
most bbers simply eat far too much anyway. it is the first thing a bber is conditioned to do ie gain weight first and foremost. then you read the super calorie, protein, etc diets from the successful guys and that just reinforces the message.
it is a fact that building muscle itself will result in a faster metabolism, but nowhere near fast enough to accomodate the huge caloric intakes these now dedicated consumers of food ingest.
weight trainers eat a lot more than average people. more than we think.
i will relate an experience:
years ago i trained with a skinny guy (friend of mine) who told me he ate shit loads of food and couldn't gain weight.
i was somewhat bewildered because we worked together and witnessed him eating huge feasts whilst i would try to eat fairly clean (try). he was doing weights with me and apparently taking in more calories so what was the problem? faster metabolism? negative.
anyway, life was pretty much partying, girls and sun back then so we ended up renting a house together with some other friends and i then got to witness what this guy ACTUALLY ate throughout the day.
the facts became clear. i ate about 3 TIMES more calories than him and i wasn't trying to gain weight.
yes he would gorge 1 - 3 feasts every day, but he would often miss meals whereas i hadn't gone 4 hrs without a meal since i was 14. unbelievably he would get drunk like everyone else, but HE WOULDN'T BOTHER EATING. hey getting drunk and having fun is one thing, but you're a body builder, EAT SOMETHING!
anyway, y'all should get the point by now.
one of the things i find fascinating about mentzer is that, in spite of being one of the most muscular bbers of his time he ate very average, not even 100 grms of protein when preparing for comp and would contest prep on sometimes 500 calories per day, which would usually just be some cake and fruit and stuff
where the 500grms of protein.
funny how even when we read this stuff and see the evidence right there we still carry on with the whole 'gotta get my 300grms of protein.'
all that 'eat big to get big' nonsense gets you big all right, big and fat.
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