A brief history of Arthur Jones's HIT as told by Ellington Darden: http://www.insideoutsidespa.com/the-why-of-less-darden-inside-outside.php
These lower body workouts are kicking my rear end. Admittedly, I have never been big on lower body workouts, but damn, I feel much more drained afterwards than I do with any other exercises. Is this your experience as well?
Leg work is the most demanding because upper legs are the body's largest muscle group. So, yeah, that has certainly been my experience. Working legs to the max is pretty much as close to a religious experience as I have ever gotten.
I cannot believe how quickly doing that leg work gets my heart rate going. What takes 20 minutes on an elliptical is achieved in 5 minutes of leg work. I have to take the longest breaks between sets with leg work than any other exercise and time to recoup when it's over takes longer too. No wonder you only want to do this once a week. Maybe it is like religion. One Sunday a week is reminder enough. LOL
On his website, Ellington Darden, Arthur Jones's HIT protégé, answers a question posed in the forum: ...My last chapter, "I would've trained less," in The New HIT (2004) started me thinking more in the less-is-best manner. Old friends, Jim Flanagan and Joe Mullen, shared with me that they had gone almost exclusively to training their clients one time a week. Thus, in 2007, when I started my Intensive Coaching business in my private gym in Windermere, Florida, I began training my clients twice a week, rather than my normal three times per week. Results? I noted the same, or better results, with twice-a-week workouts. After training these clients in this manner for six months, I cut each of their frequency to once a week. And guess what? Just like Flanagan and Mullen recommended a year earlier, the results were the same, or even better, than twice-a-week training. Today, in 2010, once-a-week training is what I apply with most (not all) of my trainees. But the duration of these workouts is not Mentzer's consolidation-type routines. I use whole-body routines composed of 8-9 exercises performed in the high-intensity style. Why have I moved to this frequency of training? Because I've seen with my own eyes that it works equal to or better than three-times-per-week and twice-a-week training. Ellington Just thought I'd post this comment as a matter of interest, even though I can't bring myself to work out only once a week. It has now been a month since I reduced my frequency from2x/week to 3x every 2 weeks. I'll provide what I hope will be a progress report next month.
Routines like this are killer and I wouldn't recommend to anyone just starting out, especially if they're in poor shape. One should also note that lighter weight, much lighter weight than normal is perfectly fine to use. Hell, the bare bar alone is plenty to get you huffing and puffing. As fatigue sets in form will fall apart and this is where the possibility of injury increases. Anyone thinking of doing this needs to be careful and not do any exercise that you don't have down pat with your form. I like it because it's more fun and a better challenge than the same old boring cardio on the hamster mill.
I have no doubt that such "complexes," as they are called, can take the starch right out of you. And I'm sure they build endurance and cardio fitness very nicely. My concern is that such a "cardio" routine might hamper your lifting routine recovery if you do both to the max or anywhere near it.