Bigger muscles thanks to HFT (High Frequency Training)

There's a real mystery in the western part of Death Valley.

There are boulders mysteriously drifting through the Yucca Desert. The strangest thing is, no one has ever seen it.

The only evidence is the trail the huge rocks leave behind them. It looks like someone parachuted into the desert, piled the boulder on a sledge and dragged it for half a mile without a trace. No one knows how 700 pounds of rock travels that far across the desert, but I'll be damned if it isn't true.

Another mind-boggling mystery is how William Hung could sign three record deals. This is perhaps even more interesting than the Death Valley phenomena.

Other things are easier to understand. Take HFT (High Frequency Training). The idea that your muscles will grow better with more frequent training because your body is constantly adapting to the load is understandable.

But there's a catch. Well, it has even more hooks. Let's shed some light on them. Rest assured, you won't need any smoke, mirrors, or dancing rocks.

Choose the right cargo

If you inflate your workout frequency, you need to keep the load under control. Too big a load will tire you out quickly; too small a load won't get you any results. Even worse, you can turn your muscles into endurance-less muscle.

Heavy weights are wonderful for hypertrophy, but you must have a sufficient total load. Three triples won't make your muscles much bigger, but eight triples with heavy weight will.

There's a problem. You can't do eight triples every day. That would be too hard. So the logical alternative is to drop the weight and do a few reps every day.

This strategy is fine for the calves and shoulders, but not much else. Other muscle groups tend to shrink when endurance demands are placed on them. Therefore, there must be a balance between the load and the volume of work.

The best way, in my observation, is to start with a weight that you can do 6- 10 reps with. For some individuals, this will mean bending over with their own weight. This is great because the less equipment you need, the more likely you are to stick to your plan. I'll talk more about this later.

You will do one set each day and time it as far away from your workout as possible. If you train in the morning, do your HFT at night, or vice versa. On days when you don't have your normal weight training sessions, the time of the special workout doesn't matter.

Plan to progress whenever possible

I'm a stickler when it comes to scheduling adding weight. In the end, you'll never get great results if you don't force your body to work harder and harder. But once you start training every day, things start to get complicated.

Most people could do with a better hunch and more meat on their arms and upper back, so I'll use the hunch as an example.

Let's say you can do more than eight push-ups with nice technique. That's a perfect load for the HFT method. You'll do a series of pushups every day and do as many as you can. It's an addition to the arm and upper back training you normally do. It doesn't mean that you can't do push-ups in your regular workout anymore.

So you start practicing push-ups every day. Day 1 is fine. Days 2 and 3, too, because you've managed to add one repetition. But after six or seven days, you might lose one rep. Two days later, you might add two reps. Then maybe you lose a rep, add one, lose another, and then in the next four days you add two.

The good news is that it doesn't matter. The great thing about high frequency training-if hypertrophy is your thing-is that the training volume takes care of everything. Since your arms and upper back are undergoing a lot more training, your body has no choice but to add muscle tissue. Keep doing one set of crunches every day with the maximum number of reps and you'll eventually feel the difference.

The goal of HFT is to gradually add training load. Therefore, the best choice is to try to add on reps. It's simple and motivating because you'll always be trying to beat your last performance - no complicated calculations needed.

If you can do 8 push-ups on the first day, in three weeks you should be doing about 20, give or take a few.

The summary is that try to add reps whenever you can, and don't stress if you occasionally do one rep less. It's like the stock market: all that matters is that the final total is much higher than the initial one. Continuous fluctuations don't matter.

Simplify it.

Writing, above all, has taught me to try to present things as user-friendly as possible. I messed up a few times. The other day I advised TC to buy a sprint car and start racing to strengthen the muscles in the back of his neck.

Unless I suggest exercises you can do at home, it will be nearly impossible to do them every day. I'm assuming that each of you has at least a couple of unicycles at home. If not, it's a smart investment. Having mentioned this, here are some handy exercises for HFT:

• Calves: single leg hop
• Quadriceps: single leg squat
• Hamstrings and glutes: single leg deadlift, with one arm
• Shoulder blades and upper back: wide overhand lunge
• Biceps: underhand curl
• Triceps: extension from plank position*
• Chest: push-up
• Delts: standing pull-up

*Stand in plank position. Place your palms on the floor. Straighten your arms by pushing your body off the ground. Lower back down and repeat.

Honestly, it doesn't really matter what exercise you choose. The main thing is that it is within your power to do more than 10 reps on the first day. Try to keep it as simple as possible.

Finally, limit your HFT to exercises for 2-3 body parts. Giving yourself a series of push-ups, crunches and lunges every day is fine, but a full-body HFT would require a completely different strategy. I describe such a strategy in my book Huge in a Hurry.

Take a break every 3-4 weeks

The goal of HFT for lagging areas is to train a specific exercise 6-7 days a week for 3- 4 weeks. By the end of that period, your body and muscles will be asking for a break. The funny thing is, you will probably gain the most muscle in that break because your body will be increasing the proteosynthesis in the muscles you have been destroying all month.

If you spent the first month focusing on your calves, wait 5-7 days before moving on to the next muscle area. If you still need more meat on your calves, give it 10-14 days off and start again, with a different exercise.

That reminds me, I should mention a few more things.

Additional points

First, you don't have to use the exact same exercise every day. A little variation can be to the benefit of the cause. If you choose the hunch, you can change your grip periodically. Or you can stick with the underhand all the time.

Second, HFT takes a few minutes. You don't have to worry about supplementation around such a workout.

Third, make sure you have perfect technique on every repetition. Progress from 8 strict pushups to 10 horrible ones is not progress.

Finally, depending on your exercise choice, you may need to adjust the load. Let's say your chest sucks and you choose pushups. You can probably do more than 10 of them, so you'll need to make them harder somehow.

You can wrap a rubber band around your back, you can raise your leg position. You can also do push-ups on a slippery surface and slide your hands together with each repetition (you'll need to put a towel under your hands to make it work).

I think you get the idea.

Start with an exercise that allows you to do 6-10 reps each day. Add it to your current training plan and try to make that number of reps triple or quadruple in a month.

In the end, your muscles will reward you with more volume.

Written by Chad Waterbury, translated by Jaromír Uhlíř