04 High Intensity Training Defined

What exactly is high-intensity training?  Is high-intensity training safe? In this episode we’ll hear from a longtime Inform Fitness client, who is 72 years old,  describe the intensity of his slow motion strength training at Inform Fitness in Toluca Lake, California.  Adam continues his explanation of muscle failure in high-intensity training and the value of having a personal trainer guide you through your 20-minute workout.

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The transcription to this episode is below:

04 Intensity Defined - Transcript

Intro:

You’re listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that’s so effective, you’d get a week’s worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1.

You know, I like the philosophy of the program of taking each one of the muscle groups to meltdown [laughs]. Surely what it is and you know there’s a certain amount of emotion that goes along with these meltdowns. So, you kind of have to be willing to get into that thing where, okay, the sabre tooth tiger’s got me and it’s going to bite off my head and it’s -- but it’s a slow bite and you just got to be willing to stay there [laughs]. You know, I mean, anybody can do half an hour a week.

Anybody can do a half hour a week of a sabretooth tiger biting down on your head. If that doesn’t define intensity, I don’t know what does. That was Keith from the Toluca Lake InForm Fitness location. He’s one of the clients. He’s been coming for quite some time, I believe. Is that right, Sheila?

Yeah. He’s been coming for probably a year and a half now, I would say. And Keith is how old? Keith is almost 72 years old.

And he has been doing this for quite some time and that’s how he describes high intensity strength training and great selling point for InForm Fitness and that’s exactly what we’re doing here today. Welcome to episode four of the InForm Fitness podcast. My name is Tim Edwards and of course joining us again is Sheila Melody from the Toluca Lake location. We have Mike Rogers from New York City and across the hall from him, the founder of InForm Fitness and the author of Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. This episode, intensity, could probably turn itself into two, three, maybe even four episodes because this is kind of the foundation of what you put together with InForm Fitness, Adam.

Yes, and that description of a sabretooth tiger biting down on his head slowly -- I’m almost cringing thinking about what people who’ve never heard about this work out and they come across this podcast and if they listen to this they’d be like, “Screw that.”

Well, it’s a slow bite, Adam. [laughter] It’s a slow bite but you know what, you got to listen to what he said. Yeah.

Anybody can do anything for 20 minutes and the last episode that we had, The Importance of Muscle, is the result of what happens when you’re able to just do something for 20 short minutes a week which is also the length of our podcast as well. So, just to kind of give you an idea of how little of an investment it is for some long-term bigtime gains. So, yes, we don’t want to scare anyone away with the sabretooth tiger comment but here’s a 72-year-old man talking about something he’s able to endure 20 minutes a week and I think that’s just a fantastic testimonial, maybe not the most accurate description. [laughs]

No, no, no. I don’t want to -- listen, I was smiling and smirking and kind of cringing at the same time. I mean, I understand why he’s saying it and the fact that you just pointed out that he’s 75 and doing it should say it all that --

It does. You know, if he’s 75 and enduring this kind of intensity, it should give you -- Well, let’s not give him that much credit. He’s 72 but -- [laughs] [Crosstalk 03:53]. But close enough. [laughs] 72 years young [crosstalk 03:57]. He’s an intense guy too. He is.

Now, you know, this is such an incredible topic because what I’d want people to get from this episode today, is understanding that, as important as intensity is for exercise, it doesn’t mean danger. Doesn’t mean I can’t do that because I’m out of shape or I’m not that strong right now. I can’t work out that hard or I’m not young enough to work out that hard because that’s not where the danger lies. It’s not intensity that causes the dangers of exercise. It’s intensity coupled with high force crazy movements, ballistic movements, high repetitions.

It’s this force associated with that intensity. So, we don’t realize that you can have a very intense experience weightlifting and have it be of the utmost safety at the same time which is the real profound thing about this. I think we talked about this on the first episode, about the safety and intensity.

Mhm [affirmative].

So, the thing about intensity is you can get there. I mean you have to get there and if you can get there in confidence that you’re not going to get hurt, like our friend Keith just mentioned.

Mhm [affirmative].

At 72 years old being able to work out that hard and not worry about hurting himself, that’s the beauty in this. That is the true beauty in this.

Things that are generally worthwhile often times are not easy and that goes with everything I think we do in our lives and I think it’s just, you know, if you want to do something that’s worthwhile that’s only 20 minutes once or twice a week, I mean, the bang for your buck, this really, really hits hard there. I mean, and we hear all sorts of different scenarios. Like he’s mentioned being bit by a sabretooth tiger. The most common one I think I hear especially for women is childbirth and things like that. [laughs] you know something and it’s not and they go all over the place.

Another really attractive description. Yeah. [laughing] Definitely. People are going to be lining up. Sign me up. Yeah. [laughs]

Well, let me just say, you know, as a, you know, as someone who never really went that intense before I started doing this workout and when I was opening InForm Fitness in LA here and our trainer -- I brought our trainer, Ann Kirkland on and she’s amazing and we were doing each other’s workouts and there was one moment that I’ll always remember because it was doing the leg press and the leg press does get scary. Like what Adam says, we don’t want them to think that intensity means danger but in your mind it is a little scary when you’re lifting the hea...