Will: I am familiar with some of your work and overall much is very good. You have been around for longer than 15 years. I like you, but I must refute your claim that low intensity training does NOT build more muscle than high intensity training.
If you are saying that lower intensity training with higher volume will put on more muscle then I am sorry your are incorrect.
The problem is you are comparing someone like Dorian to someone like Jay Cutler.
Also, on one hand you say Dorian did NOT train that way, then on the other hand you say that he developed many injuries due to HIT...which is it? Your two statements contradict each other. BTW, I can tell you in detail about Dorian's drug program, but not in public, lol
Look at Jay Cutler's training.....are you saying it is low intensity? No, it is not. You are comparing apples to apples. I am comparing HIT to the way 98% of the people in the gym train, low intensity. I come from the So Cal world of 25 years ago (remember Dan Duchain?) and I can tell you pretty much what everyone did. Drugs, training, diet...Did you know that Flex Wheeler ate at Burger king 3 weeks out from the Olympia?
IFBB pros tour after the Olympia, and that is how/why I know who did what etc. Everyone knows what everyone is doing/taking. It is widely known that Dorian was an extremely hard trainer. Also, I advocate high intensity power body building for 5-8 years to develop a foundation of muscle, tendon, ligament strength. After this period, and depending upon the individual I start favoring higher reps. Intensity is still high but training more for feel and pump come into play at this point.
Another advanced routine that has worked well is taking no rest between sets, sort of like Cross Fit (I was doing this type of workout long before Cross Fit). I personally still make strength gains doing so.
I have had a great deal of success training this way and so have my clients. But of course that is not a reliable study. In my next post (if I have time) I will examine some studies, several of which are meta studies.
Lets start with the Meta studies. I can tell just from the brief summary that the study is questionable in terms of validity and especially reliability.