1 - Understand High Intensity :
The term high intensity training is something that many people do not understand. To get stronger and to build muscle and increase strength you need to exercise your muscles in a high intensity manner. When performing strength training you need to keep in mind that your workouts should be relatively short in duration but high in effort. The longer your workout is, the lower your intensity will be. In a shorter workout you can use a much higher intensity level. If you perform your repetitions until you reach momentary muscle failure, when you cannot perform another proper rep, you will certainly be exercising with a high intensity effort.
Intensity of exercise actually has a mathematical formula, this being that Intensity Equals the amount of Work Divided by Time. If you think about this you will see that if the time becomes greater the intensity will be lower. If a lot of work is performed in a short period of time then the intensity is high. A simple example of this can be shown with the common exercise push-ups. Suppose you do 50 push-ups in about 2 minutes and on the 50th rep to have reached complete fatigue or muscle failure. You cannot do another pus-up. This would be a pretty intense effort. On the other hand it you did just 15 push-ups, rested briefly, did 15 more and continued until you had completed four sets of 15 reps for a total of 60 push-ups, taking about a total of 6 minutes to complete. Here the intensity is much lower. The amount of work in higher (by 10 total push-ups, 50 to 60) but the time was three times as long (2 minutes to 6 minutes) and therefore the intensity was lower. Doing more sets and slightly more total reps did not use as many muscle fibers and did not stimulate the muscles too get much stronger. The all out effort of doing the 50 push-ups all at once would have been a much better workout.
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