acit training

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Welcome to the Home Page of

Accelerated Inroad Training or simply ACIT

ACIT is a new and revolutionary training method that will enable all resistance training athletes,especially the natural lifter, to work with greater intensity than ever before without risking the dreaded

burnout.

In most sets, the workload on the muscles fluctuates constantly and only reaches a maximum during the positive or concentric phase of the exercise. As we will see, this has highly undesirable consequencesand makes it necessary to drain valuable recovery resources if one wishes to achieve a deep state of inroading. ACIT eliminates this workload fluctuation and keeps a constant demand for tension on themuscle throughout the set (without resorting to the use of specially designed machines) enabling thelifter to thoroughly exhaust his muscles in a shorter period of time. This results in much smaller demands on the valuable resources of the body and better recovery between workouts.

To better understand how you can use this groundbreaking method in your workouts, please read thelinks in the order in which they appear on the left hand side starting with The Fundamentals. ACIT is

intended for athletes who have at least a year of lifting experience as some muscle and neural controland mastery of basic lifts is necessary. As an intermediate or advanced athlete, you may find some of theintroduction presented here somewhat simple, but spending an extra 20 minutes to go over this materialwill ensure that we are on the same page and help you understand the logic and science behind themethod. So please make an effort to read the material in its entirety.

Also notice that this is a non-commercial web site and you will not be asked to purchase books,supplements or special equipments. The sole purpose of this information is to help trainees all aroundthe world enhance the efficiency of their workouts and foster intelligent discussion about resistancetraining techniques. The method was recently developed by Hunkar Ozyasar and Ron Sowers and isused by numerous amateur athletes with great results. We encourage all visitors to contact us with any

feedback they may have. There are plans to add more material to this site as well as create a discussionforum for the exchange of ideas related to the theory and application of ACIT-style training. Until then,

please use the CONTACT link to leave feedback. Finally, forgive the rather plain look of the site and thelack of sufficient scientific references. We are working on making the site visually more appealing andwill add more references to peer-reviewed research papers where appropriate.

Thank you

Hunkar Ozyasar

December 2005,

New York CityThanks once again to Captain Ron for all his valuable and absolutely brilliant input.


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The Fundamentals

The Basics of Resistance Training and Muscle ContractionsWhat follows is a basic refresher of how muscles work. If you would like a more detailed explanationabout this topic, please contact the author by clicking here . Also notice that some of the information has

been simplified to condense the immense amount of data about muscle physiology.

As you probably know, human skeletal muscle consists of little teams or groups of fibers that contracttogether. These groups are called Motor Units (MU) and are attached to a single nerve. Therefore, theyget the command to contract (or flex) from the same nerve impulse and always act together. Despitetheir immense complexity, MUs contract in a rather simplistic all or none fashion. In other words,when a MU receives a signal to turn on, it contracts with full force. Without such a signal, it is off. SoMUs contract with either 100% of their available force or they do not contract at all. However, this doesnot mean that the force generated by a MU is always the same. When a fresh MU contracts with fullforce, it generates more force than it can when the same MU contracts with full force while it is tired.

Each muscle has different types of MUs ranging from Slow Twitch Motor Units (ST) to Fast TwitchMotor Units (FT) and some types in between that are mixtures or hybrids of these. The STs do not

produce much force but are very durable. When you are walking for an hour, for example, these are the perfect kinds of fibers to use. You do not need to generate a lot of force and you need the muscles to lastan entire hour. On the other hand, the FT fibers generate much more force but they dont have muchendurance. They are utilized only when the force generated by the STs is not enough to do the job.Please recall the last sentence, as it will become very important in the following paragraphs. When

performing a set of heavy squats, you must generate a lot of force. If the weight is heavy enough, youwould need to generate maximal force. In this case, the body would utilize all the ST and all the FTfibers together.

The final detail that we must keep in mind is rate coding. MUs do not contract in continuous, longstrokes. Instead, they twitch on and of all the time. If you can imagine the many MUs as attached to a

big rope and pulling on a weight, each MU pulls momentarily and then lets go of the rope. Since thereare a very large number of MUs and the pulling and letting go occurs several times every second for each of the MUs, all you feel is a composite and smooth tugging on the rope. As you are lifting a weight,you do not suddenly lose power and drop the barbell when some MUs switch off, because at any given

point there are always some other MUs that are in an on position. As the demand on the musclesincrease and they have to pull harder, the frequency of the on signals increases. This is like revving anengine higher and higher and results in a lot of MUs being on at any given time. When you are reallyforcing yourself to lift the maximal amount of weight, then most MUs will receive lots and lots of onsignals all the time. In this case, they will not even have the opportunity to relax, or in other words "letgo of the rope" and will essentially be contracting continuously. This condition is called tetany.

To sum this all up let us view what happens in two distinct scenarios: a light set and a heavy set of barbell curls. In this first instance, imagine taking a very light weight (say a 4 lbs wooden stick) and performing barbell curls. Since the weight is light, the nervous system does not need to activate all theMUs. Instead it does the rational thing and uses as few MUs as possible. Since it does also not makesense to use the strong but easily-tired Fast Twitch fibers, practically all the MUs that are utilized will bethe Slow Twitch MUs. Now the weight is so light that even the Slow Twitch MUs that are used do nothave to work very hard. The Slow Twitch MUs are contracting at a low frequency of rate coding. Inother words, each fiber is letting go of the rope and taking a rest every second. When the work is soeasy, the Slow Twitch fibers can rest while also lifting the weight and do not get tired. Therefore, thereis no need to call their bigger brothers, the bigger and stronger Fast Twitch fibers, for help. As a result,you can keep curling the weight for hours without getting very tired. This is exactly what happens when
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a store clerk takes bottles of Coca Cola from the case down on the floor and lifts them up to stack theshelves. He can do it for hours without getting very tired or without using his Fast Twitch fibers.Unfortunately, the Fast Twitch fibers are bigger and grow much larger, while the Slow Twitch fibersusually cannot get very big. Therefore, the clerk who almost never uses his FT fibers will not get big andmuscular arms, even though he uses the muscles in his arms all day long. Bodybuilders, however, mustuse their FT fibers to get large arms.

On the other hand, when you take a heavy barbell, lets say a weight that you can only lift 8 to 10 times,and start lifting it, the situation is radically different. Now the ST fibers cannot generate enough force tolift the weight even if they are constantly on. So the body has to use almost all the available fibers, thatis all ST and all FT fibers (or motor units) at once. The small guys and their big brothers have to pulltogether to lift the heavy weight. But after a few repetitions, everybody starts to get tired. At this pointthe nervous system makes sure there are no slackers and ensures that even the biggest and strongestMUs, which are lazy and do not work under normal conditions, are pulling. This is good news becausethe biggest and strongest MUs have the greatest potential for growth. After a few more repetitions, letssay by the 5 th or 6 th rep, everybody is pulling but everybody is also getting really tired. As a result, theMUs cannot generate a lot of power during the pulls. So, in order to be able to lift the weight, the MUshave to pull ever more frequently. By the end of the set the fibers are so tired that the only way they canlift the weight is by making sure that every MU is pulling all the time. Ever MU is basically stuck in the

on position. Hence, even though you may have lifted the weight only two more times to go from the7th to the 9 th repetition, you have actually done a lot more muscular work (we are not talking aboutwork as would be defined in a physics textbook, but referring to the frequency and severity of muscular contractions here).

By the end of such a set, you can be sure that you have thoroughly exhausted and worked all of your fibers, including the large and strong FT fibers which have the most growth potential. This is the reasonyou grow more from doing just one set of heavy barbell curls to failure than you would from stackingthe shelves with bottles for hours. This is also the reason those last few reps are the most important.Doing 3 sets of 6 reps when you could have performed 9 or 10 each time is not going to give you thesame growth as doing just one set but performing as many reps as you possibly could because in the first

instance you do not get the high rate coding and maximal utilization of the all-important FT fibers. Inother words, you will never really work your big and heavy FT fibers hard by stopping short of failure.

The Concept Inroading In the above scenario, we have looked at what is happening during a conventional set of heavy barbellcurls and concluded that failure is really necessary. In simplistic terms, failure refers to the situationwhere you are no longer able to lift a weight that you were able to lift at the beginning of a set. Soassuming that you were doing barbell curls with 80 pounds, you were able to generate 80 lbs or more of force at the beginning of the set but at the end you are no longer able to do so. As we have seen, this isgood news because if you were really trying hard and still couldnt lift the weight, that means that all of

your fibers, including the FT fibers, which have the greatest potential for growth, have been worked andexhausted.

Now thats all good and fine, but is it good enough? Have the FT fibers really been sufficientlyexhausted? Will they really grow as much as they possibly could after that one single set of barbellcurls? If you look around and see what people are doing, you will see that most believe the answer tothis question to be no. If you are just starting out, a single set may be enough, but for anyone with morethan 3-6 months of lifting experience, the muscles must be exhausted more than what can be achievedwith a single set to failure. Most trainees either perform several sets to failure for a given muscle groupor they perform only a few sets but take them way beyond failure with drops sets, forced reps etcAnother way of looking at it is as follows: When you failed to lift the 80 lbs in the above example, the


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amount of force generated by your biceps (and supporting muscles) was probably just barely below 80lbs. Why? We know that most people who failed to perform another rep with the 80 lbs could havedropped the 80 lbs barbell, immediately grab the 70 lbs and perform at least one more rep. So your muscles were not really that exhausted, as they still had a force of at least 70 lbs in them. The degree towhich your muscles are exhausted or stated differently the amount of force that your muscles have lostcompared to the beginning of the set- is referred to as INROADING.

When I was able to lift 90 lbs at the beginning of the set and terminate the set when I am able to lift only75 lbs, the amount of inroading I have achieved is 15 lbs (if I can do an entire set with 80 lbs, mystrength during the first rep is likely more than 80 lbs, say 90 lbs for this example). When you think about it, I have not really worked the heavy and strong FT fibers that much then, have I? So what can Ido? I can simply ask my partner to help me perform 3-5 more reps. He can push the barbell up while Itry to lift so that the actual amount of weight I have to move goes down from 80 to maybe 50 lbs. WhenI can not continue to move despite his assistance, I know that I dont even have 50 lbs of strength left inme. Good, now I have achieved a deeper state of inroading namely 40 lbs- and I can be sure that I haveworked my muscles even harder. Those damn FT fibers which are lazy and join in only when absolutelyrequired had to join in a great deal more and are more likely to grow now. Other methods of achievinginroading are drop sets where I simply move from an 80 lbs barbell to a 60 or 70 lbs which is verysimilar to forced reps. I can also do static holds at the end of the set where, when I am no longer able to

lift the weight, I simply hold it statically in the hardest position along the path of motion for as long as Ican. You will be very tired at the end of such a set and will probably not be able to even lift 50 lbs.Again, good news because that means I have very nicely worked out the FT fibers, which were my maintarget, and I can be sure I did so because those fibers can no longer produce enough force to even lift 50lbs, let alone 80. What happens in each of these examples is that the FT fibers start working at a veryhigh rate at the end of the set because everything else (all ST fibers and all intermediate fibers which aremixtures of ST and FT) is very tired. When I continue the set with drop sets, forced reps etc, I sustainthe high rate coding of FT fibers beyond failure. In other words, I strike the iron while it is hot andcontinue to force the FT fibers to work at those very high rates for many more seconds.

If for whatever reason I do not want to use the above techniques or similar ones to achieve a deeper state

of inroading, I can also do multiple sets. Do you remember what my main problem was with doing onlya single set taken to failure? It was the fact that the FT fibers joined in only at the last possible momentand were highly active (to be more accurate, they achieved a sufficiently high rate coding) only duringthe last 1 or two reps. So they worked hard for just around 5 seconds or so; not enough to make themgrow (the exact amount of time the FT fibers will spend at maximal rate coding will depend on anumber of factors). So after finishing such a set, I can put the weight down, rest 1-3 minutes and doanother set just like the one before. Now the FT fibers got another 5 seconds or so of good work. Thenanother set taken to failure and so on. In the end, whether I perform only a couple of sets taken beyondfailure or many more sets taken to just failure, I will have worked my FT fibers long enough and hardenough to force growth. This is precisely what you see in gyms all over the world: People either do afew very intense sets where they continue to lift beyond the point of failure, or they have longer

workouts and do more sets without taking them much beyond failure. Depending on your experienceand unique circumstances, either method may work. But either method hits that famous wall sooner or later: overtraining!!!

Hitting a Plateau Now you may be toughest guy in the world and have more motivation than the Olympic gold medalists, but the methods above will still take a huge tool on your body. Whether you do many moderately hardsets or just a few really tough ones, you pay a price: after such hard workouts, it takes a while to recover.You deplete glycogen inside the muscles which takes a while to replenish, you deplete manyneurotransmitters such as AcetylCholine and you even alter the chemical make-up of the blood in your


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entire body. This is why there is so much talk about overtraining: because it is real. Overtraining is not ahocus-pocus term created by the evil government to keep people out of the gyms. Anyone who has liftedfor a while knows that after a month or two of heavy training and satisfactory growth, one starts to feeltired, sometimes even nauseous and will have a general sense of having burnt out. People take recovery-enhancing supplements, refuse to even lift a finger outside of their workouts to conserve valuablerecovery resources, refrain from partying, but at the end of the day, very few can avoid the dreaded

plateau that comes from overtraining.

The ProblemWhen you look at the picture above, you will see that most of the problem comes from the way our muscles were designed. As a bodybuilder, my dilemma is that I wish to work the FT fibers because theyare the ones that have the greatest potential for growth. However, those damn FT fibers will not activateuntil the ST fibers and all other intermediate fibers have been thoroughly worked and I am in a veryexhausted state, So each time I want to work the FT fibers, even if it is just a little bit, I must spend aload of time and energy going through all the STs and intermediates because this is just the way we aredesigned. As if this wasn't bad enough, those nasty STs can also recover very fast. If I wish to do a verylong set where I continue to lift beyond failure with such means as forced reps, it will probably becomenecessary to take a second or two between each rep as I am getting tired, and even such a short pause

will give the ST fibers a chance to start recovering. Such recovery of the ST fibers will of course presentan obstacle to the efficient activation of FT fibers.

The Solution Now imagine how wonderful it would be if there was a switch attached to the ST and intermediatefibers, which I could simply turn off so that I could directly and immediately activate the FT fibers.Would that not absolutely rock? (As an aside, the very gifted athletes have a huge advantage in thisdepartment. While normal people must thoroughly exhaust all ST and intermediate fibers before the FTswill get involved, the guys who grow very easily have FT fibers that are more ready and willing to joinin. As a result, their FT fibers will start to become active only after the ST and int. fibers have been

slightly exhausted. These guys do not have to bust their backsides. They can do a set where they onlyget close to failure and still grow. You will read how many of the guys with outstanding genes will dohalf-hearted workouts and still grow.) Well such a switch does not exist, but there is something thatcomes close: Occlusion.

Before we get into occlusion, we must remind ourselves of an important pathway in muscle activation.You will remember that as the set goes on, the fibers that were involved in lifting the weight get tired.There are many reasons for this as in depletion of ATP and CP stores, neural fatigue and decliningglycogen reserves after extended activity. However a major reason that we have all experienced first-hand is the accumulation of waste products, such as lactic acid, inside the muscle as the set goes on.That burning sensation all bodybuilders know comes from waste product accumulation inside the

muscles. We know that if these build up inside the muscle to a sufficient concentration, they have theeffect of simply turning off the muscle. Do you remember the switch that we talked about? Exactly,waste products act like that switch and simply turn off the fibers. If you have ever done any uphillsprints, for example, you may have collapsed to the ground after less than a minute of running. Even

people who are capable of squatting 500 lbs for several reps completely fail after a short uphill sprintand are unable to get up on their feet until the waste products have at least partially cleared. This is quiteremarkable because when you compare the amount of weight moved by using the power of the legs ineither case, the second exercise should be quite easy. A 200 lbs athlete able to move almost 700 lbs (500lbs on the bar + most of his bodyweight) in the first case, should not fail let alone collapse- after moving only his bodyweight of 200 lbs for less than a minute. The reason is in the second case theexercise is occurring so quickly and the muscles are so tense that the body cannot clear out the lactic


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acid and other waste products (more on that a little later) and the accumulated waste simply makes itimpossible for the muscle to continue contracting. In addition, the speed of the contractions also makesit impossible to replenish ATP stores during the exercise as quickly as one could during squats. This isthe reason you can walk the same hill for maybe half an hour but will collapse in under a minute whilesprinting. This is also is one of the reasons sprinters are much more muscular than long-distance runners.As the lactic acid accumulates and the ST fibers get shut down, the body has no choice but to ask the FTfibers to join in. It is not that the ST fibers are as tired as they would be in a set of squats with 500 lbs,

but since the lactic acid is accumulating in them, they simply cannot continue to contract after a while.So, the body asks the big brothers, the FT fibers, to join in.

Enter OcclusionSo how do we use this knowledge to make our workouts more effective? This is where the occlusionstudies come in. Aware of the mechanism above, researchers in Japan wondered if you could somehowelicit the same response we saw in uphill sprinting during weight training (please see the bottom of this

page for a list of Occlusion-related studies). The reason occlusion or a similar method is needed is that,unfortunately, sprinting with weights is not a realistic option; if you try to lift the weights up and downso fast that the body will not be able to clear out the waste products, you are likely to injure yourself.Furthermore, you will probably end up bouncing the weights up and down. If you tried to do squats this

quickly you would literally bounce off the bottom position like a rubber ball, because of the energy youwould momentarily store in the tendons, ligaments and the muscles as you drop to the bottom positionlike a rock. Not only would this reduce the amount of work done by the muscles, but injury becomesalmost inevitable. So the researchers concluded very cleverly I must add- that they could achieve thesame effect by placing a cuff, like the ones used when measuring someones blood pressure, around thearms and having subjects perform dumbbell curls with a tight cuffs around their upper arms. But what inthe world does a cuff do? It is simple really; the cuff applies pressure to the veins and restricts the freeflow of the blood into and out of the muscles in the upper arm. So, even when people are exercisingslowly, the body is unable to clear out the waste products from the working muscles because the bloodthat needs to remove the waste products from the muscles is unable to flow in and out of the muscle. Atruly brilliant method.... As a result, here is what happens over the course of a set: As you are lifting a

weight and waste products build up, the ST and intermediate fibers that would tire out after 6 or 7 repsstart to shut down much earlier. As lactic acid starts to build up inside them, they simply turn off. Thisforces the nervous system to recruit the bigger FT fibers much earlier. Therefore, the need to use veryheavy weights or to carry on a set for a very long period of time is greatly reduced. The trainee achievesa very deep inroading very quickly.

In fact, the weight that needs to be used to employ FT fibers is so dramatically diminished thatresearchers were able to elicit a significant growth response by using only 20% of the 1 Rep Maximum;a weight so low that a serious trainee would not even use this to warm up (as he could probably performmore than 30 reps in perfect form with such a low weight). The body of research supporting occlusion istremendous and not limited to this one paper. Study after study has found that occlusion training is

capable of achieving significant growth with weights that would normally be enough just to warm up themuscles. The Japanese researchers even have a name for the occlusion technique: Kaatsu.


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An early and highly impressive picture of Mr. Y. Sato, the developer of Kaatsu... But occlusion is unfortunately a limited tool and more of a thought exercise than a real training aid. Firstof all, you need expert supervision to apply it. Sure you can simply try to tie up a rubber band aroundyour upper arm and perform a set of biceps or triceps exercises in that state. However, no matter howcareful and meticulous you are, there is no way of applying exactly the right amount of pressure withsuch a crude tool. If you apply too little, the method will not work; if you apply too much, you putyourself under a great deal of risk due to numerous reasons. Because of safety concerns, even theexperts have to work with advanced devices that can accurately measure blood pressure while thesubject is moving his arms. Even if you could somehow overcome this significant limitation, you would

be able to apply true occlusion only to the arms and maybe upper legs, but not to other muscle groups.The reason is that the major arteries supplying the arms are near the surface and their blood supply can

be disrupted by applying pressure from the surface. For torso muscles such as chest back and for shoulders, the veins are not so close to the surface. Therefore, you cannot apply pressure on themdirectly.

And Finally: ACIT Accelerated Inroad Training or simply ACIT has been developed in order to overcome the limitations of occlusion training while preserving and even amplifying- its benefits. ACIT is based on the simple

principle that when we are flexing a muscle hard enough, we are also squeezing the veins and arteries in

and near that muscle, and as a result, preventing the blood from flowing freely. The muscles basicallysquish the arteries and veins so hard that blood cannot flow through them. This is by no meansdangerous and if you have ever lifted a weight that is heavy enough (i.e. if you have ever performed aset of 8-10 reps to failure) you have experienced this. In fact, the veins and arteries of practically all

bodybuilders have, momentarily, gone through this during every hard repetition of every single set theyhave done over the years. But if this is already occurring during a hard set, how is occlusion differentfrom doing a set of heavy barbell curls? The answer is quite simple: During occlusion, the blood flow isrestricted continuously form the beginning to the end of the set. While doing a set of heavy barbell curls,on the other hand, the blood flow is restricted only when contracting, i.e. flexing, the muscles hard. Thedifference may sound trivial but in fact, it is tremendous. Unless you are using ACIT, there is inevitably


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a lot of slack during your set. In other words, there are many points during the repetition where youare not flexing the muscles hard enough to actually occlude the blood. During these short periods, the

blood has a chance to flow (relatively) freely and clear out the waste products. Therefore, the waste products never accumulate to the same extent and never give you the benefits of occlusion. ACIT is away of keeping the muscles under constant and high tension, thus preventing the free flow of bloodduring the entire set. (please see the discussion entitled A Little Homework on the next page for amore detailed explanation of this concept)

Well, I have seen this already. No, you didnt, here is why:Upon reading the basic description, you may feel that you have already seen and tried constant-tensiontraining. Trust me, there is a world of difference between what you have seen and ACIT. The amount of muscle tension that we must preserve throughout the ENTIRE set is approximately 60% of the musclesmaximal contractile power. In other words, the muscle must be flexing (for the lack of a better term)with at least 60% of its full force at all times during the set. In order to accomplish this, two changesmust be made to the conventional way of performing a set: First the points on the Range of Motion(ROM) where the muscles experience little tension must be eliminated. Secondly, and more importantly,you must learn to squeeze the muscles as hard while lowering the weight as you do while lifting it up.Lets look at both factors in greater detail.

When performing a set of squats or bench presses, you can simply lock the joint in the top positionand take a little rest. In this position the weight is held in place by the bones and the joints with littletension on the muscle. If we wish to keep the muscle under constant tension, we must obviouslyeliminate these unproductive points of the ROM. So we must not go all the way up in these exercisesand in some other exercises we need to refrain from coming all the way down to make sure that thetension is always on the muscle instead of the skeletal structure. This is not an earth-shattering noveltyand has been employed already. However, this is not enough to keep the muscles under constant tension.We must also learn to squeeze the muscles and lower the weight at the same time. This is where thedevil lies

The problem with a conventional set is that the muscles inevitably relax while you are lowering theweight. If you select a weight that you can curl up 8 to 10 times, again lets assume 80 lbs for the barbellcurl, the weight will feel heavy on the way up from the first rep onwards. However, it will not be such achallenge to lower it in a controlled fashion at least during the first half of the set. This is due to thesimple fact that we can lower (in a controlled fashion) a much larger weight than we can lift. Differentstudies provide different figures, but we can do negatives with at least 30-40% more weight than wecan use for positives. So when you start to lift the 80 lbs barbell, it will feel hard on the way up, but onthe way down, the muscles will not have to work so hard. Remember, at the beginning of the set, youcould probably lift even more than 80 lbs, probably you have 100 lbs or more of strength during your first rep. So applying the (lifted weight + 30-40%) formula, you can see that you could use around 140lbs for the negative portion of the rep. However, you are lowering only 80 lbs, which is simply not

enough to create the occlusion effect we are looking for* What you must learn is to lower the weightwhile flexing your biceps as hard as you do while lifting it up, possibly even harder. If you can master this technique, you will achieve a very deep inroading -quite possibly like you have never experiencedin your entire life. This degree of inroading can be achieved without having to use anywhere near asmuch energy and burning yourself out as you would if were trying to achieve the same kind of inroadingvia conventional means.

But how in the world can you flex your biceps as hard or even harder???- while lowering the weight?Is that not technically impossible? The role of the biceps in the barbell curl is to lift the weight up, right?So if you flex it too hard, while trying to lower the weight, will it not simply come up without having a


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chance to go down? Great points. If you are asking such intelligent questions, you are ready to learnhow to perform ACIT. So please go on to the next page.

* Careful readers will notice that 80 lbs is only slightly under 60% of 140 lbs. However, 60% is a bareminimum that is needed to create an occlusion-like effect. Also, we have worked with relativelyconservative figures here. Anyone who has seriously worked with weights will know that if you can curl 80 lbs for a full set of 8-10 reps, you can probably perform one single negative repetition with morethan 140 lbs. To make matters even worse for the conventional set, the lowering of the weight is a prettyeasy task at the top when you have just begun letting the weight down. The negative really becomesmeaningfully difficult around the midpoint of the ROM where your arms are parallel to the floor. Due toall these reasons, the 80 lbs on the bar is not nearly sufficient to keep a high degree of tension on themuscle and essentially achieve occlusion. In any event, you will clearly see what I mean when you try

ACIT and feel the immense difference between that and a conventional set.

A Special Note to the Intellectually CuriousBefore we proceed further, allow me to clarify an issue that may have arisen in your mind. Since thelactic acid and other waste products that accumulate inside the muscle shut it down, you may wonder if

this will hamper your ability to properly exercise your FT fibers, since they too will be shut downrelatively soon. The first good news is that the acidity in the muscles does not leak out from one fiber toanother very efficiently. So the lactic acid that builds up inside the ST fibers at the beginning of the setwill not have already leaked into the FT cells when later during the set you are ready to use your FTfibers. The FTs will have to put in their own time before they are shut down. The second point here isthat FT fibers seem much more resistant to the acidity that builds up during an ACIT-style set or occlusion. So, almost magically, the acidity appears to function as that selective key we had dreamt of,which turns off the ST fibers but not so much the FT fibers. The bottom line is that your FT fibers willspend plenty of time working at full capacity during an ACIT-style set and get the message to grow.

A Special Note to HIT ProponentsIn my explanations above, I have noted that a single set carried only to positive failure may not beenough for optimal growth. I am fully aware that this may have offended some proponents of HighIntensity Training who follow Mike Mentzers teachings. Whether one set is better than multiple sets isan issue that has been analyzed at length (with no clear conclusions) and is beyond the scope of thisdiscussion. However, it really matters very little. ACIT has been designed to allow athletes to achieve astate of deep inroading while spending as little valuable recovery resources as possible. If you havefound that a single set is best for you, just use ACIT for that one set. If you prefer multiple sets, againuse ACIT for as many sets as you would otherwise have taken to positive failure or beyond. The methodcan be utilized with great success whether you use HIT, HST or many of the other methods. Keep inmind that the late Mike Mentzer was more concerned about the dreaded overtraining than almost anyoneelse and would have wholeheartedly embraced any method that can help to prevent that condition

SOME OCCLUSION STUDIESBelow you will find some information about the occlusion studies mentioned in the preceding text. Dueto time constraints, we have not yet been able to link the conclusions and theories presented above to thespecific studies as would be expected in a proper piece of intellectual treatise. We apologize for this andhope to provide the necessary references and a more comprehensive list of studies as soon as possible.

1 )T. Abe, T. Yasuda, T. Midorikawa, Y. Sato, C. F. Kearns, K. Inoue, K. Koizumi, N. Ishii 2005


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2) Yudai Takarada, Haruo Takazawa, Yoshiaki Sato, Shigeo Takebayashi3, Yasuhiro Tanaka, and Naokata Ishii 2000

3) Michael C. Hogan1, L. Bruce Gladden2, Bruno Grassi3, Creed M. Stary1, and Michele Samaja4 1998

4) B. G. Mackie and R. L. Terjung

5) Brian D. Hoelting, Barry W. Scheuermann, and Thomas J. Barstow

6) Jason J. Hamann,1 John B. Buckwalter,1 Philip S. Clifford,1 and J. Kevin Shoemaker2

7) BURGOMASTER, KIRSTEN A.; MOORE, DAN R.; SCHOFIELD, LEE M.; PHILLIPS, STUARTM.; SALE, DIGBY G.; GIBALA, MARTIN J. 2003

8) Yudai Takarada1, Yutaka Nakamura2, Seiji Aruga2, Tetuya Onda2, Seiji Miyazaki2, and NaokataIshii3 2000

9) J. S. Petrofsky, C. A. Phillips, M. N. Sawka, D. Hanpeter and D. Stafford 1981

10) Sadamoto T, Bonde-Petersen F, Suzuki Y. 1983

11) F. Bonde-Petersen, A. L. Mrk1 and E. Nielsen 1974Occlusion: What's blood got to do with it?


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How To Perform ACITACIT will take some learning and practice to master. Although the technique is easier to perform for certain muscles and exercises than others, I will explain the basic principles by using the barbell curlsince this is the example I used when talking about the theoretical basis for Accelerated Inroad Training.

Now the main confusion of most athletes lies in the fact that they associate the contraction of the muscle

with the lifting of the weight, but as we will see this doesnt have to be the case. OK enough talk already, lets learn how to use this amazing technique

Now please lift your right arm so that the upper arm is perpendicular to your torso and your lower arm is pointing upwards and flex your biceps as hard as you can (basically a front double biceps pose, but onlywith the right arm). If you have heavy clothing on, please remove one or two layers so you can feel your

biceps with your left hand. Of course, your biceps is hard as a rock. Now please feel your triceps (touchit near the elbow) with your left hand. Surprise, surprise Your triceps is hard, too, even though I didnttell you to flex your triceps. Now try again. In the same pose, please flex your biceps as hard as possiblewithout contracting your triceps. Impossible. No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to flexyour biceps in that position without contracting the triceps. The reason is simple. You have no weight in

your hand, but the biceps is still pulling your lower arm upwards towards your shoulder while it iscontracting. In your mind, you know that you wish to hold your hand in a steady position, so the nervoussystem activates the triceps just enough to counteract the force generated by your biceps and, as result,the hand is staying in perfect balance. If the nervous system had not been so intelligent and not utilizedthe triceps, your hand would have snapped back and hit your shoulder when you flexed your biceps withno weights in your hand and you would probably have hurt your elbow.

Now lets go a step further. Can you contract your biceps as hard as you possibly can, but this timeslowly lower your upper arm? Sure you can, bodybuilders do it on stage all the time. Picture MarkusRuhl or Jay Cutler leaning forward, flexing their biceps as hard as they can and then slowly moving theupper arm up and down while the crowd is roaring. After no more than a couple of attempts, I am sure

you will be able to do the same thing. What is happening now is that the nervous system knows it has tocontract the triceps just a little more than the biceps so that the net force acting on the lower arm isoutward and as a result, the arm moves down while the biceps is still flexed very hard. If you can flexyour biceps and lower it at the same time without even holding a weight, you can be damn sure that youcould do it even more effectively with a barbell in your hand.

So here we go: Take a barbell that is around 30-40% lighter than what you would normally use for barbell curls. In order to keep constant tension on the biceps, you will cut out some of Range of Motion(ROM) by not doing the first 2-3 inches and the last 5-6 inches of the exercise. So you are going from a

position where your upper arm is raised 3-4 inches from a relaxed position up to a point where your upper arm is only 4 inches or so above parallel. So what you have done is you eliminated the last 10% or so of the travel at the bottom and the final 25% or so at the top. That still leaves you with a good 65% or so of the entire ROM to work with. If you have any reservations about this, dont worry. That is plentyof space and we know from scientific research that a complete ROM is not necessary to achievecomplete growth.

Now what you need to do is flex the biceps as hard as possible while lowering the weight. This willrequire a reprogramming of your mind. When you watch most people in the weight room, you will seethat they are more focused while lifting the weight and taking a little mental break while lowering it.People are concentrated like a laser beam while getting the weight up but their eyes wander, they takeseveral breaths and maybe even readjust their foot position while lowering the weight. What I want youto do is to adapt the EXACT OPPOSITE MENTALITY and focus more on the lowering of the weight.


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You must make sure that you are actively flexing your biceps while lowering the bar. You also have tomake sure that the biceps is definitely not relaxing at either the top or the bottom of the curls. Almost alllifters have the habit of taking a little break at either the top or the bottom of almost any lift. Here youmust make absolutely certain that you are not letting the biceps rest or even slightly relax at the top or the bottom. When I am performing barbell curls or any exercise my mind is focused very sharply on themuscle during the lowering phase of the exercise and I am constantly assessing whether the muscle isunder sufficient tension. If I should feel that the muscle is loosening up towards the bottom of the range,I immediately start to curl it back up. (As we have discussed, the action of flexing your biceps whilelowering the weight will necessitate also flexing your triceps very hard. However, there is no need toconsciously think of that, because your nervous system will do this job for you. Just focus on keepingmaximal tension on the biceps while lowering the weight in a controlled fashion. Apply the samethought process in all other exercises, just focus on the muscle that you are working, not on theantagonist).

You may be a little worried that by not focusing maximally during the lifting, or concentric phase of thelift (which you may consider to be the most important and beneficial part of the move) you will miss outon gains. Such worries are entirely unnecessary due to the universal laws of physics. If you are a lifter with a year or more of experience and know how to perform an exercise with proper form, the work will

be done by the appropriate muscles regardless of whether you focus or not. In the barbell curls, it is the

biceps (with some assistance from surrounding muscles such as brachialis and forearm muscles, of course) that is lifting the weight up. There is just no other possibility, so you don't need an immenseamount of focus. However, when lowering the weight, you can make the job of the biceps too easy if you let the weight come down too fast or neglect to flex your biceps. So just remember that the lowering

phase is where your focus is needed and reprogram your mind.

Also both the positive and negative phases of the exercise have to be performed with absolutely no bounce whatsoever. It is neither necessary nor desirable to move extremely slowly taking up to 10seconds to lift the weight up or to lower it as some trainees do. SuperSlow has its merits, but occludingthe muscle is not one of them. (this is likely due to the fact that, no matter what machine is used, some

little segments of the ROM are easier to go through than others and moving very slowly gives themuscles too much time to rest and lose the occlusive effect during those segments). Most people whohave successfully used ACIT found that spending just a little bit more time to lower the weight than youdo to lift it gets the job done perfectly. Taking approximately 4 seconds or so to lower the weight andthen immediately starting to lift it up with no pause seems optimal. On the way up, you wish to move asquickly as possible without bouncing the weight and most people found around 2-3 seconds to be the

best cadence to do so. So a 2/4 concentric/eccentric protocol appears ideal (3/4 is also very usable) butdo experiment and feel at liberty to move outside of these parameters if you find it necessary to do so inorder to keep the muscles under constant tension.

Focus and concentration are the most important part and realistically you will need some time to master

the technique. But then again, you need some practice with anything that has any chance at all of yielding appreciable results, so please dont give up after one try. In addition to focus and concentration,there are also a few little tricks that you can use to make the job of your biceps even more difficult whilelowering the weight. I will share a few of them with you and you will have to simply try them out andsee which of these work best for you. The first one is to pull the shoulders as far back as possible andcurl the wrist out slightly while lowering the weight. Both actions will make the job of the biceps harder and force it to work harder in order to bring the weight down in a controlled manner. However, you stillhave to make a conscious effort in order to maintain maximal tension on the muscle. Another trick is

point the elbows to the side just by a little bit while lowering the weight and thinking of bringing theshoulders and elbows (of the same hand) together. This is mostly a mental trick as the elbow and hand of the same arm will obviously not come closer. But still worth a shot


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Chest and Lats are Particularly Suitable for ACIT As I have mentioned, biceps is a good muscle group to start experimenting with ACIT. A lot of peopleare very accustomed to flexing their biceps without using weights and have fairly good control of thismuscle. However, chest, lats and quads have other unique properties that make them especially suitablefor ACIT-style training. For chest, get into a chest press machine with L-shaped handles. These are thehandles that you can either grab in a palms facing down position or palms facing each other

position. Grab the handles at the end where your thumbs and/or index fingers are touching the end of thehandles (your palms pointing down). As you are lowering the weight, simply push the handles towardseach other as if you were doing cable cross-overs for your chest. Of course the handles are fixed in placeand are not going to touch each other. However, what you will accomplish by doing this is that you will

be performing an isometric exercise for your chest while actually lowering the weight. This makes your life dramatically easier as you will have to worry about fewer things and do not need to be so precisewith the ROM and the feel on the muscle while lowering the weight. Just push the two handles towardseach other as hard as you can with your elbows flared out a bit during the negatives. Then during the

positives, just push the weight up hard. (Some trainees have used a similar technique on the shoulder press machine, trying to squeezer the handles closer together while lowering the weight, so far it seemsto work, provided that you are careful)

visualize Markus in the "most muscular" poseas you are lowering the weight in chest presses

Another muscle group where you can utilize similar trick is back (lats, middle and lower trapezius aswell as most other muscles comprising the back will benefit from this). As you certainly know, you canget a harder contraction in the lat pulldowns by pulling your shoulders down and back, thus squeezingthe shoulder blades together at the bottom. Similarly, you can get a better contraction during any kind of rowing movement by pulling the shoulders back and squeezing them together at the end of the exercise.When performing any back exercise (my subjective assessment is that it works best with seated cable or machine rows) simply squeeze the shoulder blades together as hard as you can and keep them in this

position throughout the entire set. You dont want to bring your shoulders forward and up in order to geta good stretch in the lats at the end of the movement because this would completely eliminate thetension and occlusion you are looking for. So, eliminate the last 4-5 inches of the movement. In case of seated rows, what this means is that you can let the handle(s) go forward without loosing the squeeze onyour shoulder blades so you will not be doing the last 4-5 inches that result from simply relaxing your shoulders once your arms are completely straight. I personally also do not let my arms get completelystraight and start pulling the weight back when the arms have an inch or two to go before they would becompletely straight. One note of caution here: When squeezing your shoulder blades together make surethat you do not tense up your neck too much in the process. Unless you are careful, you may end updoing that and get either a cramp, sore neck the next day, or end up with a tension headache.

While these little tricks are great, they are not mandatory. I strongly recommend that you use themwherever you find them useful, but do not think that you will not be able to utilize ACIT when theseeither turn out to be infeasible (as may be the case if squeezing the shoulder blades gives you a neck cramp) or you dont have the equipment (such as chest press machines with L-shaped handles).Ultimately, what you need to do is to keep a sufficiently high degree of tension on the muscles whilelowering the weight. In many cases you can achieve this through willpower and concentration alone.

(Over the coming weeks, we are planning to add more of these helpful tricks to the site.)


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What Happens When ACIT Really WorksAs I mentioned, legs are another body part that are extremely suitable for the performance of ACIT.Unlike the biceps where most people have excellent muscle control from years of making a muscle infront of the mirror or chest and back whose functional characteristics enable us to easily keep themunder tension during the negative phase of the exercise, the unique advantage of legs is their immensesize. Legs are huge muscles and are also very strong. Thats why a lot of people can move the greatestamount of weight in leg exercises. Due to these reasons, all you may need to do during the lowering

phase of any leg exercise is simply to squeeze the muscle as hard as you can. In the cases that I was ableto observe, this was more than sufficient to occlude the muscle and led to an incredible amount of inroading. I suggest that you try ACIT on leg presses because the action of squeezing your legs whilelowering the weight is an unusual sensation that may feel strange at first. A lot of people may have ahard time lowering the weight during squats and flexing their quads as hard as they can, while at thesame time keeping perfect balance. You may end up rocking back and forth, which is not safe with allthe weight you will be carrying. Now allow me to share with you what happens in my case during LegPresses. I am sure the following numbers will get your attention.

Before I started to use ACIT, I used to perform conventional sets on the leg press machine. I am quiteflexible and like to bring the weight all the way down and then up just shy of lock-up, so with anextended range like this, I was never able to use a monstrous amount of weight. Right before I started touse ACIT, I was doing 9 to 10 reps with 430 lbs on the leg press. Since I love to blast legs withintensity-extending techniques, I would then either ask a partner, or when no one was around to help,

jump up and strip some weight to reduce the load. I would unusually drop the weight to 340 or so andimmediately perform 10 or so more repetitions. Even when I would push myself as hard as I possiblycould with the 430 and had partner to strip some weight off so that the drop would occur ASAP andwould give me basically no time to rest, I would still be able to use at least 310-320 lbs for another 10 or even more reps.

Now lets see what happens with ACIT. First of all, I can only use 250 lbs when totally fresh. I am stillgoing all the way down but never locking out on top. All I am doing is simply squeezing the legs as hardas possible on the way down (it helps to visualize the pros who first shake their legs left and right tomake them vibrate like a bowl of pudding and then suddenly flex them during the Mr. Olympia). With250 the set starts relatively easy, but becomes surprisingly more difficult as the blood is trapped andlactic acid builds up. By the 8 th rep it still feels like I could do another 6 or 7 repetitions, but then in amatter of seconds things start to shut down. It is a feeling like nothing else I have ever experienced andmust be felt to be appreciated. By the 9 th rep I am wondering what the hell happened that made theexercise so difficult all of a sudden and by the 10th rep I am screaming because the weight feels like athousand pounds. If I am particularly well rested I get half-way up on the 11 th rep, but usually I fail by10 (though I am getting stronger and expect to be able to complete 12 reps with this weight soon, then I

will up the weight). Here is the interesting part. I then jump up and drop the weight to do a few morereps. When I first tried this, I was under the mistaken impression that I only needed to drop the weight

by around the same 25% or so as I used to with a set of regular leg presses (from 430 to 310-320). So Isimply reduced the weight to 180 lbs. When I got under the machine, I was able to get only one rep.During the next leg workout, I reduced the weight to 120 but was able to do 2 reps this time. Just guesshow much weight I settled on after much experimentation. I am now dropping the weight from 250 to 45lbs. Yes, thats not a misprint; I must go from 250 lbs to 45 lbs, i.e. one single disc on one side andnothing else on the other side of the leg press machine. I am neither joking here nor taking my workoutseasy. When I properly flex the quads during the negative portion of the rep, after just one single set of only 10 repetitions, my legs are finished. There is only enough power left in them to barely lift 45 lbs(by the way I am unable to even complete 10 reps with the empty machine + 45 lbs, all I can get out is


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around 6 reps). In fact, the drop set is basically a meaningless attempt and, recently, I have eliminated itcompletely. It is very obvious that one single set of 10 reps wipes out almost the entire power of mylegs. That is the kind of incredible inroading I am talking about.

Lets take a moment to compare this kind of inroading to what can be achieved with conventionalmeans. As I pointed out, after completing a set of regular leg presses with 430 lbs, I still have enough

power to immediately perform another set with 310-320 lbs. Just for the sake of experimentation, I haverecently attempted to weaken my quads (without resorting to ACIT) to the point where I could only

press 45 lbs on the leg press machine. I performed a set of conventional leg presses with 430 lbs,dropped the weight to 320 did another 9 reps, dropped to weight to 180 and performed another set,managing to get around 9 more repetitions. As you can imagine, my pulse rate was through the roof andI was in tremendous pain at this stage. Still, without taking a break, I started to do vertical jumps. I wassimply too tired to do proper jumps but continued to jump as high as I possibly could for as many timesas possible. Honestly I was unable to keep count. When I was no longer able to keep jumping, Iimmediately got into the leg press machine which I loaded with 45 lbs and started pressing. Although Iwas about to die at this stage, the weight didnt feel that heavy and I pressed it up 12 times at which

point I terminated the experiment as I had already found the answer I was looking for. At this point, myhands were shaking, my breathing and pulse were perhaps at dangerously high levels and I am sure my

blood pressure had peaked several times over the last three minutes. Still, I was unable to achieve the

kind of inroading for my legs that I can with just one single set of ACIT-style presses.

In other words, ACIT is a tremendously more efficient means of inroading. You can thoroughly work and greatly weaken the muscles without killing yourself. The price you pay for a deep inroad is small.You are only performing one single set of around 8-12 reps and your recovery systems do not pay asgreat a price. The same kind of inroading with conventional lifting techniques, on the other hand, comesat a tremendous cost. If you try to weaken the muscles to the same extent by using traditional meanssuch as drop set, forced reps and supersets, you will end up on the floor, twitching like a frog for minutes. With ACIT recovery is quick and the same workout can be repeated much more frequently for much greater cumulative gains. When using conventional means to achieve the same kind of inroading,you drain your recovery resources so badly that you would either need to take a very long break between

workouts or push yourself into overtraining. This is why ACIT is the most intelligent and most efficientmeans of achieving a deep state of inroading

A little homework An excellent practice that will give you a better feel and appreciation for ACIT as well as greater muscle control, especially on your legs, is the Tabata Protocol. The Tabata protocol has been developed in order to enhance general fitness in as short a time as possible and works nicely if you are feeling adventurous and are up for a challenge. While the basic idea can be applied in a number of ways, Dr.Tabatas method is based on very intense 20 second sprints separated by 10 second rest periods (each

such 30 second block constitutes one set). The idea is to set up a stationary bike or other similar deviceat such a resistance that you can only perform 6 to 8 such sets but no more. So if you aim for 7 sets, you

should really be spent and more or less unable to cycle any more by the end of set 7. If you try thisexperiment, you will see that by set 3 or 4, your legs will burn like hell. The interesting thing is that thisfire so to speak, will be sort of trapped while you are cycling and will start to dissipate as soon as

you stop cycling or even slowing down. You will be able to literally feel something acidic start to travel through your veins as soon as you slow down or take a break. The sensation is amazing and outright

spooky, so try it sometime (though, like with any new method, this may take a while to master, so dont despair if the protocol doesnt feel as I have described right away).


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You will also notice that one really must cycle as hard as possible to reap the desired benefits as thedissipation of lactic acid and new blood rushing into the muscle will give the whole area a big rest and boost of energy as soon as the tension on the muscles is relieved even slightly. What is happening during the Tabata protocol is very similar to ACIT. As you are cycling very hard, the acid and other waste products are building up inside the muscles and the circulatory system is unable to clear them upbecause the tension of the quads is restricting blood flow. As soon as you relax the tension, the blood that has been waiting at the gates takes the opportunity to rush in and you feel the acidic blood travel through your veins. As this exercise shows, it really is crucial to keep the tension on the muscles as highas possible during an ACIT-style set because even a second or two of relaxation will bring fresh blood into the area and negate the effect you are looking for. Now all of this being said, do not let this littleexperiment discourage you either. It may sound too difficult to keep the muscles under constant-tensionthroughout an entire set, but, as you will see after some practice, this is entirely possible. Keep in mind that learning to ride a bicycle or jump up and down on one leg require a tremendous amount of neural

skill and are far harder than squeezing a muscle at all times. If you can master those things, you will certainly be able to master ACIT after some practice.


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ACIT FAQ

What are the Benefits of ACIT?The chief benefit of ACIT is that it enables you to reach a state of very deep inroading very quickly hence the name, Accelerated Inroad Training or simply ACIT- and without spending an excessiveamount of your valuable recovery resources. In other words, ACIT will give you most of the benefits of a giant set incorporating forced reps and drops, by performing only 10-12 repetitions.

However, this is not all. ACIT achieves the state of deep inroading by among other things- increasingthe acidity inside the muscle. While research in this area is not yet complete, it is believed thatincreasing the acidity inside the muscle acts as an independent growth stimulus, thus providing anadditional mechanism for hypertrophy over and above what is achieved by the deep state of inroading.

And still thats not all. Since a set of ACIT is much shorter than a comparable conventional set thatwould achieve the same state of inroading, the muscle glycogen stores are not compromised to the sameextent, making recovery much faster and greatly reducing the amount of carbohydrates that must beconsumed post workout. This makes ACIT an excellent training method for the dieting athlete. Keep inmind that the energy for anaerobic, bodybuilding-type contractions must almost entirely come from the

muscle glycogen stores. As ACIT uses a lighter weight and an ACIT-style set lasts much shorter, theamount of energy needed to complete an ACIT-type set is much less. Hence, the amount of muscleglycogen left inside the muscle after such a set is much greater. While this may not sound like a big deal,it really is. Bodybuilders often go to great lengths to replenish muscle glycogen after a taxing workoutand consume an immense number of calories during the process. The discussion thread on pre and postworkout nutrition on bodybuilding.com is 73 pages long and has almost 2200 replies thus far. Instead of trying to put back the depleted glycogen into the muscle after the workout by consuming very calorie-dense substances such as dextrose, Vitargo or the like, ACIT takes the much simpler route of sparringmuscle glycogen and reducing the need for such interventions.

While sparring muscle glycogen is an excellent idea, some athletes may be reluctant to try ACIT under

the impression that the depletion and replenishment of muscle glycogen is one of the triggers of muscular growth. A few comments are warranted here. First, the ability of muscles to uptake a greater amount of glucose and store it as glycogen depends on how intensively they have been worked, not onlyon how much they have been emptied during the workout. Therefore, the ideal training routine woulddeplete the existing stores as little as possible but still make the muscles contract very hard so that thenew glycogen can enter the muscles with great efficiency and sit on top of the existing stores which havenot been emptied excessively. This is exactly what ACIT accomplishes. Therefore, ACIT leads to themaximization of the muscular cell volume. In addition, it must be noted that the depletion of ATP, asopposed to glycogen, appears to be the chief growth trigger for the muscle. While ACIT employs shortsets, it leads to a tremendous depletion and consequent turnover of ATP stores. ATP is replenished allthe time during exercise, except during the most intense of contractions. When performing aconventional set, one of the things that occurs during the little rests that we inevitably take when we lock out at the top or at the bottom or slightly relax the muscles during the lowering phase of the weight is thereplenishment of ATP (during this time blood also rushes in and clears waste products). Since ACITavoids these loose points, the replenishment of ATP is much less during a set employing ACIT andhence the depletion of ATP stores is much greater.

Finally ACIT is much more joint-friendly than almost any other method. Since the weight on the bar isless and there is no bouncing, your joints will finally take a break from all the heavy loads you have

been placing on them. Over the long-run, this will prove to be an extremely valuable benefit. Needless tosay, athletes recovering from an injury and therefore unable to place great loads on their joints will loveACIT. If you are hesitant about the method and also have a particular joint you are nursing, try ACIT


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to be able to continue doing more reps after reaching failure). My suggestion is that the number of sets performed in ACIT-style should equal the number of sets that you normally perform at full intensity for the same muscle group. If, for example, you would normally do 3 warm-up sets with 18, 14 and 12 reps,then perform 4 sets to failure for biceps using 10, 8, 8 and 6 reps, followed by a pump set of 12 reps, Isuggest that you perform at most 4 sets when using ACIT. Since ACIT is less draining on recoveryresources, you may be inclined to do more sets when you switch to ACIT, but I would recommendagainst this. The inroading is very deep with this method and you will likely not need more sets. To reapall the benefits do not perform more sets and if anything reduce the number of sets you do. Also, untilyou gain more experience do not increase the frequency with which you exercise each muscle.

If I Must Decrease Weight During ACIT, Will My Results Not Suffer? No. The weight on the bar is only a means to an end. What you need is simply maximal contractions inthe muscle you are exercising, especially in the FT fibers. Whether you achieve this by using heavyweights or by weakening the slower-twitch fibers very quickly, makes little difference. Although this

point has been repeated a lot, I will once again point to the fact that heavy singles are usually not the best way of achieving growth. If the amount of weight on the bar was the most important factor, most bodybuilders would be training with heavy singles, but in reality very few do.

Another proof that heavy weights are not required to foster growth can be found in the occlusion studieswe have talked about. In one such study (T. Abe, T. Yasuda, T. Midorikawa, Y. Sato, C. F. Kearns, K.Inoue, K. Koizumi, N. Ishii), trainees who used an amazingly light 20% of 1RM increased strength andmuscle size more than those who used much higher resistances. In this particular study, the quadricepsCSA increased by a huge 7.7% within only two weeks using a mere 20% of 1RM! Fibril size, glycogen,GH and IGF1 are also significantly increased during training with occluded blood flow.


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Training with the heaviest possible weights at all times is not a necessity...

Is ACIT Not the Same As Constant-Tension Training?Absolutely not. In Constant-Tension Training, al that occurs is the elimination of the easier points on theRange of Motion (ROM). As you will recall, this is only one of the requirements, and the much easier one, of ACIT. The much more important point is learning how to keep the muscles under as much if notmore tension while lowering the weight as you do while lifting it. The reason this website is so long anddetailed is the fact that this second point requires a great deal of detailed explanation and practice to getright.

Now even after reading this, you may still be thinking that you have actually trained in this fashion because during some earlier workouts you really were taking the lowering phase of the exerciseseriously and used to squeeze the muscles on the way down. Allow me to tell you that in all likelihoodyou probably were not doing anything remotely similar to ACIT. As we have seen, one needs to reducethe weight by 30% or more in order to be able to apply ACIT. Since most trainees live by the amount of weight on the bar and are not willing to reduce the number of plates they are using under anycircumstances whatsoever, ACIT is not something that you can possibly stumble upon by chance. It may

be true that there perhaps were some individuals out there who may have tried something similar to


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ACIT. However, it is extremely unlikely that the individual would have continued to utilize that methodupon realizing that he could lift substantially less weight with it. So my question to you is this: When,during your earlier constant-tension experiments, you decided to get the most out of the eccentric

portion of your rep and made an attempt to squeeze the muscle while lowering the weight, were youforced to reduce the resistance that you were using by 30% or more? If you were not, what you haveexperimented with was not ACIT. In reality, what happens when people read about the Weider ConstantTension Principle is that they lower the weight a bit more slowly, maybe taking 4 seconds as opposed to3 seconds to go from top to bottom; thats about it. Since the Weider principles are so particular aboutthe amount of weight on the bar, practically nobody is willing to reduce the weight to be able to achieveACIT-like effects, which basically makes it impossible to try ACIT unless the person is consciouslydoing so.

How Do I Know If I am Performing ACIT Correctly?Bodybuilders are sometimes seen as stupid meatheads, and some of the pros who owe a great deal of their growth to incredibly massive doses of drugs do indeed fit that profile. However, contrary to thestereotype, most of the amateur lifters, including the chemically assisted ones, are very scientific in their thinking and wish everything in their routine to be measurable, objective and quantified. I am fullyaware that ACIT will be attacked by some as being too subjective and vague in its application. One may

ask how do I know if I am squeezing the muscle hard enough? or how can I ever be sure that I amactually occluding the flow of blood and increasing the build-up of waste products? As an individualwithout access to muscle biopsy techniques and other advanced equipment that would be found in anexpensive human performance lab, you cannot know for sure. If, for you, this constitutes a reason not touse ACIT, you may as well stop weight training altogether because all lifting techniques are plagued bysuch subjectivity. At the most fundamental level, all of your decisions such as how many sets to do,what rep range to use and which exercises to utilize are subjective. Can you now tell me that you haveactually performed an experiment that can be considered anywhere near scientific in order to determinehow many sets to do for your legs? Have you really compared 4 sets to 5 and 6 and 7 while giving eachset and rep scheme enough time and keeping every other constraint constant? For 99% of trainees theanswer is no, which is totally fine. You must simply accept the fact that you will have to make many

decisions based on how you feel regardless of whether you use ACIT or not.

As an aside, I also find it rather funny how the same people, who demand 100% scientific proof andaccuracy in bodybuilding, are willing to accept much more subjective orders without reservations when

performing other sports. A bodybuilder who also trains in boxing as a hobby will religiously practice jabs on the heavy bag for exactly 2 weeks before moving onto hooks and only then start to work on hisdefense just because the coach told him so. The fact is that, given the current technology, we have nochoice but to use a great deal of gut feel in any physical training and bodybuilding is no exception.Even the very concept of reaching positive failure in a lift can only be subjectively assessed as there areno practical machines or measures that I am aware of that will tell you whether you really have reachedfailure or not.

All of this being said, when using ACIT, a number of things should happen if you are applying themodel correctly. First, you should be able to reach positive failure with a weight that you wouldnormally be able to lift a much greater number of times. If, for example, it takes 80 lbs for 10 reps toreach failure on barbell curls, you should be able to attain failure with no more than 60 to 65 lbs (andlikely even less) when using ACIT. In addition, failure should not result from, or at least be associatedwith, the overtaxing of the nervous system. What this means is that the shaking, twitching andconvulsing that comes from forcing yourself to inch the weight up bit by bit during the last reps should

be absent when using ACIT. Failure should result from the inability to contract a given muscle under that load as opposed to being unable to muster the strength and courage via brute force. Most peopledefine the sensation at the end of an ACIT-style set as momentarily losing control over the muscles.


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The buildup of waste products and depletion of ATP reserves result in a state where you dont feel deadand believe that you could get out more reps but the muscles simply wont obey your commands. Theseare some of the experiences reported by trainees who have been using ACIT. You may have a slightlydifferent feel. What you should notice, however, is much less of a burnout and fatigue at the end of your workout. Upon reaching failure, you should feel surprisingly fresh and wonder if you didnt try hardenough. Do your best, best but do not worry that you didnt try hard enough. That fresh and cleanfeeling that is surprising given the amount of lifting you did is the magic and the very reason you areusing ACIT. This is a way of taxing the muscles without being trashed at the end of a workout.

Will the Intense Squeeze During ACIT Not Cause Extreme Blood Pressure?Resistance Training, Olympic Weightlifting and Bodybuilding all cause some increase in blood pressure(BP) no matter what training technique you use. The two keys to avoid an undue spike in BP are i) not touse extreme weights unless there is a very good reason to do so ii) not holding your breath. ACIT is justwhat the doctor ordered due to these exact reasons. First of all the weight is lower, which will provide agreat deal of BP relief. Secondly, ACIT will force you not to hold your breath but to take numerous"smaller" breaths along the path of motion, even if you dont make a conscious effort to do so. Here iswhy:

During a normal set, the weight is so heavy that it can be lifted up the desired number of times only byrelaxing during the lowering phase (at least relaxing compared to when you were lifting it). Since

breathing during heavy exertion is extremely difficult, this often forces you to hold your breath duringthe lifting phase and breathe in during the eccentric or lowering phase where you are a little bit morecomfortable. Of course this is not what the muscle magazines tell you to do; they advise you to exhaleduring the lift. However, walk into any gym and you will note that at least half of the people are holdingtheir breath while lifting. This is inevitable if maximizing the weight on the bar is your ultimate missionin life. When the weight is so high that you need 100% of your willpower and focus to be able to barelyget it up, it becomes almost impossible to also remember to exhale and use part of your focus to do so.Just as importantly, the stabilizing action of the val salva maneuver (i.e. holding your breath and"trapping it in the gut") is necessary when the weight on the bar is so high that you need to keep your

midsection stable. This is the reason lifters in the Olympic Games hold their breath to the dismay of their doctors.

Not only does ACIT reduce the BP by reducing the weight on the bar, it also forces you to learn to takeseveral short breaths as opposed to holding your breath during the lifting phase and taking a huge breathwhile lowering it. Since you will not be relaxed during the lowering phase as you would be withconventional lifting methods, you will not have the tendency to wait until that point to breathe. You areunder tension at all times, so you simply must learn to breathe throughout the whole exercise. Holdingyour breath simply makes no sense when using ACIT and you will see that this tendency, even if youhave had it for years, will disappear.

Can I Use Isometrics Instead of ACIT to Obtain the Same Benefits?Statics, or Isometrics, sound great on paper. Instead of lifting the weight up and down, you simply holdit at the (usually) hardest part of the ROM. You have great muscle fiber activation as well as high ratecoding right from the start. If the weight is high enough, you will also occlude the muscle. So far,great However, in practical application, there are many problems with statics. First of all, many

people simply do not have access to sufficient amount of weight. Our muscles are capable of holdingmuch larger weights than we can lift. So someone using 90 lbs dumbbells to do shrugs will likely not beable to find 150s in a regular gym if he wishes to perform static hold for his trapezius. Another relevantquestion becomes, how is the weight getting up and where will it drop to when it needs to comedown? If you wish to do static holds for your chest, you may end up needing 400 lb or more and


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probably two spotters to get the weight off the hooks and into position where you can statically hold it.You better hope that the spotters stay around until you are finished because the chances of you beingable to lift that weight back into position when you can no longer even hold it in place at the end of your set is zero. In exercises such as squats and shoulder presses the end of the exercise can be outrightdangerous, even with spotters.

To make things worse, statics also exercise many muscle groups unevenly. In squats for example, theglutes, vastus medialis, vastus lateris and rectus femoris are stressed at different rates as you are goingthrough a full ROM. When you pick one single point to hold the weight at, you will end up stressingsome of these muscles significantly but placing insufficient stress on others. You could of course

perform multiple static sets at many different points along the ROM, but this will likely become verytime consuming, tiring and defeat the purpose of statics.

I am in no way against statics or any other training method that works for you. However, in real lifemost trainees find statics to be unpractical. ACIT appears to be a much more realistic, safe, and usefulmethod for the majority of lifters while still providing the high utilization, rate coding and occlusion

benefits of static holds.

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