SIX-MINUTE HIT
John Little’s High Intensity Resistance Training
In this course, John Little, co-author of the pioneering book, Body by Science, presents an alternative version of High Intensity Resistance Training, one that’s based on ‘proper’ exercise, without the hype, without the nonsense, just focused on getting you results. The course expands on John’s previous work, and his latest book The Time-Saver’s Workout.
31
Lessons
Organized into 9 modules, totaling over 4 hours of content
45
Videos
Including lectures and demonstrations with accompanying notes
5
Key exercise protocols
Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced protocols
12
Month training program
Exclusive, month by month, fully structured progression blueprint
The core ideas behind John Little’s alternative HIT
MINIMAL EXERCISE
For John, time is probably the most precious commodity you have in life and once it’s gone, you cannot get it back. So, despite being in the business of exercise and fitness, he is not interested in you spending any more time in the gym than you need to, in order to stay fit and healthy.
His work, over the years, has focused on this idea: what’s the minimum amount of exercise someone needs to do and still reap all the benefits of productive exercise? Through research, application, testing and re-testing over decades, he has found out that a six-minute workout, performed very intensely, very infrequently, works the best by far, for most people.
That’s the message he wants to impart to his clients, readers of his latest book The Time-Saver’s Workout and everybody out there with a full life; spend your time doing the things you enjoy, not exercising!
HIGH INTENSITY WITHOUT THE WEAR AND TEAR
Another thing that’s of major importance for John is wear and tear. Every movement we make requires opening and closing our joints. The more we use our joints to perform an activity, the more wear and tear we experience, which as we age, can lead to musculoskeletal issues.
So, John was interested in minimising this negative side-effect of exercise, while making sure his clients still get to optimise their physiology. That’s where the high intensity protocols he has developed come into play.
Because for exercise to be safe over the long term, aka minimal wear and tear, there needed to be fewer openings and closings of the joints in every workout, but for exercise to be productive, aka to stimulate adaptive results in the body, those few repetitions needed to be very intense.
ONCE-A-WEEK TRAINING
With that being said, John Little believes strongly that once-a-week training is the optimal frequency for most people. Does he train anyone two or three times a week? Categorically, no!
This is based on key findings from his work at Nautilus North, showing that for most people the full recovery and positive adaptation cycle has only completed its course six days after a workout. We know that to achieve maximum hypertrophy and strength gains, we need to get adequate recovery time post-workout, and John has a figure for that recovery time, based on research.
REALIZE YOUR GENETIC POTENTIAL
In his ultimate refinement of the ‘traditional HIT protocol’, John Little has honed and harnessed five key protocols, all presented in the course, that will help you realise your genetic potential, while simultaneously minimizing the risk of injury.
It’s almost impossible to suppress your body's genetic potential, once it has been exposed to the stimuli these specific protocols provide. So, if you haven’t yet reached or even figured out what your genetic limit is, and what this means for the size of your muscles, your strength and the functioning of your entire physiology, then this course is a great opportunity to do so now.
CONSERVATION OF ENERGY PHENOMENON (CEP)
This is John Little’s latest ground-breaking discovery. Very simply put, when we’ve been doing an activity consistently over a period of time, the body learns to accomplish whatever we are asking it to accomplish with fewer muscle fibers, meaning that your workouts get less effective at stimulating strength and hypertrophy gains. This course shows you how to bypass and avoid this phenomenon, to keep your training effective and result-producing.
30 YEARS OF RESEARCH
John Little has been involved in the fitness industry for a long time, and as you’ll discover, by taking the Six-Minute HIT course or reading his books, he is someone, who tells it as it is. No hype, no nonsense, just the facts.
John’s course is the result of 30 years of solid research, studying exercise science and medical literature, conducting experiments at Nautilus North, learning from both his successes and mistakes, refining existing protocols and creating new ones, learning from and exchanging views with people like Mike Mentzer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brandon Lee, Jackie Chan, Doug McGuff, and many others.
Optimal volume
6-12 minutes
1 time per week
Focus on intensity and safety
No hype, no nonsense, just results
This course is for you if:
You are a HIT enthusiast or weight trainer, who considers yourself to be intermediate to advanced and need to take your training to the next level.
You are new to proper strength training. This course has you covered too with an accelerated three month introductory onboarding routine that can save you years of misdirected effort.
You are a HIT oriented personal trainer who wants to offer an alternative training experience to your clients, an optimized version of HIT, based on John Little's 30 years of research.
You want to build muscle, gain strength and enhance your metabolic and cardiovascular fitness.
You want to train yourself and don't have time or don't enjoy exercising, yet understand the importance of getting fit.
You've been worn down, fatigued, overtrained or injured in the past by high-volume training approaches.
You've read Body by Science, The Time Saver's Workout or Mike Mentzer's work and you think you are doing it correctly, but you are not getting the results you want, or you are unsure if you are "doing it right". In this course John Little will show you exactly how to train to get optimal results.
You play a sport, are a martial artist or have a very active lifestyle and need a form of strength training that fits in with your busy training schedule and still produces quantifiable results.
The course expands on John Little's latest book, the Time-Saver's Workout.
What you will learn
This value-packed Six-MInute HIT course is $129 and will teach you:
1 How the fitness industry operates and often exploits insecurity and hope
2 How our innate attitudes, hardwired in our DNA, influence our behaviour towards exercise and food
3 Why resistance training is great not only for strength, but also cardio
4 Why low/moderate intensity and long duration activities are problematic, and can even be damaging
5 What the real value of exercise is: a macro perspective on physiology, psychology and what matters in life
6 What Conservation of Energy Phenomenon (CEP) is and what it means for your training
7 Which exercises to use and exactly how to perform them to drive results, including key elements such as technique, tempo, repetitions, Time Under Load, muscular failure, frequency, etc.
8 A 12-month blueprint of structured routines for you to follow, detailing exactly what to do and when, to ensure results and your continued progress. Over the course of the year you will integrate all of the key protocols presented in the course. Take the guesswork out of your training today.
9 How to go free form. John teaches you how to seamlessly transition from following the 12-month blueprint to training "free form" for all your future workouts.
10 Learnings from John Little’s unconventional Fat Loss study and other experiments at Nautilus North.
Course Overview
Here is a brief description of the course structure:
In the first module of the course, John Little sets his views of the fitness industry and clearly distinguishes between fitness fads and what, from a scientific or biological perspective, is ‘proper exercise’.
He also dispels common misconceptions – for example that resistance training is only good for strength but not cardio – and seeks to create a common understanding with you around what working out hard means, and why his approach is the safest and most time-efficient way of exercising.
Next, he explains that it’s important to understand the ‘eat more calories, exercise less intensely’ instinct, because it’s this exact attitude, hardwired in our DNA, that we need to overcome to engage in high energy muscular activity and successful fat loss programs.
John also encourages course students to embrace their individual genetics, understand that there is a genetic limit to how much they can change their bodies and to stop pedestalizing and attempting to replicate the exercise routines of extraordinary athletes and people with exceptional genetic makeup.
In this module, John Little gives a different perspective on the importance of exercise. A little hint? It’s not just the myriad physiological benefits, it’s not just the building up of your confidence and self-esteem, it’s also being fit for life and embarking on a life-long journey of self-knowledge and acceptance. He makes explicit the real value of exercise and its results in the heirarchy of human values.
This is John Little’s latest ground-breaking discovery. Very simply put, when you’ve been doing an activity consistently over a period of time, the body learns to accomplish whatever we are asking it to accomplish with less muscle fiber, meaning that workouts get less effective at stimulating strength and hypertrophy results. More details about how CEP works, what it means for your training, when it kicks in, how to know that CEP has kicked in and what you can do about it, in the course!
Having gone through the key theoretical concepts that John Little believes are essential to your success, it’s time to learn more about and importantly see in action John Little's five key exercise protocols.
1. The beginners’ protocol
2. The intermediates’ 6-minute protocol
3. Advanced: Max Pyramid protocol
4. Advanced: Max Contraction protocol
5. Advanced: One and Done protocol
It’s important to note that some of the exercise programs can take longer than six minutes, e.g. the beginner’s workout takes about 12 minutes, but the idea is that as you progress and get better at performing the exercises, with the right intensity, you will decrease the time you need to be spending exercising.
In this module John also outlines a 12 month training blueprint providing you with the structure and detail for a years worth of workouts. All you need do is follow this plan to letter to get the most out of this course.
Clear guidance on exercise selection and variety, protocol application and variation to avoid CEP, volume control and baseline workout intermissions to verify progress, are all masterfully implimented. As the 12 month cycle reaches its culmination workouts become increasingly "free form" in design, providing a bridge to your own ability to confidently create your own genuinely effective free form workouts.
Next, John outlines learnings from various experiments at his facility, Nautilus North. These learnings have become core principles that he uses in training himself and his clients. You will learn things like:
- how once a week training provides the ideal frequency
- the real reason training to muscular failure is necessary
- what tempo of movement is right for you
- how isolation exercises are valuable when combined with the right protocol at the right time
- which two things are important to track after every workout
This module is dedicated to John Little’s fascinating, fat loss study at Nautilus North. It was a 10-week intense study, where clients followed nutrition and exercise programs and took advanced body composition measurements daily. Besides underlining the effectiveness of a simple, healthy approach to nutrition and calorie restriction, this study formed the basis for the once-a-week, minimal exercise recommendation that John Little uses today.
In the final module of the course, John addresses the common misconception that to support your workouts and build muscle you need to be consuming special supplements and extra protein. Supplement manufacturer's are great at leveraging bate and hook tactics to get you to buy their products. John's stance is unambiguous and is presented with an unyielding honesty that will save you wasting your well earned cash on "magic beans".
At the end of the course you will have the opportunity to have a video-call consultation with Simon Shawcross and the option to submit a video of your own workouts for personalized feedback. If you do submit a video, you will be eligible to receive a HITuni Certificate of Completion.
