The clickbait workout - staying strong and looking good while only lifting 10-20 min per week
HIT / SSST workouts from Dr. Doug Mcguff's Body by Science
In a long career of weight training, which has included training and competing as a regionally competitive strength athlete, reading many books, and training under at least 5 different hypertrophy or strength programs, it’s refreshing to come across something new.
Reading Doug Mcguff’s Body by Science was a delightful surprise to me. It challenged a lot of the things I thought I knew, and this is naturally the most exciting and energizing place to ever be in. A sudden drop where you thought your footing was sure; a new vista in a direction you’d never thought to look before…
Because after all, a credible challenge and a new vista in an area you know really well is a sign of a huge opportunity. You have a chance to significantly broaden and deepen your understanding, if there’s substance to it.
So what’s the challenge?
Mcguff maintains that you can work out for only 10-15 minutes PER WEEK, and look good and maintain strength on a workload that light.
Obvious clickbait, right? Preposterous! Sell me some snake oil, next. Or at least some laudanum tincture or something, and speaking of which, why do all of our quacks and hucksters only sell stuff that’s not even any FUN any more?? I mean back in the day, at least you’d *enjoy* taking the laudanum infused snake oil or cocaine-and-wine-infused Coca Cola, and get high and maybe get some placebo effect going, but now it’s all just boring white pills and powders that do nothing. Truly a sign of our fallen times.
But I digress. So Mcguff is a doctor, is pretty built himself, and he supports his arguments pretty well. The bibliography is 100+ pages, and he generally has 20+ academic cites per chapter.
The other advice he proffers in non-workout areas aligns with my understanding of best practices, in terms of sleep, recovery, stress, nutrition, and nearly all supplements being worthless,1 which is an encouraging sign as well.
He loves getting deep into metabolic chains and biochemistry in the book too, which I always enjoy.
If you accept the following lemmas:
Muscle unit activation is the key to hypertrophy and strength
There aren’t a lot of incremental benefits to multiple additional sets after your first “hard set”2
You really only need to train the Big 5 or Big 33 for a complete workout
Then it might be worth giving it a try. It convinced me to at least try it.
So let’s get into it.
The core of the idea here is getting deep into your reserves and fully exhausting every motor unit you can.
You probably know that we all have slow twitch and fast twitch muscle fibers, and groupings of slow and fast fibers that are basically “intermediate twitch.”
The key to Mcguff’s workout is trying to exhaust ALL your fibers in a relevant exercise, in a single set. The way to do this is to progressively burn out your slow twitch fibers, and as you do this, more and more intermediate and fast twitch fibers are called in, until finally, as you fail, you have recruited all the motor units you can for that exercise’s muscles.
The way to achieve this is to go slow. SLOOOOWWWWW. Like 20 seconds per rep. 10 seconds concentric, 10 seconds eccentric. You need to go to failure, until you literally can’t lift or hold the bar any more. And it only takes 3-6 reps to get there, generally. You tune the weight you’re using so you reach the 3-6 reps.
You got that? It’s deceptively simple.
3-6 reps at 20 seconds per rep, until failure.
One set only, for each exercise. You do that for bench, then you move to squat, then you move to deadlift, and so on. Your total workout is like 10 minutes, and half that time is just moving and setting up the weights.
This is called “high intensity training” HIT, or sometimes SSST - “super slow strength training.”
The idea is you maximally exhaust every motor unit in the muscles you’re exercising, because you’re exhausting all the slow, intermediate, and fast twitch fibers progressively by doing it this way.
He says that in a normal workout, even one going to RPE 9 or exhaustion, you generally only truly exhaust about 1/3 of your muscle fibers, because slow twitch fibers require the longer stimulus to become exhausted (and this is true, according to my understanding and other sources like Renaissance Periodization).
Now the real question - does it WORK?
There is some evidence it works for untrained people. I can’t find any meta analyses, but you can find a few studies comparing traditional and super slow training, and super slow generally drives more strength gain - Westcott’s two studies are the best:
Westcott et al, Effects of regular and slow speed resistance training on muscle strength (2001):
Two studies were done with untrained men (N=65) and women (N=82), (mean age=53.6) who trained two to three times per week for eight to 10 weeks on a 13 exercise Nautilus circuit performing one set of each exercise. Participants exclusively trained using regular speed repetitions for 8 to 12 repetitions per set at 7 sec each (2 sec lifting, 1 sec pause, 4 sec lowering) or a Super Slow training protocol where they completed 4 to 6 repetitions per set at 14 sec each (10 sec lifting, 4 sec lowering).
In both studies, Super-Slow training resulted in about a 50% greater increase (p<0.001) in strength for both men and women than regular speed training. In Study 1, the Super-Slow training group showed a mean increase of 12.0 kg and the regular speed group showed an increase of 8.0 kg increase (p<0.001). In Study 2, the Super-Slow training group showed a 10.9 kg increase and the regular speed group showed an increase of 7.1 kg (p<0.001).
Mcguff spends some time building a theoretical case for it by looking first at HIIT studies, then pointing out that your body doesn’t know whether it’s cranking revolutions on an exercise bike or getting reps in on a leg press, muscular stimulation is muscular stimulation, and then looking at time trials where faster running paces reaching the same distance lead to more muscle and VO2max, and pointing out that the “training effort” of the muscles and energy systems are what drive that result.
“What imparts the benefit - the stimulus to which the body adapts, is an aggressive and momentary weakening of the muscle fibers.”
He has decent metabolic and biochemistry arguments too - broadly, you are trying to tap into the same mechanisms HIIT taps into that drive such strong results, like hormonal changes, epinephrine liberating huge amounts of glucose from muscle glycogen via amplification cascades, and post-exercise EPOC and insulin sensitivity.
Cadence
So exercising only once a week sounds low. What’s up with that? I think it’s mainly a matter of compliance and ease, and is a lower amount of stimulus than is optimal for strength and hypertrophy.
However, no less an authority than RP themselves tell us that pretty much any training volume from 2-4x a week is fine:
“Per-week volume is king when it comes to producing training results. Direct studies have shown that frequencies anywhere between 2-4 sessions per muscle group per week have nearly the same results when total volume is held constant. So, the answer to the question “should I train 2x, 3x, or 4x per week?” is: “It doesn’t seem to matter much.” The take home here is that within a range of training frequencies, so long as your total volume is appropriate and constant, any choice is roughly equivalent.”
Additionally, your body composition matters - those with more slow twitch fibers generally have higher volume training needs, and those with more fast twitch have lower volume training needs.
So it’s not prima facie crazy. What kind of results do they get?
“We have been able to double subjects’ strength in about 12-20 weeks”
This is actually a pretty good strength doubling time, comparable to Starting Strength or Stronglifts for a newbie. Granted, the *absolute* weights and strength are necessarily going to be much lower than a real program, because you’ve got to crank the weight down to be able to do 20 second reps.
“A brief and infrequent exercise protocol has been proved to go a long way toward improving long-term compliance with any exercise program.”
Ah, there’s the compliance. In terms of something that average people might adopt and benefit from? Once a week makes sense.
Throughout the book, he has a bee in his bonnet about recovery and people taking on dangerous workloads that overwhelm them. He even goes so far as to crank people even further back from “every 7 days,” and sometimes has them do half the Big 5 every 7 days, or even every 10 days.
I think this is largely paranoia, and maybe selection effects from the people he ends up recommending the program to or who get trained via his program. It may also be driven by him being an ER doctor who does overnight shifts regularly, so he himself probably leads a higher stress, lower sleep lifestyle that limits his recovery ability.
Certainly any actual athlete couldn’t get away with a once weekly practice or training regime. But his theory is that a lot of it is overkill - multiple sets per workout hasn’t been shown to drive a lot of incremental gain in newbies, and that’s true. Similarly, only training once a week will undoubtedly still allow a newbie to progress (and RP concurs).
Broadly, Mcguff is paranoid that doing HIT training more than once a week might be above his median adherent’s ability to recover, and is advocating a training regime like the one on the right in the picture above, to ensure that adequate recovery time is always allowed.
“Muscle growth, alas, is not an instant process; it doesn’t happen solely as a result of the application of the appropriate training stimulus.”
The other interesting ideological take he has, which also pushes towards a lower volume recommendation, is that we exercise to feel stronger and fitter, but if you’re exercising more than about once a week, you’re on a downswing more often than an upswing:
“During the first four to six days after a workout, you are technically below baseline. The ideal is to train in such a way that allows enough recovery to take place so that you are spending more time during a given week above baseline than below baseline.”
And indeed, rigorous training programs, like those espoused by Renaissance Periodization or elite strength coaches, totally rely on this, and brutally drive your fatigue ever-higher over your mesocycle via progressive overload and functional overreach right before your deload week.4
Criticisms
So basically, this works if the amount of stimulus you need to effectively progress - somewhere between MEV and MAV in the graph below - is covered by the HIT / SSST workout volume you adopt. This is probably true for newbies.
However, even for newbies, this is almost certainly non-optimal for strength and hypertrophy:
As you can see, MV (minimum volume) and even MEV (minimum effective volume) volumes are basically just holding the fort, and to progress you need enough stimulus to get closer to MAV (maximum adaptive volume) type volumes. And a specific Mcguff-style HIT / SSST callout from Rennaissance Periodization:
“For instance, in some circles, HIT - high intensity training - in its extreme forms has seen the recommendation of 1 set to failure per body part per week of training. This basically means pretty much everyone who’s been training for more than 2 years will actually regress on such a program, never mind gaining!”
So, here we have a rough heuristic - HIT / SSST might be fine if you’re a newbie up to about 2 years of experience, but beyond that it’s likely below MV. Given I’m not a newbie, I undoubtedly need to crank up the training per week cadence. But even doing that will be a major time and recovery savings.
But how well will it work for actually strong or ripped people?
This is what I’m curious about!
I became interested in trying HIT / SSST myself because I’ve been triathlon training, and am looking for a way to reduce my overall physical load to enhance recovery from all the cardio. I’d been weight training 2-3x a week (besides my daily morning pushups) to maintain muscle mass and strength, but have wanted to cut that back to give me more recovery headroom.
And indeed, quoth RP:
No sport category has MEVs as high as endurance training. In fact, if they are not attending to the recovery modalities of sleep, rest, nutrition, properly structured training, and so on, even intermediates in endurance training can risk their MEVs bumping up into their MRVs. For many high level intermediates in endurance sport, the key to advancement is getting in the habit of being very diligent about recovery modality application, so that their MRVs make room for overload application over their MEVs. For this reason, besides a focus on the overloading components of the training process, any coaching or consultation of higher level endurance athletes must be very focused on proper recovery modality application as well.
So what modifications am I making to Mcguff’s recommendations?
I think one set is fine for untrained people but am going to be doing 2-4 sets a week, because I think my muscles likely need more stimulus to maintain strength and size, and because this is still in line with RP’s recommendations.
I am going to train every 5 days instead of every 7-10 days - for largely the same reason. If you don’t maintain demand, you lose capacity. I may rotate and not do all the Big 5 every 5 days - probably squats on one 5, deadlift on another 5, but I’ll go by feel on that one.
That brings my workout times to around 20 minutes every 5 days, which is fine and still a significant reduction in time and physical load.
AND, ideally I’ll be enjoying these nice MV or MEV recovery needs now, versus the MAV / MRV ones:
I rigorously track every workout and my body weight, so we’ll see where I end up after another 2-3 months of HIT / SSST, when I pick up “real” resistance training again after my race. I’m curious to see how much strength and weight I’ll lose.
First impressions
So I’ve done 3 workouts so far using the HIT / SSST method. It is HARD. So fun. I’m used to hitting RPE 9+ being a little dangerous, because I always have some significant multiple of my body weight on the bar to hit an RPE 9 in a heavy double or single.
But now I’m able to hit RPE 9 with ridiculously light weights like 50-100kg!
I’ve definitely enjoyed some funny looks at the gym, and I can imagine why; they’re seeing this fairly big, ripped looking guy sweating, breathing hard, struggling and agonizing - with neck cords standing proud and jaw clenched - while moving some completely piffling weight super slowly. Also, for my gym buddies or the people that recognize me, they know I’m usually moving some heavy iron, and now I can barely lift a warm-up weight! But I honestly think that’s all part of the fun.
20 second pullups in particular are just devastating. I’m the type of guy who goes and whips out 25 quick pullups as just a regular “screen break” and I can baarrrreeely get four 20 second pullups in before I have to start kipping to get back up as I hit a sticking point (and then do full 10s downs until failure).
It’s too early to really tell any strength or weight loss, but I’ll be tracking it, and will circle back and update this post with results after another 2-3 months.
EDIT - post-mortem update as of mid March, 2025.
Alright, so I definitely lost both strength and muscle mass. Pre-triathlon, I’m usually rolling around at 85-86kg (“officially overweight with abs”). Back when I competed, I competed at the 82.5kg weight class, so I’ve been this weight for a long time, because I could cut down to competition weight pretty easily - during this journey overall, I lost probably 11-12kg over several months of training, ending with a significantly higher power-to-weight for running or biking, but also significantly less fat free mass (FFM). I really felt and benefited from every kg lost.
And my lifts! My word, how they went down. I haven’t been competitive in a while, I just try to stay in the thousand club. Squats from around a 4 plate max when starting to 275ish, deadlift from 470 or so to 350ish, and bench from a solid 275 triple (rotator cuff, I try not to max) to something like body weight. SSST was *nowhere near* enough volume or intensity to maintain mass and strength, even with doing 2-3 sets per session and multiple sessions a week.
This isn’t entirely SSST’s fault, of course - I knew I was burning more than I was taking in, and was actually targeting that for the power-to-weight bump. I did hope that I would preserve more muscle mass and strength - the RPE was genuinely 8-10 and it was enough I’d usually get DOMS the day or two after. But I think it’s just not really set up for preserving strength - you really have to discount the weight to be able to move at 10-20s reps, so of course if you go months without lifting heavy, it’s going to nuke you.
But, it’s fine overall. I’m doing RP-inspired hypertrophy training, and am up probably 7kg of the 12 so far, and my waist is still 2 inches smaller. I’m back up to roughly 3/4/2 plates across squat, deadlift, bench, and on a decent trajectory, I’ll probably be fully back in another month or two.
All in all, I think my final verdict would be that SSST is fine for newbies, but a bad idea for intermediate or higher lifters, because the strength penalty is pretty strong.
What would you get by reading the book yourself?
Lots of biochemistry and metabolic chains and theory
A fairly well supported argument on why HIT / SSST is a good idea for newbies interested in weight training, and a good idea in general
Lots of citations, studies, and a robust bibliography
Workout programs and their variations and more “theory and practice” to apply to actual HIT / SSST workouts, from Mcguff and his co-author
A take on obesity and weight loss very similar to my own
For an index of my other fitness posts, see here.
The only things that are worth it are creatine and / or supplemental protein powder if you don’t get enough in your diet.
“In addition, physiologists R. N. Carpinelli and R. M. Otto conducted a study out of Adelphi University that surveyed all of the known scientific literature concerning single-set versus multiple-set resistance training. They found that, on the whole, performing multiple sets brought absolutely no additional increase in results compared with single-set training. The literature came down overwhelmingly in favor of a single set of exercise as being sufficient; only two out of the forty-seven studies surveyed showed any benefit (and a marginal improvement at that) to be had from the performance of multiple sets.
The Big 3 is squat, deadlift, and bench. The Big 5 adds OHP and either pullups or Pendlay rows. McGuff actually advocates training with Nautilus machines that proxy the Big 5 in the book, but nah.
“Athletes seeking to improve in strength via functional overreaching have to overreach for at least a week but can do so for as many as two weeks. This means that a substantial portion of the training will take place after overreaching has begun. It’s normal for a strength athlete to feel that they are underperforming in terms of technique and speed when properly training for functional overreaching. Strength athletes will be carrying a considerable amount of fatigue compared to high technique or speed athletes.”
—RP’s Recovering from Training
I'd like to see you revisit this in a few months, to see how it went! I tried this but struggled - my goal is more enjoyment of the process rather than actual gains.
This is helpful, thanks; I'm probably the exact target market here: fairly healthy, with a good diet and lots of movement, but extremely time constrained and haven't been able to stick to a workout regimen. I don't mind the unpleasantness, but carving out the time consistently is the biggest challenge.