Super-Slow Strength Training vs HIIT: A Clearer Comparison
Super-slow strength training and HIIT are not on the same spectrum. High Intensity Training (HIT) - a slow, controlled, one-to-one strength protocol, distinct from HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) - is the method behind our floor. HIIT is a cardiorespiratory protocol built on short, hard work bouts. They share a word, a marketing line about brevity, and almost nothing else. This article sets the two side by side.
The short answer
HIT and HIIT are answering different questions of the body. HIT loads a muscle under continuous slow tension to controlled failure on a single set, with days of recovery between sessions. HIIT alternates short, maximal-effort work bouts with rest to drive the heart, lungs and mitochondrial machinery. One is a strength stimulus. The other is a cardiorespiratory stimulus. Both are well-supported. They are not in competition because they are not on the same scale.
What super-slow strength training (HIT) actually is
The protocol was popularised in the 1970s by Arthur Jones, the inventor of Nautilus machines. The super-slow cadence - ten seconds to lift, ten seconds to lower - was formalised in the early 1980s by Ken Hutchins, originally during osteoporosis research at the University of Florida funded by Nautilus. The lineage runs from Jones, through Hutchins, into Europe via Werner Kieser, who founded Kieser Training in Zurich in 1967 and became the European licensee for MedX, Jones's successor equipment. Yoram is Kieser-trained. That through-line is the practical history of the floor.
The mechanics are simple. Each repetition takes ten seconds up and ten seconds down, with no momentum and no pause. The set runs to controlled muscular failure, usually 90 to 120 seconds. A muscle held under continuous tension that long recruits its slow-twitch, intermediate and fast-twitch fibres in sequence; that is the stimulus. One set per exercise, six to eight exercises, one 45-minute session a week. Recovery happens between visits. The full method is on our approach .
What HIT targets is muscular force, joint integrity, and the load bone needs to stay strong. Heart rate rises during a session - work is work - but cardiorespiratory adaptation is a by-product, not the aim.
What HIIT actually is
HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) has a much shorter research history. The citable origin is Izumi Tabata's 1996 study at Japan's National Institute of Fitness and Sports: 20 seconds of work at around 170% of VO2max followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated for seven or eight bouts, five days a week for six weeks, on a cycle ergometer. Reported outcomes were anaerobic capacity up 28% and VO2max up 7 ml/kg/min. Martin Gibala and colleagues at McMaster University extended that work from the 2000s onward, showing short interval protocols - for example, three 20-second all-out cycle sprints in a session - can drive cardiometabolic adaptations comparable to much longer moderate-intensity endurance work.
The mechanics are short, repeated, maximal-effort work bouts (typically 20 to 60 seconds), alternated with rest, several days a week. The target adaptation is in the heart, lungs and mitochondria. HIIT does what it does well in the populations it is studied in.
Where the confusion comes from
Two letters, mostly. "HIIT" is often written and pronounced as "HIT", so the terms read as interchangeable in lay coverage. Both market themselves on brevity and intensity, which adds to the blur. The boom in HIIT-branded boutique studios in the 2010s flooded the search landscape after HIT had largely faded from mainstream coverage, so a reader typing either acronym tends to land in HIIT material first.
Prospective clients sometimes arrive expecting our floor to be the cardio version. It is not. The plainer explainer for that question is at what is HIT, not HIIT .
“HIIT trains how quickly your heart and lungs recover. HIT trains how much controlled force a muscle can produce, taken to failure, once. They share a word and almost nothing else.”
Yoram Sher · Director and head coach
Why we run HIT and not HIIT
Our floor is built for Personal Strength Training, one to one, by appointment, on MedX, Nautilus and Cybex machines designed to load specific muscles in a controlled range. The equipment on the floor is the practical reason the protocol works as it does. The MedX Core Lumbar Strength machine restrains the pelvis so the lumbar muscles cannot be substituted for by the glutes or hamstrings. That kind of isolation is not something a sprint cycle or a circuit class is built to do.
The clients who come here are typically older, often training around a back history, joint issues, osteoporosis or recovery from surgery. HIIT-style ballistic work - sprint cycling, plyometrics, all-out shuttle work - carries impact and momentum that HIT explicitly removes. That is not a claim that HIIT is dangerous; it is well-supported research with real benefits for the population it is studied in. The narrower claim is that HIIT is harder to scale to a body with a history without specialist supervision and equipment. HIT, on machines built for the lumbar spine and hips, is the easier setting to make safe. The sibling articles is strength training safe with back pain and is weight training safe with osteoporosis cover that ground in detail.
What choosing between them really means
In practice, most readers do not need to choose.
If you are time-poor and you want to build muscle and bone while protecting a back, HIT is the more obvious answer. One 45-minute session a week, supervised, on equipment built for the load.
If you are time-poor and you want to drive cardiorespiratory fitness in a body with no major structural concerns, HIIT is a sensible answer. The research is solid; find a coach who can scale it to you.
If you are training for life across your sixties, seventies and eighties, most people do best with weekly strength work plus regular low-impact aerobic work of their own choosing - walking, cycling, swimming, or, where it suits the body, supervised intervals. The two stimuli stack. Many of our clients combine weekly sessions here with their own cardiovascular work outside.
Next step
If you want to see the floor and understand what super-slow strength training feels like in practice, a forty-minute introduction is a conversation about your history, a walk of the studio, and a single calibration set on the MedX, set well below your capacity. By appointment, in East Finchley, North London (N2). Call 07931 345 533 or get in touch .