The article is devoted to the process of testing cylindrical specimens for compression in order to study the stress-strain curves of a material in the hot state. The study focuses on studying the causes of intensive localization of deformation in the so-called shear bands. This effect is typical for a number of materials. The titanium-based alloys are of greatest interest of them. It was found that the localization of deformation can be associated with the effect of deformation heating, and inhomogeneity of deformation can be observed even if the specimen material shows the strong hardening effect during the whole test.