Mike Mentzer Science/training

Carrera

Feel free to skip this post, unless you're an athlete who has an interest in gaining weight for whatever reason, i.e. you've lost weight through illness e.t.c.
This has nothing to do with making you better on the bike.
What it does have to do with is an experiment I devised to test the theory of high intensity training with a view to gaining muscle mass.
To clarify further, there are 2 belief systems that are advocated for muscle gain:
(1) High sets, split routines and prolonged 3 hour sessions (20 sets per bodypart) in the gym, coupled with high protein diet.
(2) Brief, mega intense whole body workouts with just 3 sets a bodypart (or less) coupled with a lower protein diet.
The latter system advocated by a guy called Arthur Jones back in the sixties and followed by Mike Mentzer in the eighties has now been discredited.
Or has it? Here's how I trained for my experiment:
I opted for 2, explosive, high intensity weights session per week, each workout taking less than one hour and doing as few as 2 sets per bodypart. The net result is I gained 12 pounds of solid muscle, which is basically phenomenal for a seasoned sportsman.
I kind of wish I knew all about this 10 years ago.
For legs, I did one set of high-rep squats to positive failure (a very high pulse rate was produced). I followed this with another set of heavier squats also performed to failure.
For back I did only 4 sets (sometimes 3 sets).
For chest, I performed 3 sets of bench press, alternating between high and low reps all performed to failure.
For shoulders I did only 2 sets on average.
All the exercise I used were compound exercises with no islolation movements performed.
All of this I combined with cycle rides to maintain fitness.
The theory is that the shorter and more intensely you can train, the greater will be the explosive effect used to break down muscle tissue and by ceasing to perform set after set of low intensity repetitions, you draw far less on your recuperative reserves - which is good news for non steroid users.
In fact, Mentzer compared this to a graph: Imagine that a graph depicted all your movements throughout the day. Activities such as making a cup of coffee, picking up a trash bin, doing the shopping are all signified by small alterations of a needle on the graph.
However, when you perform high intensity training, the needle alternates from tiny movements to huge sways across the paper as demands are made on the body that eclipse all normal bodily demands. It's a bit like the big bang.
The mistake I made in the past was the belief the more I did, the better it would be.
In actual fact, the harder you can hit muscle tissue and the least time you can do it in, is a key factor to making huge gains without living in a gym.
The good news: You can gain huge amounts of muscle mass spending only a couple of hours a week in the gym.

__________________
"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

TiMan

After racing Cat 1 for 13 years I got into the weights. Tried it all, including Mentzer and Jones. In fact I became a Mentzer fanatic.

Facts....unless you are on drugs the "old" Mentzer method is FAR too intense and too frequent for the average guy. I am talking his late 70's early 80's stuff. At this time Mentzer trained 3-4 days a week on a split rountine doing 2-4 sets per body part all out with forced reps and negatives all the time. He also used pre-exhaust techniques much of the time. His old training did not work much better for the average drug free lifter than doing 20 sets per body part and training 6 days a week, like most of the other drug uses did. I was FAR too intense and too frequent for the drug free lifter.

Also, Jones's idea that you can hit each muscle group directly every 48 hours is TOTAL BS, unless you are on drugs. You can't even do it every 96 hours, especially the squat and deadlift, for any length of time...without drugs. Also, Jones recommended FAR too many isolation movements in his training.

Mentzer then went carzy for a while in the mid 80's through mid 90's. He used amphetamines more than before, and got amphetamine psychosis. He came out of it, thank God, and sharpened his training methodogy, but this time for the non steroid user and this was a big improvement. He decreased the number of isolation movements to a minimum and decreased training frequency.

One major problem still existed.....Mentzer STILL did not believe in training in cycles with planned lay offs...that is, after a planned lay-off coming back to the gym with about 90% of your previous bests for reps, and slowly working your way up to and past those previous bests with small and then TINY weight progression. Mentzer STILL hung on to the idea that you do not need to train in cycles, or cycle intensity and load, as long as you got ample recovery time between workouts. Unfortunately nobody can gain in a strickly linear fashion month after month without drugs.

Remember now, Mentzer was a very big steroid and GH user in his day, as they all were, and he was a genetic freak, so this affected his understanding on how to train the drug free lifter even to the day of his death. Granted his methodogy is FAR better than what is still pushed in bodybuilding today but it had, and has, it's flaws and most of which is centered around the insistance that training in cycles isn't necessary.

By the way, I know for a fact that Mentzer, and all the boys back then, were heavy steroid and GH users ( in "the day")....because I know Casey Viator, 70's bodybuilding Star and HIT believer, personally, and Casey was close to Mike and Ray. Casey told me that Mike would take up to 4 grams of Deca a week!!!!(nandrolone) as well as Primobolin acetate and growth, and pop D-bol like Candy. He also used amphetamines in training as early as 1977. The GH at that time was from cadavers.

As a side.....ever notice how huge Arnolds Jaw was and the huge gap between his teeth, BEFORE he got surgery to correct both about 15 years ago. Ever take a good look at 70 and early 80's star Tom Platz's brow and jaw? and there were (and are) many others with bad GH induced facial bone growth....Luckily Mike and Ray didn't get any facial bone growth from their GH use.

Bro if you really want to know how to train with weights, drug free, then read all you can of Stuart McRobert. Get his books as they are second to know and honestly make Mentzers books look incomplete. The advice in his books is better for the average hard gaining drug free lifter than what Mentzer advocated even in his last days. Stuart is about 50 years old and was also once a Mentzer fanatic like I was.

As far as your success in training is concerned....it sounds far more like Stuart McRobert style "hard gainers" training than Modern Mentzer training to me. Mentzer quote>"What I did was continue to methodically reduce the volume and frequency of my clients' training over a period of time until finally I got it down to two to four sets per workout once every four to seven-sometimes 10 or even 14-days...."

You will continue to get good gains with your workouts IF you focus 99% of the big basic compound movements, cut back to training twice a week but each muscle group directly only once every 6-7 days, micro load, that is increase weights used in TINY increments as the going gets tough(get some tiny plates), and train in cycles in which you take a lay off of 10 days after a few weeks of not being able to increase weights used in most of your exercises even by tiny amounts(ie: 1 pound/week in the bench).

www.hardgainer.com

Felt_Rider

Stuart McRobert is good and also the late Dr. Mel Siff is another to consider for research.

Carrera

I seem to have come up with a way of modifying what Mike taught for myself. I'm not doing any forced reps or negatives, for example.
What has hit home is what I call "the big bang theory".
The way I do it now is like this: I'll start with legs and warm up before doing my first mega intensity set. The first one is the one that will hurt as it takes me into endurance which is something Mike never bothered with (although I heard Tom Platz did).
I put a fairly light weight on the bar in the 200 pounds plus range and then start doing deep squats. However, I'll go all the way to failure so that by the time I hit 15 reI ps I'm suffering big time with the pulse starting to hammer away. Then it's pain barrier time and you just keep driving out the reps.
After this first set, people joke they can hear the gasps and deep breaths downstairs and I'd love to take my pulse at this stage if I was capable of doing so.
For the second set, I increase the weight and leave endurance aside. My next goal is around 10 - 12 reps to hit the deeper fibres and I try to go to virtual collapso one more time.
I've been known to throw up at this point but, hell, it's meant to be hard.
Thus ends the leg routine. Total time - 12 minutes at most.
For chest, it's not so hard and I figure squatting flat out has already hit my whole body to a certain degree. For chest, I just warm up and then hammer out sets to failure in both rep ranges, high and low.
Then I do the same for the rest of my body.
What stunned me, though, was the weight I gained. I mean, seriously, I used to do up to 17 sets for chest and split routines and everything and I'd be lucky to gain one pound of muscle.
However, I just gained 12 pounds and that was getting on the scales this morning on an empty stomach!!
I suppose what brought this home to me was the difference between cycling and weight-training. One thing Mike used to point out was that muscle growth isn't attained by endurance training but he also pointed out that once you did your weight sessions correctly, you could use all the spare time left to do aerobics and study.
So, when I wish to train my cardovascular system, I cycle. I do this a couple of days after a heavy weights session. I also find the cycling sessions to be beneficial in as much as they don't destroy muscle tissue but, on the contrary, you get a steady increase in pulse over, say, 3 hours and I also find the cycling helps get rid of lactic acid.

__________________
"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

Carrera

I don't know where Mike got this once in every 14 days stuff from that he espoused just before his death. For me that would cause way too much muscle soreness and fatigue.
I find maybe 4 days in between sessions seems about right.
Also one thing I found that is truly odd is that this routine hasn't particularly done much for my strength. I used to bench press far more than I do now but I've never put mass on as I'm doing at present.
The truth is, I don't even think about weight on the bar. When I bench press, I like to take a wider grip and go till the pec muscles burn on the last rep and stretch.
I'm not doing anything for my arms but the other day a guy in a bar asked me what the heck I'd been doing to my forearms as they're kind of expanding.
I'm also beginning to wonder if there's a link between my tendency to lay off weights for a while and cycle far more because when I go back to the weights and train as hard as I do at present, I just seem to blow up without drugs, supplements or any real large intake of protein.

__________________
"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

TiMan

Carrera,

Single set 20 rep squats done deep and all out.....with the last 10 taking many deep breaths between reps in "rest pause" fashion to complete, have been around since the late great Peary Rader over 70 years ago. One such set is all you need to develope a ton of STRENGTH and MASS not only in your legs but all over your body in the "spill over" metabolic effect that squats have. I built up to well over 300 pounds for 20 full reps and my legs not only were very strong but huge. IF you can do another set of ANY quad work after this then you have not worked hard enough on these squats.
Alternatively you can do 2-3 hard sets of 10-15 reps in the squats.
I once put a fellow through 3 all out balls to the walls set of Squats(no forced reps) and he was not only done for legs but he was done PERIOD...and he used to do 15 sets for quads HA!

Add to this the Romanian Deadlift, often called stiff leg deadlifts(Learn how to do them), toe presses and a handful of basic compound upper body exercises and you have a very complete workout.

It is often best to divide the workout in two, WITHOUT adding extra exercises, and rotating the two workouts ie: Lower body/upper body. After doing 2 sets of all out squats for 10-15 reps, followed by a set of 12-15 in the Romaniam deadlift, and a few tough sets of toe presses, it is hard to move let alone start on upper body work. This has you in the gym once every third day and hitting each muscle group directly once every 6 days max. In fact it is often better to be in the gym twice in a 7 day period and hitting each musce group directly only once every 7 days(especially the squat and any form of deads)

Bro, hitting each muscle group every 4th day is too much after the initial few months of hard training....and ESPECIALLY with Squats and deads.

I am glad that you do no forced reps or negatives as these are overkill for the vast majority. I fact I often see guys doing forced reps when they could have done a couple more reps on their own!!! Okay, the odd forced rep late in a training cycle when you are trying to squeeze out a few more weeks of weight increases on the bar, is fine but be careful.

In your training focus on weight progression on the bars in small, and then as the going gets tough, tiny increments weekly or at least every other week. This "micro loading" is KEY for the drug free trainee and another thing than Mentzer neglected to talk about and use much.
Keep a cycle going for as long as you are seeing weight progression on most of the bars/machines. A 2 pound gain per weekor two on the squat and a 1 pound gain per week on the bench add up to a lot over a 4-6 month period.
When you cannot add even tiny amounts for more than three weeks in a orw then it is time to take a lay off for about 10 days....then come back with about 90% of your previous bests and SLOWLY work back up to and past your previous bests....again ANOTHER thing Mentzer didn't talk about because he didn't believe in cycling effort/intensity in any way.


Seriously>>>get "Beyond Braun" by Stuart McRoberts. It is BY FAR the best book for natural and genetically typical trainees(95% of us). The book will blow your mind bro!

http://www.hardgainer.com/beyondbrawn.html

http://www.fractionalplates.com/cgi...&catalogno=1.21

Carrera

"In fact I often see guys doing forced reps when they could have done a couple more reps on their own!!! "

I've seen guys do forced reps on the very first rep. The guy working has more weight on the bench press than he can lift and the guy behind him is doing upright rows.

"Bro, hitting each muscle group every 4th day is too much after the initial few months of hard training....and ESPECIALLY with Squats and deads."

It's best to alternate the reps range to get round this. When in doubt, extend the reps so the cardio gets more of the work then follow up another day with less reps and higher weight.

__________________
"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

Doctor Morbius

Ahhhhh! Here you are, Carrera. I saw this in the training forum earlier and didn't realize that the thread had been moved.

Anyway, for my $ 0.02 let me just state that I am not in the Jones, Mentzer, HIT camp. Far from it in fact. That by no means implies that I am into the 70's styled 20 sets per body part volume training.

For those who are interested in reading about this topic, the following link represents many arguments for HIT vs non-HIT styled training...
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=634720

I was keeping up with it until about 2 months ago when my computer started having problems. I was going to get involved with the discussion, but there isn't anything I could contribute beyond the viewpoints of Madcow2, Defiant1, All Pro, and KethNaab. The posters I do not agree with are WayneLucky & Kingfish from the HIT camp.

Carrera

Welcome to the Soapbox, Doc. This is where we all fall out about politics (and Madonna e.t.c. )
Yes, maybe Ric moved it in case people got the wrong idea and started heavy duty training while trying to ride a century - not a good idea so maybe it's best moved elsewhere. No worries.
Seriously, I had a major rethink as I've never made gains as significant as this before. 12 pounds of muscle over a few short weeks! My suspicion is the periodisation work I've done cycling and then going back into weights at a high level of intensity may be a factor. I feel this kind of training has to be periodised otherwise you could burn out.
I find that going to positive failure on high rep ranges and following this with another heavier low rep set also has a very positive effect.
I feel in the mood for some experimentation. I tried heavy duty training in the past but somehow I didn't feel too comfortable with the forced reps or heavy weights. Now I'm changing some of the principles to suit my own needs and it's working well.
In fact, I'm not doing heavy weights at present but am trying to create explosive intensity to trigger results.

__________________
"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

Carrera

Tom Platz came pretty close to Mentzer heavy duty but also altered it to suit his own needs. One of Tom's inventions was to keep lifting a weight till you couldn't even move it one inch.
My own research seems to be leading me into periodisation, alternating rep levels when working to positive failure and then, more especially, working the whole body and forgetting the old split routines.
Let me say, Sergio Oliva spoke out in favour of this kind of stuff when he was trained by Arthur Jones although Sergio swore by the machines (nautilus).

__________________
"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

TiMan

You cannot get around it bro...IF you are training hard. High rep squats are tougher than low rep squats IF you are going to failure. If you are not going to failure and simply taking an easy high rep day then your suggestion might work.

If training hard the average man simply cannot get gains on a consistant basis working hard of the squat and deadlift more often than once every 6 days or so. Other "smaller" exercises like Benches for example MIGHT see gains working every 4th day but evetry 5-6 days would be better.
Many guys cannot see good gains for long working out each muscle group more frequently than once every 7th day.

Doctor Morbius

Sergio and many others all swore by the training methods of who was sponsoring them at the time. You can't really go by what is in the muscle mags. Most of it is false.

Seriously, check out that thread I linked earlier. Lots of good info in there. I'm a proponent of ...

1) not training to failure (Hatfield, Poliquin, Staley & many many others)
2) having easy, medium and hard days (Hatfield's periodized micro cycle)
3) changing overall routine every 3 to 6 workouts depending on experience (Poliquin)
4) 9 hours of solid sleep per night
5) sound nutrition including dietary supplementation (vitamins, creatine, ZMA)
6) avoiding catabolic activities if you want to maximize gains
7) varying tempo (with the exception of superslow. Avoid superslow.)
8) using a routine that is commensurate with one's level of development. A beginner or someone that has had a long layoff has no business doing a 6 day per week double split routine.


P.S. Ellington Darden is another HIT advocate who's training methods are pretty wacky.

TiMan

Platz's training wasn't even close to Mentzer bro. Mentzer liked Platz as a person and admired how hard Platz would work BUT Platz would do MANY sets more per body part than Mentzer. He also worked out 6 days a week. He could do this because of genetics and drug use. You can train almost any way you like IF you use enough juice.

Funny though...I have Platz's course booklets from 1980. In it he recommends a much more sane training methodology for all but the pro....this is a traditonal 4 day split working on the basic compound movement swith few "working" sets.

Platz was/is a smart guy and he damn well knows that you cannot train like he once did and most pro's do know without tons of juice.....shit bro now they even take INSULIN after working out and after a big feed!!!

By the way by casual Casey Viator, former 70's and early 80's BIG pro and Mentzer traing partner, trains in HIT fashion down in Florida.
He never forgot his Jones days. He lets many of his clients train in a more conventional way ie: higher sets and more days in the gym, because they will not train HIT because it's too tough.

Doctor Morbius

Yeah, Platz was the man. I realized that bodybuilding contests were rigged when he didn't win the 1981 Olympia hands down. Although Franco was probably in the best shape of his life at the time he still didn't compare to Platz. Franco also had a smallish leg from his accident in the WSM contest and a bitch tit. He never should have won. Doubtful he was even top 5 material.

Something for all reading this thread to keep in mind, back in the 70's when 20 sets per bodypart was the popular method, they often did pyramid sets. Although they did a total of 20 sets, they often did 4 exercises of 5 sets each exercise where the first 2 to 3 sets for each exercise were more of a warmup. That would reduce the total "work sets" to between 8 to 12.

Also during the off-season many bodybuilders would only do 10 to 12 sets per bodypart until contest time was getting close and they were juicing. I believe that's what TiMan is alluding to in Platz' more sane approach in his course booklet.


P.S. I also believe much of Mentzer's physique was due to juicing just like everyone else's at the time. Mentzer had a reputation for being out of shape much of the time.