High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way

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Grip a dip station about shoulder-width apart, and climb or jump to get into the starting position. That rep is very special, that rep is very different. There’s something special going on inside your body when that happens.”– Mike Mentzer When you can’t lift the weight anymore by yourself, your training partner helps you lift 3-4 more reps until complete muscle failure. Alternative exercise: shrugs. As they do not work your hamstrings like the deadlift, you should also add a set of leg curls if you substitute the deadlift with shrugs. Day Two: Legs, Calves, and Abs Taking each set to the point where you cannot complete one more repetition, no matter what, is the only way to maximize muscle growth fully. Training to failure forces your muscles to adapt to the stress by growing bigger and stronger. The last rep of each set should be almost impossible to complete. Pre-Exhaustion

If this was a true test of Mike Mentzer’s HIT training than why did this study start out with training 3 days a week instead of one. The study was suppose to be training one day a week not 3. The study did not mention what exercises were being done. Were the same ones being done each workout for 3 times in a week. That right there is over training. A muscle does not need to be trained more than once in a 7 day period. The conclusion was that age does make a difference. Dam, it took 16 weeks for you to figure that one out. Gosh, how stupid can one be. You changed the rules if there really were any in this study to your own to fit your narrative that one workout per week was not effective in gaining both size and strength. A proper training protocol should have been about 3 different exercise of one set each in a high intensity method of taking each set to failure once every 7 days. After he retired, Mentzer prescribed increasingly lower volume—eventually as few as only one or two all-out sets per body part every two weeks! This means a 5-rep set would take nearly one full minute. This ALSO means a 5-rep set, which is classically considered a “strength rep range” clearly has a time under tension (TUT) duration more in line with a muscle-building stimulus. As you become bigger and stronger, your body requires more rest to recover from your workouts. If you don’t see any progress for two weeks, take a week off from training and let your body recuperate.His methodology states that when trained to complete failure, muscles require substantial recovery time to repair and grow. Heavy Duty High-Intensity Training Methods After this part fails, your training partner needs to help you move the weight so you can perform the negative portion of the lift.

Mentzer was equal parts intense and patient. He often preached the idea of the siege mentality: a fully engaged mindset to do battle in the gym. It was his belief that humans evolved via struggle and combat, and the gym became the modern arena for people to struggle and ultimately grow. This is a detailed walkthrough of each training day in Mike Mentzer’s training routine, with tips on maximizing the exercises’ effectiveness. A high-intensity training program like Mike Mentzer’s workout routine requires a good diet to support it.

Mike Mentzer ‘once a week’ training philosophy

For example, you do a set of the incline dumbbell fly immediately before a set of bench presses. This ensures your pecs are already pre-fatigued and won’t be limited by your triceps giving out. Peak Contraction Training The interesting thing is that the only lifting tip in the book did help me improve my bench press immediately. So there’s that. High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way Mentzer believed the majority of lifters overtrained and under-recovered, limiting muscle growth. When coupled with low overall training volume and comparatively infrequent workouts, he preached that any exercise carried beyond the “minimum effective dose” is wasteful and counterproductive. The leg press offers the advantage of handling heavier weights when compared to squats. However, remember that your primary goal isn’t simply to lift the maximum weight possible for the sake of it. Rather, it’s to sculpt larger leg muscles. It means that you literally couldn’t do another repetition if there was a gun to your head and the bad guy was about to pull the trigger.

A prime example is the leg extension, where your quadriceps is fully contracted against the weight in the top position. Forced Repetitions You train every other day, taking a rest day after each workout. After each four-day training cycle, take two days off from training to allow your body to recover fully. He focused on one or two total work sets per exercise with two workouts per week separated by at least 48 hours. A classic three-workout rotation could be: In the late 1980s, Mentzer returned to training bodybuilders and writing for Iron Man magazine and spent much of the 1990s regaining his stature in the bodybuilding industry. Mentzer had met Dorian Yates in the 1980s and made an impression on Dorian's bodybuilding career. Years later, when Yates won Joe Weider's "Mr. Olympia", he credited Mike's "Heavy Duty" principles for his training. Mike, his brother Ray, and Dorian formed a clothing company called "MYM" for Mentzer Yates Mentzer, also known as "Heavy Duty Inc", in 1994. MYM was based on the success of Don Smith's "CrazeeWear" bodybuilding apparel. The three principals wanted to capitalize on the physically fit lifestyle, which today has gone mainstream. With the blessing and promotion of Joe Weider, the trio manufactured and distributed their own line of cut-and-sew sportswear. [6]

It did not go well. Mike finished tenth, outclassed by another 19-year-old bodybuilder, Casey Viator. Viator was a disciple of the High-Intensity Training (HIT) system developed by inventor Arthur Jones two years earlier. With a stretch at the bottom and a full contraction at the top of the movement. Holding each for about one second. Work the Muscles to Complete Failure Mentzer considered the supinated lat pulldown the best muscle builder for the biceps, better than any curl. When you do a palms-up pulldown, you work the biceps from both the shoulder and elbow axis, developing the muscle more uniformly. Due to Mentzer’s all-out training methodologies, his philosophy epitomized the idea of “get in, train hard, and recover.” Among his best analogies was comparing training to digging a hole.