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Old 07-25-2006, 12:34 PM
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Default MikeMentzer.com has been updated

many more tips and articles

Here is an article i like from awhile back





Without a doubt, no other man in bodybuilding has ever created such a stir as Mike Mentzer. His crusade against illogical traditionalist methods, and the dogma instilled within the fitness industry, has made him the quintessential spokesman for meaningful exercise.

Brian: You have often stated that exercise is a science, and, as such, there can be only one valid method, or theory, to guide one's efforts in achieving optimal increases in strength and size. Please explain.

Mike: First of all, one must understand what is meant by theory. A theory is a set of abstract principles which claims to be a correct description of some aspect of reality and/or a guide for successful human action. And, now, the main point: Since there is only one reality, there is and can be ONLY one correct description of any aspect of it, including bodybuilding exercise; and it just so happens to be the theory of Heavy Duty, high-intensity training.

What is most curious here, Brian, is that, the theory of high-intensity training is the only theory of bodybuilding exercise that exists qua theory, i.e., as the term theory is actually defined. Those who advocate the blind, non-theoretical, volume approach to training are not even dimly aware of any of the requirements of a philosophic-scientific approach to productive bodybuilding exercise. If one were to reflect for a moment -- none of the training articles in their magazines contain any logic. Such articles consist of nothing more than a series of arbitrary, biblical-like injunctions akin to: "Thou shalt train six days a week. And thou shalt perform four sets of this exercise and five sets of that one." Why? Blank Out! No reason, no logic. Essentially, do it because I tell you to.

Even a brief, logical analysis reveals that the volume approach is antithetical to a rational, scientific approach, since it is based on the arbitrary and the traditional. Why do they advocate that bodybuilders train six days a week? Because in our culture it is traditional to work six days and take the seventh day - (the Sabbath) - off for rest and religious observance. Very scientific! And why should bodybuilders do four set of every exercise? This one is so vague it almost defies comprehension. It seems to flow from the notion that 'more is better'; and since they believe that one set can't be enough, why not do four, instead? Indeed, why not? To advocate the number four here is essentially baseless; therefore, an arbitrary assertion. And, as I've stated in numerous of my articles, there is no room in science for the arbitrary or the traditional.

There is no evidence that the volume of exercise is the essential ingredient, the stimulus responsible for triggering the growth mechanism into motion. In fact, all evidence points to the fact that the issue of volume in high-intensity, anaerobic bodybuilding science is a decidedly negative factor. (I ask the reader to reflect on his own experience as he considers the next point.) Whether one performs one set or 100 sets, the issue of volume is a negative; insofar that one performs any sets at all, even one, such as a negative influence for the more sets that one performs the greater the inroad into his limited reserve of physical resources, or recovery ability. Now, to understand inroad, think of it as the term clearly suggest -- an "in" into the road, or - a hole being dug into your body's limited resources. In other words, you perform one set you dig a small hole, a second set and the hole gets deeper, a third set and the hole becomes even deeper, a fourth set deeper still, and so on. That is a 'negative' phenomenon, for the deeper that hole gets the more of your body's resources have to be used - or wasted! - afterward merely in the attempt to fill the hole, which is what recovery is, leaving much less left over, or available, for building the mountain on top, i.e., the muscle. Of course, one must perform at least one set to have a workout. Ideally, one would stimulate growth with zero sets; that way none of the body's resources would be wasted on recovery; they'd all be utilized for growth production; and the individual would grow so fast it would be incredible. But, I must say, at this point in time, I haven't yet figured out how to stimulate growth with zero sets.

With low-intensity, aerobic exercise the issue of volume is a 'positive' of sorts as the goal with aerobic activity is to increase the volume of work that one is able to perform. With high-intensity, anaerobic exercise, the purpose of the activity is merely to stimulate growth, not improve endurance. So, the purpose of a bodybuilder is not to go into the gym to discover how many sets he can do or how long he can endure. Bodybuilding is not aerobic. A bodybuilding workout is not an endurance contest! The purpose of a bodybuilder is to intelligently do what nature requires merely to activate the growth mechanism; then get the hell out of the gym, go home, rest and GROW!

Before I conclude on this issue, I will state unequivocally that the growth stimulus is related to - not volume, but - the intensity of effort. The closer that the trainee gets to 100 percent intensity of effort, where he is exerting himself maximally and barely completes the rep, the greater the likelihood that he will stimulate growth.

Brian: Considering the popularity and effectiveness of high-intensity training, why do you suppose so many other leaders in the fitness industry still don't embrace or endorse it?

Mike: That is because they possess a different 'sense of life' than you or I, Brian; and, therefore, they have a different explicit philosophy. A person's sense of life is his subconscious, emotionally integrated view of existence; it represents his basic, early value integrations; and such is what determines his adult - (i.e., conscious, explicit) philosophy of life. Very few of these individuals ever learned early on to properly value truth, knowledge, science, ethics and justice. As a result they've wrecked the functioning of their cognitive mechanism; which means, simply, they can't properly identify or evaluate the facts of reality, i.e., they can't think. These individuals are primarily motivated by the irrational desire to project and protect an image of incontestable superiority and, even, god-like omniscient infallibility; which serve, of course, only to make them appear ridiculously pathetic. They just can't admit that after all the years of endorsing the non-theoretical, volume approach that maybe, just maybe, they made a mistake. They've never granted any slightest plausibility to the theory of high-intensity training, and, instead, continue to evade the issue involved and/or resort to unwarranted impeachment of the moral characters of those who advocate high-intensity. For instance, high-intensity can't be valid because "Arthur Jones is insane" or "Mike Mentzer is an alcoholic," or whatever.

Brian: There are those who have tried high-intensity, and have claimed that it did not make any noticeable difference. What do you suspect could be the problem, and what recommendations do you suggest?

Mike: Because of the universality of the theory of high-intensity, it is not difficult at all to uncover the cause(s) of failure to make meaningful progress. All one has to do is check the individual with regard to his application of the theoretical fundamentals. First of all is the principle of intensity. Is he training to a point of momentary muscular failure? Most bodybuilders don't have difficulty here, although I have had a number of phone clients over the years visit me in Los Angeles for hands-on supervision who I found were not training to failure, either because they misunderstood the concept and/or because they were afraid to train at that level of intensity. Usually, after I explained that the last rep of a set is the safest rep, safer than the first so long as they retain use of proper form throughout the set, their fear vanishes.

If a given individual is carrying his sets to failure and he's not making progress, then you check him on the next two fundamentals, namely, volume and frequency of exercise. More often than not, those failing to realize satisfactory progress with high-intensity training are performing too much exercise both in the way of volume and frequency. In such cases, the first thing I do is recommend a two week layoff so that their bodies have the opportunity to overcome the exercise inroad into its recovery ability, then regulate their volume and frequency downward until progress is forthcoming. How much downward regulation is necessary or possible? I have one client, possibly my best gaining client ever - he's gained 135 pounds of almost all muscle in four years!

Brian: Periodization (altering work loads and training styles) is a popular item with some bodybuilders and strength athletes. What are your thoughts on this European method of training?

Mike: It is the intellectual product of severely self-arrested mentalities, minds who understand little or nothing of the theoretical principles of exercise science; and some of these are exercise scientists! Advocates of periodization appear to know nothing of the training stress (high-intensity) required to stimulate growth. Nor are they aware of the issue of recovery ability; which is an absolute requirement for understanding why the volume and frequency of exercise must be cautiously regulated, similar to why the administering of medicines must be regulated.

Whatever ideas make up periodization or any other training approach are not properly validated, noncontradictory, abstract principles but are, instead, a wanton assemblage of inconsistent, contradictory and disconnected "notions." My advice to the reader is steer clear of periodization training unless, of course, you enjoy chronic, mind-numbing fatigue, gut-searing frustration, wasting time and utter lack of progress. Why do I say all this? Because the morons posing as periodization experts are advising that you train with up to 60 sets per workout virtually every day! But given that someone was dumb enough to devise such a scheme, there will be those who don't mind being beasts of burden and will try it. Be my guest. Train like that, waste time, burn yourself out so you're weaker and more fatigued than an AIDS patient.
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Old 07-27-2006, 08:45 AM
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I am frankly staggered by reading this. Literally stopped in my tracks. I have never seen someone so caught up in the supperiority of their own logic, preaching hardcore science yet having an absolutely abysmal grasp - hell, almost zero grasp at all, of the actual science and mechanisms at work. I read his stuff in the early 1990s along with his first HD book, I can only guess that I either had far higher tolerance and less knowledge or he has gotten worse.

-------
Mike Mentzer analogy:
The world is flat, you can see it's flatness for yourself and you don't fall off. This is logical and there is only one theory to it. All these people observing the stars and taking measurements are disturbed and don't have a proper background in math and science like I do. Those people who have sailed around the world are living in delusion and not able to navigate. Those people who have flown into space and seen it for themselves and taken pictures don't have a solid fundamental grasp that there can be only one true theory, mine, which although I base everything on what some guy marketing Nautilus told me in the 1970s and have not bothered to update, I have absolute faith in and need not ever look at the world or any other science again because I know I'm right.
---------

I think the best advice is to not put your trust in someone else and learn for yourself. Even a tiny bit of investigation will reveal that Mike's understanding is severaly lacking.

One example among many, if intensity [sic] and failure is all that's needed a single rep would be just fine - we don't need any level of volume since Mike says volume is unimportant and there is no evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately there has to be enough work for microtrauma (and if Mike thought there was no evidence relating microtrauma to hypertrophy - well, that's fairly discrediting right there).

How much work will depend upon the person and their tolerance (RBE and otherwise), but obviously some volume is important - a rep is a rep, why do you need more than one and if you need 8-12 why not 2 sets of 4-6 to get the same number of reps, why does time/density/clustering matter. Is 8-12 or whatever Mentzer perscribes his one set as really just for safety? If I have a good spotter can I just do 3 reps because more reps is eating into my limited recovery ability? I'd honestly like to just warm up and do a static hold, but range of motion is important to hypertrophy - I wonder why? Maybe there is a threshold requirement for microtrauma and you get that through a range of motion and maybe you need more than 1 rep to get enough? How much is enough, is it 10 reps? 20 reps? 30 reps? Can I break those reps into sets so I can keep the weight high with some rest between efforts i.e. less density? Hmmmm - interesting.

This is why people say you can't do triples or singles for hypertrophy. A single is just a rep, same as any other. A set is a very dense group of singles (but obviously submax weight). Multiple sets are multiple dense groups. The issue with the assumption about singles is that the weight will be very high and near one's 1 rep max. Well, you probably can't do many singles with that kind of weight. But, if one lowered the weight to manage to fire off 12 singles with a few seconds between them - hey, you are very close to a set now and maybe enough work to induce enough microtrauma for hypertrophy (maybe not, kind of depends).

John Cassler, a fan of HIT and fairly knowledgable, once said something about mistaken certainties. Well, I have never seen anyone more certain and more mistaken than Mike Mentzer. I have also never seen anyone with so little reason to be certain.

Mike doesn't have all bad ideas. Volume for volume's sake is stupid. Progression is the key. There needs to be some efficiency and strategy in balancing limited reserves with training stimulus. That said, his understanding is inadequate to be proposing good plans. And for any fan of Mike's reading this - just assume I'm an idiot and the whole world is too and that Mike was right about everything irregardless of how little he understood and his seeming pathological ability to avoid any science that might have required a revision of his own ideas. But that's what science and the Socratic method are about, constant revision if you find exception to your theory. This is how we learn and improve. Dogmatic certainty is a sure way to never learn anything again and wind up with some pretty bad theories as first incarnations tend to be not something you want to hold too tightly to (i.e. they tend to suck and be incomplete as people find they break down in various scenarios and need another element or revision and in a number of cases it winds up being a whole new model).

Last edited by Madcow2; 07-27-2006 at 09:08 AM.
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Old 07-27-2006, 09:02 AM
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Say it with me now ... O...W...N...E...D

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Old 07-27-2006, 10:49 AM
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Frankly this piece of his little rant directed at others is maybe the finest and most clear example of the pot calling the kettle black that I have ever come accross in the world. It reminds me of Chappel's "Black White Supremacist" skit, except in a way this is funnier or maybe more sad. I don't know.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Mentzer
Mike: That is because they possess a different 'sense of life' than you or I, Brian; and, therefore, they have a different explicit philosophy. A person's sense of life is his subconscious, emotionally integrated view of existence; it represents his basic, early value integrations; and such is what determines his adult - (i.e., conscious, explicit) philosophy of life. Very few of these individuals ever learned early on to properly value truth, knowledge, science, ethics and justice. As a result they've wrecked the functioning of their cognitive mechanism; which means, simply, they can't properly identify or evaluate the facts of reality, i.e., they can't think. These individuals are primarily motivated by the irrational desire to project and protect an image of incontestable superiority and, even, god-like omniscient infallibility; which serve, of course, only to make them appear ridiculously pathetic. They just can't admit that after all the years of endorsing the non-theoretical, volume approach that maybe, just maybe, they made a mistake. They've never granted any slightest plausibility to the theory of high-intensity training, and, instead, continue to evade the issue involved and/or resort to unwarranted impeachment of the moral characters of those who advocate high-intensity. For instance, high-intensity can't be valid because "Arthur Jones is insane" or "Mike Mentzer is an alcoholic," or whatever.
Sadly the reality is once you get insitutionalized and have major mental breakdowns and issues, you start to question your ability to think and function. You erode your sense of certainty and unfortunately it's certainty about the yourself and ability to preceive correctly and function and not an external topic. In order to put yourself back together again, I imagine what Mike did was revamp his mental processes and try to see that he was right or could be right about things and think clearly. Introduce Ayn Rand and objectivism here.

Of course attachment to the mind always leaves us with the single lingering doubt that maybe we are just nuts and deluding ourselves. Mentzer obviously required dogmatic certainty to be able to bolster himself up and this was applied to his theories also (or who knows maybe he was so financially and ideologically wedded to them that he was unable to revise them - or maybe such revision was threatening to his psyche). I don't know. We are all a bit crazy. One of the major symptoms of schizophrenia or other disorders is hearing voices and talking to yourself, yet I don't know anyone really who doesn't have a drubbling near constant internal dialogue running all day long, sometimes locked in a dreamlike state.

EDIT: actually in remembering I think Mike said his moment of clarity came when he had the thought "Mike Mentzer go back to what you know." That was the transformative moment for him and he went back to bodybuilding. Thinking on that, I imagine that's an underpinning that would be rather difficult to revise. Sadly, expert level or even fairly basic knowledge of training and exercise science is not a requirement to be a very successful pro BBer.

Last edited by Madcow2; 07-27-2006 at 12:46 PM.
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Old 07-29-2006, 11:01 PM
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a guy named chris robinson trained me with mentzer hit and it changed my life forever for the better. Im better than ever mentally and physically. Mentzer hit is all about science and logic which is why I decided to try it. He has his own yahoo group for Heavy_Duty
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Old 07-30-2006, 08:13 AM
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Do a quick google for Mike Mentzer amphetamine

Speed Psycosis I have seen before, the person afflicted looses touch with reality, a possibiliy in this case?
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Old 07-30-2006, 12:07 PM
ttwarrior1 ttwarrior1 is offline
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Do you normally talk about people like that. Dorian yates did one set, larry scott recommends one set now, yes one set. What about ironman magazine which has several writers that do one set. Mentzer wasnt on drugs when he came up with heavy duty or the advancements of it. I guess john little is on drugs too. I guess my trainer with a 100 percent success rate is nuts too i guess and that all the people i see doing volume and not seeing results from it is just pure coincidence.
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Old 07-30-2006, 02:30 PM
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Just so everyone knows - this guy is kingfish3 from bodybuilding.com. If you look back over his posts here you'll find that his 'then' bodybuilding.com accounts were banned (ttwarrior3 as well as ttwarrior5 - I think those are the numbers). You'll also find he complained about his other account sqweezer getting banned who was actually hitwarrior and also sqweeze.

Do not take this guy seriously. Look at his old posts here where he wanted to be a mod and he could bring over hundreds of members from his Yahoo HIT groups (yeah right - I think it was here or somewhere else where he said they elected him the guru of mentzer HIT). At www.highintensity.net he's ttwarrior4 (who knows who else) and seems to have pissed off a lot of people and no one took him seriously.

In other words, he may be a troll or not, but don't feed it. I didn't realize it was him when I first posted on this thread.

Actually if you want to do something good, just ban him or wait until he becomes and obvious nuissance and ban him. For some reason bodybuilding.com has stopped bothering with banning him and other trolls and lets them run wild on their forums.
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Old 07-30-2006, 05:15 PM
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LOL, I was actually kinda hoping he'd stick to his word and never come back since he wasn't given the job as a Mod...

Quote:
Originally Posted by ttwarrior
just say the word. Ill have up to a thousand here in a week . If not ill leave and never come back. But only if im a moderator. Just check out my yahoo groups bluegrassfitness and Heavy_Duty. Ill have them all join plus all the people i train through email. IM a mike menter hit trainer.
In case anyone didn't read the hilarious thread, here it is: Click Here

The fun didn't start until the second page.
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Old 07-30-2006, 05:25 PM
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For what it's worth, not a single trainee or anyone on the net has ever shown up at any forum and vouched for kingfish3/ttwarrior1. None of the hundreds and thousands of people on his groups, none of the sports superstars, no one from the college teams, not even the hollywood celebrities.

Here's a recap of his exploits below and Dominik's "Kingfish3's Greatest Hits Compilation". I also updated some facts about him below but the Greatest Hits includes reinforcing his bed with cinderblock for the 400lbs women, WD40 for aching joints, it just goes on and on.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Madcow2
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nathan1 at BBing.com
who are you?
He is Kingfish3 - a Mentzer Man who really doesn't seem to know anything about anything. He has also been banned here as ttwarrior2, ttwarrior5, hitwarrior, sqweezer, squeeze.

If you read through his old posts under those accounts it will be pretty obvious why.

Here's a Greatest Hits of Kingfish3 thread with a lot of links. http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpo...&postcount=942

In brief, this is a 350lbs arena football player, semi-pro tennis player, trainer to multiple sport and hollywood celebrites, moderator of bluegrassfitness and several other Yahoo user groups where he was elected the guru of Mentzer HIT. At 350lbs he can sprint for hours, has a resting heartbeat of only 2 beats per minute off Lance Armstrong in his prime, can do 50 bodyweight dips and 30 pullups, has done HIT vs. HVT experiments on his clients who were identical twins, increased a "volume" powerlifter's bench by 40lbs in 1 Mentzer HIT workout, uses WD40 for his joints, Do I need to go on...
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