@coolguitargear Your absolute right. They made fun of me. Back in the day. Cause I wrapped my knees for more than just squats. Any heavy. Lifting. Yep they called me the "P" for doing that. Now I am the only one who can still squat. word. Ronnie Coleman also. They teach us. The price of damage. And no thanks. Getting old has enough challenges. And trucks that exceed mileage. Are broken down in the end. Not for me.
@coolguitargear Your absolute right. They made fun of me. Back in the day. Cause I wrapped my knees for more than just squats. Any heavy. Lifting. Yep they called me the "P" for doing that. Now I am the only one who can still squat. word. Ronnie Coleman also. They teach us. The price of damage. And no thanks. Getting old has enough challenges. And trucks that exceed mileage. Are broken down in the end. Not for me.
@coolguitargear Especially the weight used. I am a natural bodybuilder. These guys a rowing 405 and more. You cannot avoid havoc on a human body. Crazy stuff.
@coolguitargear the exercise didn't tear his bicep, him being a few weeks out from a competition in an incredibly vulnerable state while keeping up with the same intensity of his workouts as in deep off season is what tore his bicep. He himself has said this. He also said that overhand grip is safer, which is what he transitioned to as opposed to the traditional underhand grip he used before the tear.
@coolguitargear did you completely ignore my entire comment? The reason I said bicep is to not be confused with biceps on both arms. He tore his biceps on 1 arm, not both. That's all there is to it. He tore his tricep performing a nautilus pullover machine for lats. It's a back exercise with not even that much force on the tricep itself, and he still tore it. Why? because he was just a few weeks out from competition, low on food, compromised recovery, sodium intake was getting limited, so was his water intake = much more prone to an injury. You tell me why he never got injured in the off season. Why did he tear both his bicep and tricep just weeks out from Mr. Olympia? doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
my advice to anyone is to learn ur own body. we arent machines that are all the same. everyone is different and needs different things for the most optimal growth. amount of rest required will differ from person to person and can change over time for anyone. try different things and see how ur body reacts. then take the things that work the best and stick to those consistently and u will get a great body
@@newmanboi3536 How to balance weightlifting/bodybuilding with other sports for example boxing? If someone would like to get a good bodybuilding physique combining calisthenics and weights while also keeping or even improving speed and agility in boxing?
@@wladynoszhighlights5989 Low weightlifting volume is the way to go for sports athletes. Train for strength and continue or increase the amount of stamina and cardio work you do. You'll end up with a military style physique which is a great balance of strength + stamina
I'm an otr trucker (I'm gone from M-F every week) so naturally my only times I can train are Friday nights when I get home from work, and Saturdays and Sundays. Initially I thought this would be a disadvantage (back when I still believed in higher volume/frequency) but I've come to realize that it's actually perfect. I train each muscle group only once every 7 days. Friday nights are my leg day, Saturdays are my chest/tri day, and Sundays are my back/bi/shoulder day. I do few sets per exercise (typically 2-3) but at very high intensity and using a weight that I can get only 7-8 reps of going to absolute failure (using a spotter on bench press, but typically going at it alone for everything else). Whenever I'm able to get 10 reps in my first set on any exercise, I bump it up 10 lbs for the next session, and I apply this method to every muscle group and every exercise. It works amazingly well. When I hit chest hard on Saturdays, my entire chest is absolutely trashed clear through Wednesday and I can even sometimes still feel soreness on Thursday. But by the time Saturday rolls around again, my chest is 100% recovered and ready to be destroyed again. The 7-day wait really is ideal, I can't even imagine going back to hitting chest twice per week, it wouldn't even make sense unless I lowered the intensity, that's the only way I'd be able to recover in just a couple days. Which tells me that everyone who works chest 2-3 times a week (or any other muscle for that matter) is simply using nowhere near high intensity, because if they were, they'd need 5-7 days to recover properly, not just 2-3. I've only been back into weightlifting for a little over a year now (but I did lift a lot in my younger years, so my muscles did grow a bit faster due to "muscle memory"). I'm 34 now, when I first got back into lifting last year I only weighed 153 and I was using just 135 as my workout weight on bench press. In just about 13 months, my body weight is now up to 178 and my workout weight on bench press is now 225 (I just did it yesterday for 8 reps). I literally put on 25 lbs in a year, and my bmi is virtually unchanged, so almost all of that weight is muscle. All natural too, no PEDs. Just lifting with high intensity, 7-day recovery periods, taking creatine, and eating 160 grams of protein a day. It's really not that hard to experience growth like this in this time frame, the only reason most people don't attain it is simply because they either A) don't push hard enough in their lifts, or B) they overtrain and don't allow enough time for recovery. I don't believe ANYONE has an excuse for not benching 225 (not as a 1-rep-max, I mean for multiple reps) by the end of their first year. Remember, I'm a trucker, which is THE most sedentary job on earth, and I don't even eat healthy (being on the road, my only options are usually nasty fast food) and yet I'm STILL able to get absolutely jacked and maintain a 15-16% bmi. Which means if a guy has a typical 9-5 job and the ability to go to the grocery store every day and eat quality foods and get better rest than I do, he will be at an even greater advantage than a guy like me who's a trucker. So there really is no excuse not to get built like a brick house...if a 34-yr-old trucker can do it in one year, then a 24-yr-old dude who has more time and better nutrition, should certainly be able to do it in one year as well.
Raise my ball cap to you brother get it while you live. Probably the best time for you in terms of life schedule keep you growing and active outside of OTR sitting get the blood flow around
Thank you. I used to work with that and it helps knowing that you changed between muscle groups each day which is something I don't really do😬 so I'm sore ATM and need to recover my back especially as I've been training that a lot. At least it's nice to know I'm finally making gains again 💪
Not that bad some researches has other talking about recovery ability as aging but the case is stimulates growth ،The mechanisms of growth...and giving the body enough time to recover, then compensate, grow, and overcompensate...this is the principle advocated by this genius...and increasing strength means the opposite of the mechanism of aging...the difference between young and old is strength and fitness..😉💪
@@amjidali588 i agree with you. i'm 61 and still growing after 6 months on mentzer's system. have put on 28 pounds of muscle in that 6 months. i hope to keep training till i'm 90 if i live that long.
Many people here do not understand what Mentzer is trying to say because he only tells half the story. He tells us to train less, but forgets to tell that we should also tren more.
Being 73 and an advocate of MM HIT training. If you have not read his book, read it and start growing. It will take some getting used to, however it is worth the effort. You feel better, look better, and for the most part you will be injury free. On most days I am in and out of the gym in 25 min or less. And even at 73, 6'3" and 190. My waist is still a 34, chest 46. MM has taught me how to gain. And with over 200 customers who also have made good progress with HIT, you need to at least try this system. It works!
you are right it works i'm 61 and training mike mentzer system. in the last 6 months i have put on 28 pounds of muscle. i hope i am still training when i'm 73 like you.
The biggest thing I've learned from all of this is that most of us just aren't working out hard enough. I went from being a guy that was in the gym 5-6 times a week happily to a guy that dreads his 2-3 workouts per week. This is all because of the intensity of my workouts. You have to get to the point that you dread going through the workout because it is hell but in the end you are rewarded so much freedom to do whatever you want outside of the gym
Now, this is the best post I have seen. Most people are lazy, myself included, and I would just go and work out, but I would visit with other guys there and talk smack and not bust my butt enough. I didn't learn that until later how lazy I was in those years. Sure, I was ripped, but I never got the size I wanted.
Yes it's all common sense. When you do a workout it should be intense. Only can do a few sets really intense, say 5 for a muscle, sometimes even less..... Lots of ppl doing hours of training low intensity and not even focusing on light pump, doing everything wrong and never progressing (I did that for like 5 years or more) thinking I had worse genetics... Started training intense and threw in some extra sets everyday on just arms (light pump) and also trained them intense during week, they blew up... Atm, training intense and about 1 hour a workout. 2 full body/upper body workouts full intense a week, with a few other days of just light pump stuff (30 minutes) so far enjoying full intense days & heavy days.
Progress in your physical abilities can be felt and learned from not just performing the exercises properly and in a certain routine made up to your physical capabilities but by listening to your body through the mind muscle connection and understanding how much you can partake in your exercises and how frequently you should perform the tasks
Only thing Mentzer wasn't spot on about and he is very upfront about this is how long you're to rest. That's the only real sliding component in his entire philosophy. Which makes perfect sense. We all burn from the Sun, some very fast, some very slow. You need to find your point of recovery. It seems a week recovers 99% of people. Unfortunately 99% don't wait a week, they are taxing the nervous system 1-2 days later.
@@Spazticspazour central nervous system only tells us 10% of the pain that our bodies incurr so when the body part "feels" good to you it may still be under repair (pain). Ultimately it's what works best for you, long term.
I used to train every day... I was a string bean. Then i switched to twice a week.. I grew So i switched to twice a month ... I got even bigger. Then i reduced it to twice a year... I became a behemoth I decided to stop working out altogether for this lifetime and let my soul rest and grow so that when it enters the next lifes body... Ill start off as ronnie coleman and be ahead of the game. Ill peel an orange here and there to get a workout but ill never overdo it 😂
I believe "newbie gains" happen because you experience the greatest muscle intensity and shock you'll ever be able to create... I wonder how hard would you have to train each workout, and i don't think you can push yourself so hard every workout like in those first few training sessions.
You can ALWAYS push hard (to absolute failure or beyond) newbie or advanced. Newbie gains is just a result of your muscle having to adapt to cope with more stimulus than it's used to, if you go from doing absolutely nothing to lifting a weight for repetitions the muscle will be forced to grow. ANYTHING works. This is also why you'll see so many people not grow past their first year of newbie gains simply as they cling to bad programming as it helped them gain muscle. just look around your local gym how many people look the exact same year after year..
I been doing mikes system for 9 months and went from 180-230 with the right diet and reading his books and understanding what he means about recovery and how to do hit it works… if you do the work plan and simple don’t do it for 1 month and Complain about no results invents the time and you will see change this journey is a long one for us all
Anyone i put on or trained using Mikes technique has seen benefits or gains every time so whoever disbelieves his technique than obviously doesn’t understand high intensity or to train to failure because if you can do 4 fucking sets on each exercise then i know forsure your not giving it 100percent each set or your overtraining yourself and that’s why you don’t see progress .. i don’t get how people can’t understand his point when he uses science to back it up which no other people apply to there workouts
@@MarcBelislei just started for 2 weeks i did all the exercises i normally do, 1 x to failure and it gave me good muscle pain and even muscles that were harder for me to get muscle pain. Its working well for now. After a month or two im going to go back to 3 x 13 and see if its easier for me to do it or harder. If its easier then im very happy if its not improving the 3 x 13 then i know both have their own benefits. If the last one is the case then im going to mix it. 2 or 3 times 1 x to failute and then 1 time the usual training.
i'm with you, been doing mentzer's way of training for 6 months and in that time have gained 28 pounds of muscle. i went from 195 pounds to 223 pounds. i'm 61 years old been training for 30 years now always hovered in weight from 195 to 200 pounds. used mentzers system and things have sky rocketed.
@@mrman2415 it is possible, i have done it. what is even more remarkable is the bodybuilder CASEY VIATOR using the same system that mike mentzer recommends gained 28 lbs of muscle in one month. so if you think me gaining 28 lbs in six months cant be done then how come casey viator gained the same amount of muscle in one month.
I was a firm believer in training every muscle group once per week. It wasn't until I got old enough that I COULDN"T do the heavy training anymore that I switch to lower weight higher rep work. I switched to training each muscle group three times per week, and my muscle gains have never been better. So to each their own.
Yes these are the new findings, the new top bodybuilder, he's 27, Nick the mutant Walker, he traines with light weights (for him) with high repetitions. I mean, look at him.....
Full body 3x a week Steve Reeves routine is probably best for a natural (or a bit less sets) FULL intensity and less duration... 3x a week. But I enjoy doing workouts for mental health etc and it just feels so much more natural to train 4-5 days a week and it's an awesome feeling, even though it has definitely impacted some gains for sure, but volume has it's place... Cycling between different workouts keeps it interesting, full body, split, heavy duty, etc... or even all of them at once but on different days, seems to be better rounded... But intensity is very important and probably only requirement to progress, volume etc can all be increased/decreased, if you aren't doing negatives, forced reps, dropsets, etc, 1 day or 7 days isn't going to change anything.
@@blueeyed5074 it is very taxing. Was doing it 5x a week but lower volume and it was awesome for a bit. Atm it's 1-2x full body workouts a week and 1 upper or split day, add extra day if rest is decent
What works is using a program and sticking to it, not cycling workouts all the time cause you’re bored. Training is supposed to be boring. You can find a program or movements or some tweaks that make it a bit more exciting, but the excitement should come from the results (ie everytime you add weight to the bar)
@@yoeyyoey8937 Yes & No. Obviously don't want a different workout every day but switching up is ok, just keep a lot of them the same, atm all days have bench press, and a few other exercises as the core
Mike didn't make a mistake. He was a pioneer. And pioneers blaze a trail that has never existed. He leads the way and you are going to make slip-ups along the way. What was true for Mike may not be true for you so you have to find out the true way for yourself. And that takes practice time and error. Mike used to say that nothing fails like success. Bite on that one for a while!
Especially with HIT, some people will find they will sometimes need those two full weeks of rest to see progress if the training is intense enough. And that may bother alot of folks, because waiting that long means you may not be seeing results fast enough for your tastes. It means you are only working out a body section only 24 times a year. Ludicrous! But that's just how it is sometimes. For some, this project may literally take years primarily because of the rest periods needed. if you are a naty, patience is the name of the game. Im on "YEAR 2" of using Mentzer's ideas and its only now that I'm seeing results I myself personally deem acceptable. It takes awhile. But it beats plateauing months at a time like I used to before. Now I hardly ever plateau.
I do at least 2 sets for strength and then one set to failure for hypertrophy and other benefits,also do circuit training to keep up the cardio and intensity.This works well for me as a natural lifter.45,fit and strong as hell for my age.
For my age haha. 40 year olds are strong but if you dont do shit in your life and even for 30 year olds and 20 year olds they are weak as hell for not having an active lifestyle
That last part of the last sentence is exactly why.I weighed a soft 270 at age 20,and now I'm 185 solid.Lifestyle choice is everything.By the way,"strong for my age" is benching 325 and bb rowing 240 @ 185 lbs and natural.That's strong for any age.@@heuvelke1065
Maybe do the hypertrophy first before the strength to avoid injury. Warm up the muscles by doing high reps and then do the heavy weight strengthening set to finish off.
@@pc8679 If u do that then you weaken the muscles before u get to the strength sets.However,i agree w u to an extent and typically do at least one not-to-failure warm up set on my first exercise.I'm ready after that.Not every strength set to 5 or less is meant to go to failure,so the first set can be a bit of a warm up...Isometrics themselves will warm the body and there's no risk of injury since it's not even a rep - just a ballistic or hypertrophic hold.That's why isometrics are a great for workout for ppl w mild to reasonable injury,and for those who have plateaued..
what is your definition of strong? And from what I have been told Hell is just hot, not strong. My picture is posted.. I am 56. If you weigh 225 pounds I can lift u about 33 times in bench press.
muscle grows when it heals ,you need to give it reason to heal without causing too much damage imagine the first few weeks when you began training and you will know how much progress you made due to increased need to heal
All one needs to do is work out as intensely as possible and vary the frequency of workouts. See what frequency yields the best progress. It isn't complicated.
HIT works just as well as any other routine if you are consistent with it. The disadvantage of HIT is that it is a heavy mental load, real HIT and being consistent in it is only reserved for a few.
@@cannonieh4469 I agree, but it has nothing to do with the routine you're using. HIT, high volume, low volume, split, full body, etc. don't matter as long as the parameters are correct.
Real, balls to the wall HIT seriously depletes your CNS. It will impact other areas of your life to the point where even casual acquaintances will be able to tell on which weekdays you're hitting the gym.
My belief is that frekvensy is very individual. One person might need 2 days for a muscle to be fully rested. Another person needs 5 days. I think if you get to the gym and you are not energetic and ready to give your all every workout then maybe your overtrained and might need another restday. Also if your sleeping habits are bad,your diet poor and you stress alot training 6 days a week probobly will be of no benefit to you as your not giving the right fuel to the body anyway.
Depends on where you are in your training and what you’re doing. If you obliterate your body then you might need 5-7 days to recover, but if you have more reasonable workouts then higher frequency is good
Mentzer was a genius and his legacy will remain so long as Bodybuilding even slightly resembling it's current form remains. Rest in Peace Mike and Ray Mentzer. We'll pick up the Heavy Duty training from here
To everyone saying Mentzer's program is bogus, I've been following Mentzer's Heavy Duty training principles taking 5 days off a week between workouts with an Upper Body/Lower Body/ Shoulders and Arms split and I've seen great results. In 21 weeks since I started I've seen an increase in reps or weight every single workout. Prior to starting this program I was working out 3x per week without a consistent plan, I was stuck benching 95lbs on incline press for 6 reps, hitting 100lbs assisted pullups and squatting 135lbs. Now I'm benching 155lbs on incline for 8 reps, hitting 6 pullups with 25lbs assistance, and squatting 195lbs for 8 reps. I've gained 20lbs in 21 weeks and I'm certain a majority of it is muscle. I used to be in much better shape before covid shut down the gyms and I just couldn't adapt to home workouts. I ended up getting skinny and losing my strength. I chalk up a lot of my recent growth to a body recomposition, I'm going to continue this program until I'm back to my former strength benching 225lbs again for 6 reps.
@yunoewig3095 hey dumbass, I started training at age 18 and used to do 5 days a week for the first 2 years. At one point I said to hell with rest days and went 7 days a week, little did I know it would only burn out my hard earned gains. When I realized what I had done I decided to only do 3 days a week and I built myself up to benching 225lbs and even hit a 455lbs rack pull for 1 rep over the course of a year. Then covid hit, the gyms shut down and I couldnt bring myself to adapt to home workouts. I lost my strength and had to build myself back up. I tried doing 3 days a week again with the same routine but it just wasn't working. HIT worked and it's been significantly easier to follow than any of the high volume training programs I've tried over the years. It works and no amount of dumbass youtube comments will change what is factually true.
100%. Even on some level volume. I've found I'm getting better results doing a 10 movement one set to failure upper/lower workout in which I work every muscle out once every 7 days then I did his program and frequently. I think it's a good starting point but it is not perfect for everyone. As no start point is, and I think suffering from dogma affected him to take every true theory to the furthest possible degree
Menzter always said his training program and frequency suggestions are for natural bodybuilders, hence the frequency isn’t meant for people on gear like Arnold was. If you’re natty, then 4-7 days before training to absolute failure is the scientifically proven best way to induce and maximize muscle hypertrophy. This may be anecdotal, but the Mentzer method has worked wonders for me! Just wish I heard about him sooner!
@@Pinkz604 same here. I could have avoided a knee injury that pretty soundly fucked up my leg workout today. I'll likely have it the rest of my life from blowing my knee out on a squat due to improper training. But live and learn. Better late than never
If you say you dont agree on frequency, then you dont agree in general because frequency or infrequency is ine of 2;cornerstones of his method. Just saying.
@@rihardsgr Lets take an example, one person does 1 set to failure once a week and gets good results. Other dude does the same but 2x times a week and gets the same result but faster. Thus higher frequency would be better on him. At least right now. Recovery is not the same for all individuals. I do recall Menzer saying that recovery is individual as well so what im saying doesnt really go against his principles.
3 times a week lifting intensely and consistently over time to cover all body parts is more than enough plus 2 days cardio and 1 day off with a decent diet is easy enough for anyone to follow to achieve results .. honesty is important because if one works intense leaving nothing in the gym going to proper failure on at least 1 workout set per exercise then you won't want to lift weights more than 3 times per week. Fill in with 2days light to medium cardio and 1 day off and natural lifters will see results and keep those results unlike those who eventually come off all the enhancing drugs they may be taking.
Mike Mentzer's mistake was to take drugs. Honestly, working out multiple times a week doesn't give your body time to grow. When you cut your finger, it takes 2-3 weeks to completely heal that tiny little cut to the point you can't see it anymore. Your muscles are no different, when you lift weights you make little tears in your muscles, and your body only grows on a microscopic & molecular level everyday to heal those tears, and your muscles haven't made a complete recovery and grown fully in the time the muscle soreness goes away. Muscle soreness is nothing more than lactic acid on the muscles, but that goes way long before your muscles are finished growing. The more patient you are with lifting, and the more time you give yourself time to grow, the faster you will get bigger. You get bigger and stronger when you are eating and sleeping ;)
Mike is so mellow and articulate that its a juxtapostion with what hes telling you to do in the gym. You have to be an intense individual to do his workout properly. Most gyms arnt stoked with you pushing your self that hard and making a bunch of noise in the process. Its an old school gnarly work out that has to be done correctly and with lota of rest. Most people are just not that intense in the gym nor have multiple days to be extremely sore.
Articulate? No, logorrheic would be a much better description. I know only one person who has mastered the art of saying so little with so many words, and he's also a fringe personality in a niche community, albeit a medical one.
I used to own the book written by Arthur Jones on H.I.T. It's worth a read if you've hit a wall in the gym with your progress or if you simply aren't into volume training 5 or 6 days a week. Roughly HALF of everything that I do in the gym stems from this book. You are GUARANTEED to see results if you follow it and put forth some type of effort and perseverance.
I didnt reach my full potential until I went to 1 workout a year of a 1 rep max per muscle group... and then sleep for the other 364 days... being fed intravenously.
Question. Why do people say roids is the reason why his program works? If the sole purpose of roids is to speed up recovery time then that would enable a user to work out more frequently. In that case, someone who is natural would benefit greater to Mikes philosophy on H.I.T. We grow on off days not when we train. Training just is a stimulant for growth which happens on “off/grow” days. Stimulating growth requires high intensity training. Sure your body can recover after a day or two but by adding in more rest days, you are allowing your body to now add, not just repair. Even if you choose to do a different exercise each day. Your body only has so much available resources to recover let alone grow. An example of this is eating heavy food before you sleep. Your body is now taking on the role of digestion over recovery. We see this same thing when we don’t allow our body to recover/grow and then we start to break down another body part through training. If we do not give our muscles & cns enough time to recover and build then we can no longer use basic logical fundamentals that we as humans understand about our body. “Then what about Arnold or Ronnie? 🤓” To answer that question, yes they train every day to high intensity. 1. They are on anabolic steroids + other compounds. 2. They are genetic phenoms.. they could do any regiment and put on size. One would argue that they could put on even more size. Arnold tried Mentzer’s H.I.T training and saw great progress from it but he said it wasn’t for him. Addicted to the pump and most importantly the gym itself. Fair enough if that’s what you love. I’ve been doing HIT for 4 months at 22y/o and each training session has me increasing weight or reps without missing a beat. I’ve stayed 190 throughout those entire 4 months but have gained strength and vascularity + visible abs which I’ve never had in my life. My entire body recompensed. If you call what I said above bs I’ll gladly drop my instagram. This shit changed my life and if you want to test it. Try it for 3 weeks and then make a decision. You can look up on RUclips “Mike Mentzer HIT training full video one hour” You’ll find his entire workout split posted. He died a day after that released too. Gave us the ultimate knowledge bomb before passing.
First of all - adjust the training to your life, not the other way around. And listen to your body. I'm a fking miner working 14hrs day/night shifts few times a week. How could I possibly do some 5-6 workouts a week (even small ones)?!
Yep That's why I found Mike's method best for non steroid user and people who have long work hours unlike professional bodybuilders who spent whole day in the gym
In the past , at the age of 15 years i lifted a black smith amboss, who weight 154 kg, ca 320 pounds. I lifted him , and walk ca 30 Meters to put him on a rock. Because i ll start to work with my dad as i six or seven years old. First once a week, do hard work and lift heavy. From week to week i get stronger. My waight goes up from year to year. At the age of twelve i m waight 86 kg. At fifteen i waight 94 kg And never see a gym. Now i m 41 years. Sometimes i go to train to enyoye my muscles, pump and so. Now my hight is 175 cm Waight 105 kg or 225 pounds. Greetings from Germany. Mfg Matthias Prinz
I like mentzer and have watched many of his videos on youtube but one thing that makes me doubt his teaching is that he was on the gear along with yates. I just don't feel right if I don't train like 4-5 days a week. And if I do feel like i can't give 100% i'll take more time off. I think it's great to go balls to the wall aleast 2 times a week and then back off a little . And I can not git my head around training squats to 100% failure .
All the top bodybuilders were/are on the gear. HIT actually favours those who are natural because natural bodybuilders need rest as they can't recover their muscles quickly like someone on roids
I believe that building muscle is the same as getting fat. If you eat and don’t do shit you get fat, if you continue to add calories you get fatter over time. Now, every fat person is not the same that’s where genetics come in, so if you workout and create the stimulus to grow you will grow, but you MUST continue to create STIMULUS to produce new growth along with sleep and proper diet. You OVEREAT in 1 sitting you get sick and feel bad, You OVER EXERCISE you feel bad. Finding the APPROPRIATE formula for YOU, is your only answer. Building muscle is not a 1 size fit all, Mentzer was right AND he was wrong because everyone is different.
Dorian was cycling steroids and would have gained muscle doing any form of workout. Gaining muscle doing HIT while on steroids DOES NOT mean that naturals will gain muscle by following the same training regime.
@@ozzy6162we are comparing to Dorian to other roided monsters so ofc the way he trained has a bearing on how he did competitively. Do you think dorian would have been able to step on stage doing only isometric holds as long as he was pinning? Lol
It seems like a mike mentzer hole has appeared in the algoritms the last few weeks. And i fell right into it. Its an interesting theory and it makes sense, if you are to just focus on progress and rest and track that to find your sweet spot. You'll get stronger. The scenario is that you'll either also be bigger or pitentially be the next world champ in weightlifting as you'll develop "light muscles" as the first person in the world. Gratz. Im doing calistenics these days so quite interested in implementing his principals into these types of workouts, and then spend more time on technique and flexibility.
Not every individual has the same muscle fiber constitution all over his body, you have to know the adequate intensity volume an frequencies for every bodypart at that moment
I used to follow his advice but I just remained what I thought was skinny fat. Then I started going a lot more frequently and saw a lot more gains. I'm not calling him a liar, but it sure didn't work for me.
I read that he wasn't even doing HIT to win Mr. Olympia titles, he would actually stay at the gym longer than Arnold. After he was done competing he started advocating for the HIT stuff. It sounds cool and marketable I guess but it still rings out like total broscience to my ears personally. Like with a lot of other things in life, if some miracle cure/method actually worked then wouldn't everyone be doing it and it would be widespread information?
Some points (mostly stolen from Mike isratel), 1. Mentzer’s athletes generally the cream of the crop, that means greater proportion of fast twitch fibres that are stresses more easily (hamstring are faster twitch and I only need like 5 sets to torch them), 2. They were massive and extremely strong, doing 5x5 on squats with 100kg is far less stimulating that 5x5 with 200kg, even if in both instances the weight used is 80% of the individuals 1RM, this means more advanced athletes can train quicker and less frequently and get more stimulus And should take longer to recover due to the increased stress, you should probably be training more frequently than the best bodybuilders, don’t just copy what they do and expect it to work for you, you are not them
@@cameronwalter997 obviously its a sliding scale, its not HIT or Volume, every workout will have some degree of intensity and an amount of volume, I'm just arguing a higher volume approach than what guys like Mentzer and Yates did is probably right for most people, there are very real advantages in terms of time efficiency and if it works for you great
@@C-OBrien There seems to be a lack of information for how a beginner to intermediate would apply Mike Mentzers methods in a useful way. It seems to me that the principles are true but the execution of the techniques and rest periods may need to be calibrated depending how big and strong the individual is.
@@cameronwalter997 agreed, much of working out is always trial and error, i think another reason its not good for beginners is the lack of volume meaning you're not getting the practice at quality reps, once you know what works for you and how to execute perfectly you can maybe apply some principles from it. also pushing yourself to true failure and beyond while still maintaining good form is a skill beginners wont have.
illogical, body builders use steriods and other enhancing drugs such that they can train MORE frequently not less. If you're natural, you need to therefore train less to allow recovery. Mike seems to lack common sense just like his misinformation regarding diet, he's clearly wrong 100 percent on a number of things, don't take his word as gospel.
I'll never be a bodybuilder.. but damn theres something about beating the absolute s*** out of yourself first thing in the morning that keeps the fires stoked all day long. If i train too infrequently i fall right off
I would guess the main issue in his program would be limited sarcoplasmic gains from the low volume. The HIT guys are notorious for being "skinny". I like the pumped look but your more permanent gains come from muscle fiber growth. I'd like to hear people's experiences with strength gains on Heavy Duty. Did you continue gaining strength or did you stall out early? Where you started and where you ended up after following the program.
The regimen only works as advertised if you are juiced to the gills and don't care about strength. It's simply not enough stimulus for the overwhelming majority. If you are focused on strength then you need HIHF or a periodization schedule which peaks with HIT a couple weeks before your comp.
everyone responds to training differently. You must find out what exercises cause your body to respond the best. You must be in tune with your body. If your sleep, and dieting are on point. then you will be able to FEEL if your training is adequate. you will be able to tell when you are overtraining. its often a gradual feeling. your lifts can start to dip a little bit. that's when you know you should take a step back.
And Dorian himself made the same mistake by training too frequently. Had he trained only once per week (no more than twice per week), he would've been even more freakish....with fewer or no injuries.
It may work well but we all need 3 or more warm-ups before we get to our one maximum effort set. Squats and deadlifts may require more than 5 if we are using more than 3 times our body weight.
Yea. I do 4 sets per exercise or body part. The first 3 sets are just warm ups. I can tell I haven't warmed up enough when when I do the last one to failure and my muscle feels vulnerable to over-strain. Well-warmed up to failure feels good. I agree also on more warmup sets for legs. You look about a decade or more younger than me. These young pups should listen. If they don't want to listen to you, me or Mike then listen to Dorian Yates. End of argument.
The subtitles are ass with many mistakes, such as "frequent" when he's saying "infrequent", "either" when he's actually saying "neither", etc. Though the actual message itself is pretty good.
There was a weird cult attachment to Heavy Duty for a brief period. One particularly obnoxious kid had a major boner about his newbie gains on Heavy Duty. Being a total dick to everyone but refusing to post pics. Tried tying it into Ray Peat. Then he kind of disappeared. Pretty funny. I have never followed the program directly but I got a lot out of reading his books. Those Heavy Duty shirts are rad, also.
Mike Mentzer is one of those people that’s frequently wrong, but speaks with this “confident professor” tone that makes him seem more knowledgeable than he really is. He sees only one way, his way. I tuned out from him long ago.
I changed from training 5 times a week to only 3 with higher intensity and I jumped from 200 to 230 in 2 months . Feeling better than ever and recovered all the time and naturally
I’ve been training once every 30 years. I’m 42 now and making more gains than ever. I still feel I’ve overtrained and may back off to every 40 years or even more for better gains.
Every time I listen to Metzer it's like never brief and infrequent enough. What if you trained once to failure in your life, would that be enough? Would a second life workout be overtraining?
I think what Mentzer says mostly applies to advanced individuals. I honestly believe that if you can handle volume and get progress from it, then you should do it, but there is a point of diminishing returns and eventually, you will need less of it as each set becomes more systemically fatiguing as one gets stronger. It's hard for people at his level to relate to people at beginner or early intermediate stages. For example, the only thing that got my squats moving after a very long plateau was more sets. Grinding sets like a mad man actually was making me move backwards, despite it being a high intensity and lower volume approach... As I become stronger though, I notice the stimulus of each set is greater, but with an increasing fatigue cost too, so he is definitely right about what he says, though us mere mortals have ways to go before his training philosophies fully apply to us. Tom Platz needed two weeks to recover from his leg workout, because he was doing 500 lbs for over 20 reps....
“The reason some bodybuilders have gained muscle with volume training, relates to the fact that steroids act primarily as a recovery ability enhancers. Were those same bodybuilders to train for 2 hours a day, 6 days a week without steroids, they would begin to lose muscle mass almost immediately. Heavy duty high intensity training is tailor made for the non-steroid natural bodybuilder because of the page taking precaution to properly regulate the volume and frequency of exercise to prevent overtraining.”-Mike Metzner
@@isaachazenberg9860 disproves nothing without understanding your situation and history such as muscle memory, underloading of weights, intensity generally of training etc. etc.
Mike was very rigid in his views. Dorian was open minded. You can say what you want about Yates but his best asset was his mind which allowed a manic level of professionalism. Mike was bitter and obese for half his life. Dorian's point is that if his diet is hitting the mark, his sleep is consistent and uninterrupted, he was stretching with a lot of massages, that this will speed up the healing process and allow you to train more often. Science has shown this to be true (you have to remember this was decades ago). The most important point, and one Mike actually agreed with, is that the steroids Dorian was taking allowed him to train more and recover quicker. At the end of his life Mike was advocating 8 days rest. That was too much and Dorian told him. Dorian was actually losing muscle resting that long so he changed which caused friction. In 2023 the key points have been shown to be progressive overload, time under tension and full range of motion. MIKE WAS RIGHT ON A LOT OF THINGS plus way ahead of his time just NOT all things.
@@loveandmoney im doing full body every 7 days. mike consolidation exercises and, crunches, vacuums, shoulder presses. one set to negative failure. I get stronger on those exercises. I swear i cannot tolerate 2 times a week.
@@loveandmoney. What if the science is wrong? You have to have total trust in the person or persons doing the scientific study. Also remember science is theory not fact, it takes practical application to know for sure.
When a doctor prescribes medicine, he does not says "100 mg for everyone, always, regardless of circumstances". The Rx is a starting point, and you observe and modify the dosage based on the person. In other words, just because a general principle is applicable to all people, does not mean that all people are identical from every level of abstraction down to the concrete. The older you are, the more recovery you need. The stronger you are, the more recovery between workouts. The less rest sleep and nutrition you get (and more stress), your recovery suffers. Dorian did more than what Mike describes as optimal, but far less than any of his contemporaries. That is the salient point. He took Mike's advice, applied it in a watered down fashion, and was happy and impressed with the results. When you are young and have favorable metabolism and test level, any training can result in impressive muscular development. Mike conceded this. He conceded that through sheer dint of hard work, young men have built some amazing bodies. Especially newbies can transform their bodies with sub-optimal training protocols. Here is the correct way to think about Mike's prescriptions: Heavy Duty II contains his true final word, and his routine is a starting point. His central point is that recovery ability is the limiting factor to training for size. Your ability to adapt may or may not become more efficient. But it is irrefutable that if your body can build or recover "1 unit" of muscle per day, then training 3x a week where in each workout, you do 3 units of damage, is not optimal. All of the criticisms in the comments here seem based on feelings and innuendo. If I were training a brand new beginner, we would train 2-3x a week and probably full body to start, mainly so they could slowly become accustomed to the movement and increasing intensity. After perhaps 4 weeks, we would being training to positive failure and an occasional forced rep or hold or negative. They would progress. Later, as they progressed, we would add rest and eventually move to a split routine. It is the only way to ensure continued progress. The issue isn't whether you follow the absolute letter of Mike's proposal as a religous edicit. In fact, I'd say he wouldn't want that at all. Instead, Mike wanted bodybuilders to use their brains and down regulate workout frequency and duration while up regulating intensity and rest. If you understand that, whether you like it or not, you owe a conceptual debt to Mike Mentzer (and Arthur Jones), no matter how you may quibble with his "perfect" proposed routine.
Anyone i put on or trained using Mikes technique has seen benefits or gains every time so whoever disbelieves his technique than obviously doesn’t understand high intensity or to train to failure because if you can do 4 fucking sets on each exercise then i know forsure your not giving it 100percent each set or your overtraining yourself and that’s why you don’t see progress .. i don’t get how people can’t understand his point when he uses science to back it up which no other people apply to there workouts
At some point, if we follow this theory, wouldn’t we be doing one set for of a body part every week which isn’t enough volume? Olympic athletes and athletes in general train very frequently.
it's about intensity and volume is just a component of intensity. Doing 1 working set means you will go all out and it will be grueling and mentally taxing. I'm doing this program for more than a month now and you really need the rest time because you feel drained physically and mentally if you do more.
Bronze era Silver era taught you everything. No New Fundamentals....Basically it's the BASICS. Work Eat sleep Grow...Progressively overload making your muscle adapt and overcompensate (ie strength and muscle gains) it takes a long time to build muscle....exceeding adaptation over time,,,,,NO SECRETS...NO SPECIAL EXERCISES NO SPECIAL PROGRAMS.
Well said. So much crap out there now that has young men doing gimmicky exercises and routines. Nothing has changed since bronze and silver. Basics work and they’re all you need.
Even if his methods built more muscle, progress would be so slow I would get bored. High frequency is just way more entertaining and produces faster progress in strength which in turn for me means progress in size.
Just as it was getting interesting it ends. I think I'm calling bollocks, I think it comes down to what works for the individual. I workout 4 days a week and doing ok, recently added an extra arm day and they have started to grow more. What does that tell me?
This guy shows that if you just say anything with enough confidence, and fairly eloquently, people will listen to you, eventhough you have zero real evidence or proper hysiological training backing you. Other than some reading you've done yourself.
@@infeliximpiusevidence of what? That roiding will make you bigger no matter how you train? For example - 1980 Mr was a contest between Arnold (extreme high volume training, advocating even training two times per day) and Mentzer, the fact that despite they extremely different training systems they were head to head in that contest proves that it didn't matter how they trained. For that single reason (roiding) his advice is useless for natty lifters. And I can see myself that high volume is better, when I add one whole set to the exercise I'm doing, I have more gains, the difference is that I already tried to lift heavy, maybe if you tried overloading with weight and then added reps and sets, you wouldn't have listen to the biggest sore loser in the history of bodybuilding
@@SFSFSF1418Yeah, I think you're properly evaluating the "data" as it were. All these top bodybuilders using pretty widely different training systems and still coming out looking about the same as each other shows that training methods aren't that critical when on that level of steroids.
@@SFSFSF1418your comment is not logical. If anything, using steroids will DECREASE the amount of time it takes to recover from a stimulus. Therefore steroids would be more beneficial to those with higher frequency splits as you will recover quicker, and not overtrain as easily. You also conveniently leave out that Dorian Yates then won Olympia 6 times with a low volume high intensity training style.
Dorian took it to another level. That back. Upper and lower.
The Dorian row. Dude making his own exercise rendition of the row.
@coolguitargear
Your absolute right. They made fun of me. Back in the day. Cause I wrapped my knees for more than just squats.
Any heavy. Lifting. Yep they called me the "P" for doing that. Now I am the only one who can still squat.
word. Ronnie Coleman also. They teach us. The price of damage. And no thanks. Getting old has enough challenges.
And trucks that exceed mileage. Are broken down in the end.
Not for me.
@coolguitargear
Your absolute right. They made fun of me. Back in the day. Cause I wrapped my knees for more than just squats.
Any heavy. Lifting. Yep they called me the "P" for doing that. Now I am the only one who can still squat.
word. Ronnie Coleman also. They teach us. The price of damage. And no thanks. Getting old has enough challenges.
And trucks that exceed mileage. Are broken down in the end.
Not for me.
@coolguitargear
Especially the weight used. I am a natural bodybuilder. These guys a rowing 405 and more. You cannot avoid havoc on a human body. Crazy stuff.
@coolguitargear the exercise didn't tear his bicep, him being a few weeks out from a competition in an incredibly vulnerable state while keeping up with the same intensity of his workouts as in deep off season is what tore his bicep.
He himself has said this. He also said that overhand grip is safer, which is what he transitioned to as opposed to the traditional underhand grip he used before the tear.
@coolguitargear did you completely ignore my entire comment?
The reason I said bicep is to not be confused with biceps on both arms. He tore his biceps on 1 arm, not both. That's all there is to it.
He tore his tricep performing a nautilus pullover machine for lats. It's a back exercise with not even that much force on the tricep itself, and he still tore it.
Why? because he was just a few weeks out from competition, low on food, compromised recovery, sodium intake was getting limited, so was his water intake = much more prone to an injury.
You tell me why he never got injured in the off season. Why did he tear both his bicep and tricep just weeks out from Mr. Olympia? doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
my advice to anyone is to learn ur own body. we arent machines that are all the same. everyone is different and needs different things for the most optimal growth. amount of rest required will differ from person to person and can change over time for anyone. try different things and see how ur body reacts. then take the things that work the best and stick to those consistently and u will get a great body
Great advice sir, every body out there is different, there's a reason why not all exercises work the same for all people
@@newmanboi3536 How to balance weightlifting/bodybuilding with other sports for example boxing? If someone would like to get a good bodybuilding physique combining calisthenics and weights while also keeping or even improving speed and agility in boxing?
@@wladynoszhighlights5989 I'm sorry bro,I don't know, I can't help to be honest, I was just giving my opinion
@@wladynoszhighlights5989 Low weightlifting volume is the way to go for sports athletes. Train for strength and continue or increase the amount of stamina and cardio work you do. You'll end up with a military style physique which is a great balance of strength + stamina
@@wladynoszhighlights5989 low volume on everything basically, you only have so much resources your body can use.
I'm an otr trucker (I'm gone from M-F every week) so naturally my only times I can train are Friday nights when I get home from work, and Saturdays and Sundays. Initially I thought this would be a disadvantage (back when I still believed in higher volume/frequency) but I've come to realize that it's actually perfect. I train each muscle group only once every 7 days. Friday nights are my leg day, Saturdays are my chest/tri day, and Sundays are my back/bi/shoulder day. I do few sets per exercise (typically 2-3) but at very high intensity and using a weight that I can get only 7-8 reps of going to absolute failure (using a spotter on bench press, but typically going at it alone for everything else). Whenever I'm able to get 10 reps in my first set on any exercise, I bump it up 10 lbs for the next session, and I apply this method to every muscle group and every exercise. It works amazingly well. When I hit chest hard on Saturdays, my entire chest is absolutely trashed clear through Wednesday and I can even sometimes still feel soreness on Thursday. But by the time Saturday rolls around again, my chest is 100% recovered and ready to be destroyed again. The 7-day wait really is ideal, I can't even imagine going back to hitting chest twice per week, it wouldn't even make sense unless I lowered the intensity, that's the only way I'd be able to recover in just a couple days. Which tells me that everyone who works chest 2-3 times a week (or any other muscle for that matter) is simply using nowhere near high intensity, because if they were, they'd need 5-7 days to recover properly, not just 2-3.
I've only been back into weightlifting for a little over a year now (but I did lift a lot in my younger years, so my muscles did grow a bit faster due to "muscle memory"). I'm 34 now, when I first got back into lifting last year I only weighed 153 and I was using just 135 as my workout weight on bench press. In just about 13 months, my body weight is now up to 178 and my workout weight on bench press is now 225 (I just did it yesterday for 8 reps). I literally put on 25 lbs in a year, and my bmi is virtually unchanged, so almost all of that weight is muscle. All natural too, no PEDs. Just lifting with high intensity, 7-day recovery periods, taking creatine, and eating 160 grams of protein a day. It's really not that hard to experience growth like this in this time frame, the only reason most people don't attain it is simply because they either A) don't push hard enough in their lifts, or B) they overtrain and don't allow enough time for recovery. I don't believe ANYONE has an excuse for not benching 225 (not as a 1-rep-max, I mean for multiple reps) by the end of their first year. Remember, I'm a trucker, which is THE most sedentary job on earth, and I don't even eat healthy (being on the road, my only options are usually nasty fast food) and yet I'm STILL able to get absolutely jacked and maintain a 15-16% bmi. Which means if a guy has a typical 9-5 job and the ability to go to the grocery store every day and eat quality foods and get better rest than I do, he will be at an even greater advantage than a guy like me who's a trucker. So there really is no excuse not to get built like a brick house...if a 34-yr-old trucker can do it in one year, then a 24-yr-old dude who has more time and better nutrition, should certainly be able to do it in one year as well.
That'll work
Raise my ball cap to you brother get it while you live. Probably the best time for you in terms of life schedule keep you growing and active outside of OTR sitting get the blood flow around
Awesome
Awesome progress, thanks for sharing
Thank you. I used to work with that and it helps knowing that you changed between muscle groups each day which is something I don't really do😬 so I'm sore ATM and need to recover my back especially as I've been training that a lot. At least it's nice to know I'm finally making gains again 💪
I am 80 years old and I agree with intensity and low frequency as at my age recovering ability is poor at best
Not that bad some researches has other talking about recovery ability as aging but the case is stimulates growth ،The mechanisms of growth...and giving the body enough time to recover, then compensate, grow, and overcompensate...this is the principle advocated by this genius...and increasing strength means the opposite of the mechanism of aging...the difference between young and old is strength and fitness..😉💪
i applaud you for exercising at your age sir.
@@user-lv3mi3sw1vmy sentiments exactly 💯
I always wondered when I would stop, I don't think I ever will
@@amjidali588 i agree with you. i'm 61 and still growing after 6 months on mentzer's system. have put on 28 pounds of muscle in that 6 months. i hope to keep training till i'm 90 if i live that long.
I do zero reps. Workout zero days. I'm making better progress than ever
Fuck yeah bro. You're gonna beat Cbum with that much recovery
The important thing to point out here is doing zero reps zero days with maximum intensity
😂
Lightweight yeahbuddy
Mentzer in a nutshell
Many people here do not understand what Mentzer is trying to say because he only tells half the story. He tells us to train less, but forgets to tell that we should also tren more.
😂
Diffently the tren,it's great for recovery !
HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA good one!
Mentezer left out the main factor in strength and recovery = Roids!!!!
Beautiful hahahahahhaha
Being 73 and an advocate of MM HIT training. If you have not read his book, read it and start growing. It will take some getting used to, however it is worth the effort. You feel better, look better, and for the most part you will be injury free. On most days I am in and out of the gym in 25 min or less. And even at 73, 6'3" and 190. My waist is still a 34, chest 46. MM has taught me how to gain. And with over 200 customers who also have made good progress with HIT, you need to at least try this system. It works!
you are right it works i'm 61 and training mike mentzer system. in the last 6 months i have put on 28 pounds of muscle. i hope i am still training when i'm 73 like you.
@@trinihammer naturally?
@@JGD185the only way is naturally. i cant afford steroids
@@JGD185 the only way is naturally. i cant afford steroids
@@JGD185 yeah, its all natural i cant afford steroids they are too exspensive.
The biggest thing I've learned from all of this is that most of us just aren't working out hard enough. I went from being a guy that was in the gym 5-6 times a week happily to a guy that dreads his 2-3 workouts per week. This is all because of the intensity of my workouts. You have to get to the point that you dread going through the workout because it is hell but in the end you are rewarded so much freedom to do whatever you want outside of the gym
Now, this is the best post I have seen. Most people are lazy, myself included, and I would just go and work out, but I would visit with other guys there and talk smack and not bust my butt enough. I didn't learn that until later how lazy I was in those years. Sure, I was ripped, but I never got the size I wanted.
Absolutely @@BradTaylor-n8t
if youre dreading your workouts its not for you then 🥱
You get used to it.
@@HummusLad and the fact u coulda gotten to the same size working out 3 tines a week insteadve 12....
This guy has a great voice.
Sounds like a real clever guy and soooo well spoken 👍👍
Makes sense why Tom Platz could only squat once every 2 weeks.
Discover and do what works for you, under your specific circumstances.
He's right about his methodology in most ways. I like free weight over machines though.
1:02
INfrequent training, NOT frequent. That is a huge misquote
I lowered how often I train and how long, from training 2-3 hours a day every day to 30 min 3x a week, I am gaining size faster than ever
Yes it's all common sense. When you do a workout it should be intense. Only can do a few sets really intense, say 5 for a muscle, sometimes even less..... Lots of ppl doing hours of training low intensity and not even focusing on light pump, doing everything wrong and never progressing (I did that for like 5 years or more) thinking I had worse genetics...
Started training intense and threw in some extra sets everyday on just arms (light pump) and also trained them intense during week, they blew up...
Atm, training intense and about 1 hour a workout. 2 full body/upper body workouts full intense a week, with a few other days of just light pump stuff (30 minutes) so far enjoying full intense days & heavy days.
okay but tell me how you even train all the body parts in 1:5 h.
@@PGG98 Supersets/dropsets, 3-5 sets, not switching between lots of exercises for 1 muscle.
Noob gains
Doughboy.
Progress in your physical abilities can be felt and learned from not just performing the exercises properly and in a certain routine made up to your physical capabilities but by listening to your body through the mind muscle connection and understanding how much you can partake in your exercises and how frequently you should perform the tasks
Only thing Mentzer wasn't spot on about and he is very upfront about this is how long you're to rest. That's the only real sliding component in his entire philosophy. Which makes perfect sense. We all burn from the Sun, some very fast, some very slow. You need to find your point of recovery. It seems a week recovers 99% of people. Unfortunately 99% don't wait a week, they are taxing the nervous system 1-2 days later.
Depends how hard you go how much recovery you need
@@yoeyyoey8937 Obviously?
@@vvoof2601 apparently not the way most people train
If i'm sore in that muscle, I let it rest.
@@Spazticspazour central nervous system only tells us 10% of the pain that our bodies incurr so when the body part "feels" good to you it may still be under repair (pain).
Ultimately it's what works best for you, long term.
I used to train every day...
I was a string bean.
Then i switched to twice a week..
I grew
So i switched to twice a month ...
I got even bigger.
Then i reduced it to twice a year...
I became a behemoth
I decided to stop working out altogether for this lifetime and let my soul rest and grow so that when it enters the next lifes body... Ill start off as ronnie coleman and be ahead of the game.
Ill peel an orange here and there to get a workout but ill never overdo it 😂
Funniest comment here, deserves more likes!
@@thesummitbeforeyou
❤️
hahhahhahahahhhahhahaahh!
U should train 24 hrs and u will have 30 inches biceps
I like the way you think & train lol
I believe "newbie gains" happen because you experience the greatest muscle intensity and shock you'll ever be able to create... I wonder how hard would you have to train each workout, and i don't think you can push yourself so hard every workout like in those first few training sessions.
I find failure training to be extremely easy and enjoyable for the most part. I would argue beginners are who dont train that hatd.
Mentzer program isnactually for intermediate or advanced lifters
Just because you can't believe it doesn't mean it isn't true...you just aren't yet on the same page as the facts.
Newbie isn't pushing themselves harder, just the work is harder relative to their level of training/fitness.
You can ALWAYS push hard (to absolute failure or beyond) newbie or advanced.
Newbie gains is just a result of your muscle having to adapt to cope with more stimulus than it's used to, if you go from doing absolutely nothing to lifting a weight for repetitions the muscle will be forced to grow. ANYTHING works.
This is also why you'll see so many people not grow past their first year of newbie gains simply as they cling to bad programming as it helped them gain muscle. just look around your local gym how many people look the exact same year after year..
I been doing mikes system for 9 months and went from 180-230 with the right diet and reading his books and understanding what he means about recovery and how to do hit it works… if you do the work plan and simple don’t do it for 1 month and Complain about no results invents the time and you will see change this journey is a long one for us all
Anyone i put on or trained using Mikes technique has seen benefits or gains every time so whoever disbelieves his technique than obviously doesn’t understand high intensity or to train to failure because if you can do 4 fucking sets on each exercise then i know forsure your not giving it 100percent each set or your overtraining yourself and that’s why you don’t see progress .. i don’t get how people can’t understand his point when he uses science to back it up which no other people apply to there workouts
@@MarcBelislei just started for 2 weeks i did all the exercises i normally do, 1 x to failure and it gave me good muscle pain and even muscles that were harder for me to get muscle pain. Its working well for now.
After a month or two im going to go back to 3 x 13 and see if its easier for me to do it or harder.
If its easier then im very happy if its not improving the 3 x 13 then i know both have their own benefits. If the last one is the case then im going to mix it. 2 or 3 times 1 x to failute and then 1 time the usual training.
i'm with you, been doing mentzer's way of training for 6 months and in that time have gained 28 pounds of muscle. i went from 195 pounds to 223 pounds. i'm 61 years old been training for 30 years now always hovered in weight from 195 to 200 pounds. used mentzers system and things have sky rocketed.
@@trinihammer
It isn't physically possible to gain 28 lbs of muscle in 6 months. Some of that must be fat
@@mrman2415 it is possible, i have done it. what is even more remarkable is the bodybuilder CASEY VIATOR using the same system that mike mentzer recommends gained 28 lbs of muscle in one month. so if you think me gaining 28 lbs in six months cant be done then how come casey viator gained the same amount of muscle in one month.
I do 1 set every couple of months. Got hella gains in my belly
lolsz
I was a firm believer in training every muscle group once per week. It wasn't until I got old enough that I COULDN"T do the heavy training anymore that I switch to lower weight higher rep work. I switched to training each muscle group three times per week, and my muscle gains have never been better. So to each their own.
Yes these are the new findings, the new top bodybuilder, he's 27, Nick the mutant Walker, he traines with light weights (for him) with high repetitions. I mean, look at him.....
Full body 3x a week Steve Reeves routine is probably best for a natural (or a bit less sets) FULL intensity and less duration... 3x a week. But I enjoy doing workouts for mental health etc and it just feels so much more natural to train 4-5 days a week and it's an awesome feeling, even though it has definitely impacted some gains for sure, but volume has it's place... Cycling between different workouts keeps it interesting, full body, split, heavy duty, etc... or even all of them at once but on different days, seems to be better rounded... But intensity is very important and probably only requirement to progress, volume etc can all be increased/decreased, if you aren't doing negatives, forced reps, dropsets, etc, 1 day or 7 days isn't going to change anything.
Full body 3x a week will fuck you up real good.
Unless you are on gear that is.
@@blueeyed5074 it is very taxing. Was doing it 5x a week but lower volume and it was awesome for a bit. Atm it's 1-2x full body workouts a week and 1 upper or split day, add extra day if rest is decent
What works is using a program and sticking to it, not cycling workouts all the time cause you’re bored. Training is supposed to be boring. You can find a program or movements or some tweaks that make it a bit more exciting, but the excitement should come from the results (ie everytime you add weight to the bar)
@@blueeyed5074no it won’t as long as you don’t do it like an idiot (like deadlifting 3x week on top of squatting and goodness knows what else)
@@yoeyyoey8937 Yes & No. Obviously don't want a different workout every day but switching up is ok, just keep a lot of them the same, atm all days have bench press, and a few other exercises as the core
Mike didn't make a mistake. He was a pioneer. And pioneers blaze a trail that has never existed. He leads the way and you are going to make slip-ups along the way.
What was true for Mike may not be true for you so you have to find out the true way for yourself. And that takes practice time and error.
Mike used to say that nothing fails like success. Bite on that one for a while!
hahahhaha least delusional mike fan
Mike was fake. He did not get big from HIT training and didn't practice what he preached. Keep drinking the coolaid bud
Especially with HIT, some people will find they will sometimes need those two full weeks of rest to see progress if the training is intense enough. And that may bother alot of folks, because waiting that long means you may not be seeing results fast enough for your tastes. It means you are only working out a body section only 24 times a year. Ludicrous! But that's just how it is sometimes. For some, this project may literally take years primarily because of the rest periods needed. if you are a naty, patience is the name of the game. Im on "YEAR 2" of using Mentzer's ideas and its only now that I'm seeing results I myself personally deem acceptable. It takes awhile. But it beats plateauing months at a time like I used to before. Now I hardly ever plateau.
I do at least 2 sets for strength and then one set to failure for hypertrophy and other benefits,also do circuit training to keep up the cardio and intensity.This works well for me as a natural lifter.45,fit and strong as hell for my age.
For my age haha. 40 year olds are strong but if you dont do shit in your life and even for 30 year olds and 20 year olds they are weak as hell for not having an active lifestyle
That last part of the last sentence is exactly why.I weighed a soft 270 at age 20,and now I'm 185 solid.Lifestyle choice is everything.By the way,"strong for my age" is benching 325 and bb rowing 240 @ 185 lbs and natural.That's strong for any age.@@heuvelke1065
Maybe do the hypertrophy first before the strength to avoid injury. Warm up the muscles by doing high reps and then do the heavy weight strengthening set to finish off.
@@pc8679 If u do that then you weaken the muscles before u get to the strength sets.However,i agree w u to an extent and typically do at least one not-to-failure warm up set on my first exercise.I'm ready after that.Not every strength set to 5 or less is meant to go to failure,so the first set can be a bit of a warm up...Isometrics themselves will warm the body and there's no risk of injury since it's not even a rep - just a ballistic or hypertrophic hold.That's why isometrics are a great for workout for ppl w mild to reasonable injury,and for those who have plateaued..
what is your definition of strong? And from what I have been told Hell is just hot, not strong. My picture is posted.. I am 56. If you weigh 225 pounds I can lift u about 33 times in bench press.
muscle grows when it heals ,you need to give it reason to heal without causing too much damage
imagine the first few weeks when you began training and you will know how much progress you made due to increased need to heal
This page is on point! I love it 💯❤️🙏🏻
All one needs to do is work out as intensely as possible and vary the frequency of workouts. See what frequency yields the best progress. It isn't complicated.
I worked out once last year, and I'm still growing.
HIT works just as well as any other routine if you are consistent with it. The disadvantage of HIT is that it is a heavy mental load, real HIT and being consistent in it is only reserved for a few.
What has a more mental load is training for hours without seeing any results for a long time
@@cannonieh4469 I agree, but it has nothing to do with the routine you're using. HIT, high volume, low volume, split, full body, etc. don't matter as long as the parameters are correct.
True Hit training is very hard psychological as any hard training carried out consistently over a long period! Those who can,will be the best!!!!
Real, balls to the wall HIT seriously depletes your CNS. It will impact other areas of your life to the point where even casual acquaintances will be able to tell on which weekdays you're hitting the gym.
I suggest that people follow the teachings of Arthur Jones, and Leroy Colbert. Full Body 3 times per week WORKS!!!
My belief is that frekvensy is very individual. One person might need 2 days for a muscle to be fully rested. Another person needs 5 days. I think if you get to the gym and you are not energetic and ready to give your all every workout then maybe your overtrained and might need another restday. Also if your sleeping habits are bad,your diet poor and you stress alot training 6 days a week probobly will be of no benefit to you as your not giving the right fuel to the body anyway.
Depends on where you are in your training and what you’re doing. If you obliterate your body then you might need 5-7 days to recover, but if you have more reasonable workouts then higher frequency is good
Mentzer was a genius and his legacy will remain so long as Bodybuilding even slightly resembling it's current form remains. Rest in Peace Mike and Ray Mentzer. We'll pick up the Heavy Duty training from here
To everyone saying Mentzer's program is bogus, I've been following Mentzer's Heavy Duty training principles taking 5 days off a week between workouts with an Upper Body/Lower Body/ Shoulders and Arms split and I've seen great results. In 21 weeks since I started I've seen an increase in reps or weight every single workout. Prior to starting this program I was working out 3x per week without a consistent plan, I was stuck benching 95lbs on incline press for 6 reps, hitting 100lbs assisted pullups and squatting 135lbs. Now I'm benching 155lbs on incline for 8 reps, hitting 6 pullups with 25lbs assistance, and squatting 195lbs for 8 reps. I've gained 20lbs in 21 weeks and I'm certain a majority of it is muscle. I used to be in much better shape before covid shut down the gyms and I just couldn't adapt to home workouts. I ended up getting skinny and losing my strength. I chalk up a lot of my recent growth to a body recomposition, I'm going to continue this program until I'm back to my former strength benching 225lbs again for 6 reps.
Now the question is: is this due to his program, or simply the greater consistency?
@yunoewig3095 hey dumbass, I started training at age 18 and used to do 5 days a week for the first 2 years. At one point I said to hell with rest days and went 7 days a week, little did I know it would only burn out my hard earned gains. When I realized what I had done I decided to only do 3 days a week and I built myself up to benching 225lbs and even hit a 455lbs rack pull for 1 rep over the course of a year. Then covid hit, the gyms shut down and I couldnt bring myself to adapt to home workouts. I lost my strength and had to build myself back up. I tried doing 3 days a week again with the same routine but it just wasn't working. HIT worked and it's been significantly easier to follow than any of the high volume training programs I've tried over the years. It works and no amount of dumbass youtube comments will change what is factually true.
I agree with menzer but not on frequency
100%. Even on some level volume. I've found I'm getting better results doing a 10 movement one set to failure upper/lower workout in which I work every muscle out once every 7 days then I did his program and frequently. I think it's a good starting point but it is not perfect for everyone. As no start point is, and I think suffering from dogma affected him to take every true theory to the furthest possible degree
Menzter always said his training program and frequency suggestions are for natural bodybuilders, hence the frequency isn’t meant for people on gear like Arnold was.
If you’re natty, then 4-7 days before training to absolute failure is the scientifically proven best way to induce and maximize muscle hypertrophy.
This may be anecdotal, but the Mentzer method has worked wonders for me! Just wish I heard about him sooner!
@@Pinkz604 same here. I could have avoided a knee injury that pretty soundly fucked up my leg workout today. I'll likely have it the rest of my life from blowing my knee out on a squat due to improper training. But live and learn. Better late than never
If you say you dont agree on frequency, then you dont agree in general because frequency or infrequency is ine of 2;cornerstones of his method. Just saying.
@@rihardsgr Lets take an example, one person does 1 set to failure once a week and gets good results. Other dude does the same but 2x times a week and gets the same result but faster. Thus higher frequency would be better on him. At least right now. Recovery is not the same for all individuals. I do recall Menzer saying that recovery is individual as well so what im saying doesnt really go against his principles.
3 times a week lifting intensely and consistently over time to cover all body parts is more than enough plus 2 days cardio and 1 day off with a decent diet is easy enough for anyone to follow to achieve results .. honesty is important because if one works intense leaving nothing in the gym going to proper failure on at least 1 workout set per exercise then you won't want to lift weights more than 3 times per week. Fill in with 2days light to medium cardio and 1 day off and natural lifters will see results and keep those results unlike those who eventually come off all the enhancing drugs they may be taking.
I now only blink 2 times a day to prevent overtraining
It’s really hard to gauge anything from any pro builder as they take lots of steroids ,
he trained so many nautrals and its even better for people who dont take steroids because the body has less time to recover
Thats when Dorian turned around & never asked Mike another question again lol
Doing less volume and more intensity is so much more fun and productive
I'm doing 4 days, in the future I'll lower it to 3 days
Mike Mentzer's mistake was to take drugs. Honestly, working out multiple times a week doesn't give your body time to grow. When you cut your finger, it takes 2-3 weeks to completely heal that tiny little cut to the point you can't see it anymore. Your muscles are no different, when you lift weights you make little tears in your muscles, and your body only grows on a microscopic & molecular level everyday to heal those tears, and your muscles haven't made a complete recovery and grown fully in the time the muscle soreness goes away. Muscle soreness is nothing more than lactic acid on the muscles, but that goes way long before your muscles are finished growing. The more patient you are with lifting, and the more time you give yourself time to grow, the faster you will get bigger. You get bigger and stronger when you are eating and sleeping ;)
I once saw the most jacked Gorilla in the world eating a banana.
I assumed it was because he ate bananas.
Mike is so mellow and articulate that its a juxtapostion with what hes telling you to do in the gym. You have to be an intense individual to do his workout properly. Most gyms arnt stoked with you pushing your self that hard and making a bunch of noise in the process. Its an old school gnarly work out that has to be done correctly and with lota of rest. Most people are just not that intense in the gym nor have multiple days to be extremely sore.
Articulate? No, logorrheic would be a much better description. I know only one person who has mastered the art of saying so little with so many words, and he's also a fringe personality in a niche community, albeit a medical one.
I used to own the book written by Arthur Jones on H.I.T. It's worth a read if you've hit a wall in the gym with your progress or if you simply aren't into volume training 5 or 6 days a week. Roughly HALF of everything that I do in the gym stems from this book. You are GUARANTEED to see results if you follow it and put forth some type of effort and perseverance.
I didnt reach my full potential until I went to 1 workout a year of a 1 rep max per muscle group... and then sleep for the other 364 days... being fed intravenously.
Is that you Gary Str...Dom. lol
Question. Why do people say roids is the reason why his program works? If the sole purpose of roids is to speed up recovery time then that would enable a user to work out more frequently. In that case, someone who is natural would benefit greater to Mikes philosophy on H.I.T. We grow on off days not when we train. Training just is a stimulant for growth which happens on “off/grow” days. Stimulating growth requires high intensity training. Sure your body can recover after a day or two but by adding in more rest days, you are allowing your body to now add, not just repair. Even if you choose to do a different exercise each day. Your body only has so much available resources to recover let alone grow. An example of this is eating heavy food before you sleep. Your body is now taking on the role of digestion over recovery. We see this same thing when we don’t allow our body to recover/grow and then we start to break down another body part through training. If we do not give our muscles & cns enough time to recover and build then we can no longer use basic logical fundamentals that we as humans understand about our body. “Then what about Arnold or Ronnie? 🤓” To answer that question, yes they train every day to high intensity. 1. They are on anabolic steroids + other compounds. 2. They are genetic phenoms.. they could do any regiment and put on size. One would argue that they could put on even more size. Arnold tried Mentzer’s H.I.T training and saw great progress from it but he said it wasn’t for him. Addicted to the pump and most importantly the gym itself. Fair enough if that’s what you love. I’ve been doing HIT for 4 months at 22y/o and each training session has me increasing weight or reps without missing a beat. I’ve stayed 190 throughout those entire 4 months but have gained strength and vascularity + visible abs which I’ve never had in my life. My entire body recompensed. If you call what I said above bs I’ll gladly drop my instagram. This shit changed my life and if you want to test it. Try it for 3 weeks and then make a decision. You can look up on RUclips “Mike Mentzer HIT training full video one hour” You’ll find his entire workout split posted. He died a day after that released too. Gave us the ultimate knowledge bomb before passing.
Arthur Jones later stated 2 times per week or less. Depending on the individual
this fits with my current experience doing this kind of training.
Nothing beats a great mentor, especially if you're young enough and have great bodybuilding genetics.
The one thing he's right about is training to failure for hypertrophy.
Well, actually not to failure but certainly close
Close to failure is the way. Better recovery and o pain or injurys
First of all - adjust the training to your life, not the other way around. And listen to your body.
I'm a fking miner working 14hrs day/night shifts few times a week. How could I possibly do some 5-6 workouts a week (even small ones)?!
Yep
That's why I found Mike's method best for non steroid user and people who have long work hours unlike professional bodybuilders who spent whole day in the gym
Maybe you can try supersets. Natural Hypertrophy channel defends very well this approach and allows you to workout an hour as much
It’s the other way around that’s why it’s called training and that’s why your life sucks
In the past , at the age of 15 years i lifted a black smith amboss, who weight 154 kg, ca 320 pounds.
I lifted him , and walk ca 30 Meters to put him on a rock.
Because i ll start to work with my dad as i six or seven years old. First once a week, do hard work and lift heavy.
From week to week i get stronger.
My waight goes up from year to year.
At the age of twelve i m waight 86 kg.
At fifteen i waight 94 kg
And never see a gym.
Now i m 41 years. Sometimes i go to train to enyoye my muscles, pump and so.
Now my hight is 175 cm
Waight 105 kg or 225 pounds.
Greetings from Germany.
Mfg Matthias Prinz
I always get the best results when I go 5 times a week and take 2-4 days off over 6 weeks or so
The limits of deductive reasoning, rather than experience or evidence.
I like mentzer and have watched many of his videos on youtube but one thing that makes me doubt his teaching is that he was on the gear along with yates. I just don't feel right if I don't train like 4-5 days a week. And if I do feel like i can't give 100% i'll take more time off. I think it's great to go balls to the wall aleast 2 times a week and then back off a little . And I can not git my head around training squats to 100% failure .
Take his principles not what he literally says to do in out of context videos
Squats and bench shouldn't be taken to failure, but the progress in weight for reps can be programmed in a schedule. Mainly to avoid injuries.
All the top bodybuilders were/are on the gear. HIT actually favours those who are natural because natural bodybuilders need rest as they can't recover their muscles quickly like someone on roids
I believe that building muscle is the same as getting fat. If you eat and don’t do shit you get fat, if you continue to add calories you get fatter over time. Now, every fat person is not the same that’s where genetics come in, so if you workout and create the stimulus to grow you will grow, but you MUST continue to create STIMULUS to produce new growth along with sleep and proper diet. You OVEREAT in 1 sitting you get sick and feel bad, You OVER EXERCISE you feel bad. Finding the APPROPRIATE formula for YOU, is your only answer. Building muscle is not a 1 size fit all, Mentzer was right AND he was wrong because everyone is different.
Dorian LITERALLY took this challenge and made it his ethos although no one only god is perfect so the perfect workout ? But he got close
Dorian was cycling steroids and would have gained muscle doing any form of workout.
Gaining muscle doing HIT while on steroids DOES NOT mean that naturals will gain muscle by following the same training regime.
@@ozzy6162we are comparing to Dorian to other roided monsters so ofc the way he trained has a bearing on how he did competitively. Do you think dorian would have been able to step on stage doing only isometric holds as long as he was pinning? Lol
At 1:02 I think the captions are wrong. If you listen closely I'm pretty sure he says infrequent not frequent
It seems like a mike mentzer hole has appeared in the algoritms the last few weeks.
And i fell right into it.
Its an interesting theory and it makes sense, if you are to just focus on progress and rest and track that to find your sweet spot.
You'll get stronger.
The scenario is that you'll either also be bigger or pitentially be the next world champ in weightlifting as you'll develop "light muscles" as the first person in the world. Gratz.
Im doing calistenics these days so quite interested in implementing his principals into these types of workouts, and then spend more time on technique and flexibility.
Not every individual has the same muscle fiber constitution all over his body, you have to know the adequate intensity volume an frequencies for every bodypart at that moment
That’s a myth. Fiber composition doesn’t impact training and fiber types can change
Am probably over doing it every time I train I don’t improve at all am stuck at the same for a while.
I used to follow his advice but I just remained what I thought was skinny fat. Then I started going a lot more frequently and saw a lot more gains. I'm not calling him a liar, but it sure didn't work for me.
And for how long did you work out prior to doing the hiit training?
@@dikkelikker several years
What does your workout routine look like now?
I read that he wasn't even doing HIT to win Mr. Olympia titles, he would actually stay at the gym longer than Arnold. After he was done competing he started advocating for the HIT stuff. It sounds cool and marketable I guess but it still rings out like total broscience to my ears personally. Like with a lot of other things in life, if some miracle cure/method actually worked then wouldn't everyone be doing it and it would be widespread information?
@@1hauntthat was a younger mentzer mike only trained hit when in his late years as a bodybuilder
Some points (mostly stolen from Mike isratel), 1. Mentzer’s athletes generally the cream of the crop, that means greater proportion of fast twitch fibres that are stresses more easily (hamstring are faster twitch and I only need like 5 sets to torch them), 2. They were massive and extremely strong, doing 5x5 on squats with 100kg is far less stimulating that 5x5 with 200kg, even if in both instances the weight used is 80% of the individuals 1RM, this means more advanced athletes can train quicker and less frequently and get more stimulus And should take longer to recover due to the increased stress, you should probably be training more frequently than the best bodybuilders, don’t just copy what they do and expect it to work for you, you are not them
Thanks, I don't think this problem is adequately addressed but from what I can pice together this is true.
@@cameronwalter997 obviously its a sliding scale, its not HIT or Volume, every workout will have some degree of intensity and an amount of volume, I'm just arguing a higher volume approach than what guys like Mentzer and Yates did is probably right for most people, there are very real advantages in terms of time efficiency and if it works for you great
@@C-OBrien There seems to be a lack of information for how a beginner to intermediate would apply Mike Mentzers methods in a useful way. It seems to me that the principles are true but the execution of the techniques and rest periods may need to be calibrated depending how big and strong the individual is.
@@cameronwalter997 agreed, much of working out is always trial and error, i think another reason its not good for beginners is the lack of volume meaning you're not getting the practice at quality reps, once you know what works for you and how to execute perfectly you can maybe apply some principles from it. also pushing yourself to true failure and beyond while still maintaining good form is a skill beginners wont have.
illogical, body builders use steriods and other enhancing drugs such that they can train MORE frequently not less.
If you're natural, you need to therefore train less to allow recovery.
Mike seems to lack common sense just like his misinformation regarding diet, he's clearly wrong 100 percent on a number of things, don't take his word as gospel.
I'll never be a bodybuilder.. but damn theres something about beating the absolute s*** out of yourself first thing in the morning that keeps the fires stoked all day long. If i train too infrequently i fall right off
I hear you but there’s healthier ways of feeling better about life
@@yoeyyoey8937Sport is a healthy way.
I would guess the main issue in his program would be limited sarcoplasmic gains from the low volume. The HIT guys are notorious for being "skinny". I like the pumped look but your more permanent gains come from muscle fiber growth.
I'd like to hear people's experiences with strength gains on Heavy Duty. Did you continue gaining strength or did you stall out early? Where you started and where you ended up after following the program.
The regimen only works as advertised if you are juiced to the gills and don't care about strength. It's simply not enough stimulus for the overwhelming majority. If you are focused on strength then you need HIHF or a periodization schedule which peaks with HIT a couple weeks before your comp.
Many won’t understand what Mentzer said here.
everyone responds to training differently. You must find out what exercises cause your body to respond the best. You must be in tune with your body. If your sleep, and dieting are on point. then you will be able to FEEL if your training is adequate. you will be able to tell when you are overtraining. its often a gradual feeling. your lifts can start to dip a little bit. that's when you know you should take a step back.
And Dorian himself made the same mistake by training too frequently. Had he trained only once per week (no more than twice per week), he would've been even more freakish....with fewer or no injuries.
It's all
about
the *N E G A T I V E*
It may work well but we all need 3 or more warm-ups before we get to our one maximum effort set.
Squats and deadlifts may require more than 5 if we are using more than 3 times our body weight.
Yea. I do 4 sets per exercise or body part. The first 3 sets are just warm ups. I can tell I haven't warmed up enough when when I do the last one to failure and my muscle feels vulnerable to over-strain. Well-warmed up to failure feels good. I agree also on more warmup sets for legs.
You look about a decade or more younger than me. These young pups should listen. If they don't want to listen to you, me or Mike then listen to Dorian Yates. End of argument.
Mentzer was right kind of.
Most need a variety of weighs per body part.
The subtitles are ass with many mistakes, such as "frequent" when he's saying "infrequent", "either" when he's actually saying "neither", etc. Though the actual message itself is pretty good.
There was a weird cult attachment to Heavy Duty for a brief period. One particularly obnoxious kid had a major boner about his newbie gains on Heavy Duty. Being a total dick to everyone but refusing to post pics. Tried tying it into Ray Peat. Then he kind of disappeared. Pretty funny.
I have never followed the program directly but I got a lot out of reading his books. Those Heavy Duty shirts are rad, also.
1:02
Infrequent or frequent?
The answer to that question is to keep shortening the set
Mike Mentzer is one of those people that’s frequently wrong, but speaks with this “confident professor” tone that makes him seem more knowledgeable than he really is. He sees only one way, his way. I tuned out from him long ago.
His idea is that there is “the way” not “ways” or “a way” and he has a good point in principle
yet here you are, still....
You should probably take his advice, You'll get bigger.
If your way is best. Why look at lesser ways?
I changed from training 5 times a week to only 3 with higher intensity and I jumped from 200 to 230 in 2 months .
Feeling better than ever and recovered all the time and naturally
the anecdotal nature of this recording, the static, the subttles, the bad audio quality, etc. makes this shit feel like analogue horror lmao
My technique is build from the bottom up. Must have a strong foundation
I’ve been training once every 30 years. I’m 42 now and making more gains than ever. I still feel I’ve overtrained and may back off to every 40 years or even more for better gains.
Every time I listen to Metzer it's like never brief and infrequent enough. What if you trained once to failure in your life, would that be enough? Would a second life workout be overtraining?
I think what Mentzer says mostly applies to advanced individuals. I honestly believe that if you can handle volume and get progress from it, then you should do it, but there is a point of diminishing returns and eventually, you will need less of it as each set becomes more systemically fatiguing as one gets stronger. It's hard for people at his level to relate to people at beginner or early intermediate stages. For example, the only thing that got my squats moving after a very long plateau was more sets. Grinding sets like a mad man actually was making me move backwards, despite it being a high intensity and lower volume approach... As I become stronger though, I notice the stimulus of each set is greater, but with an increasing fatigue cost too, so he is definitely right about what he says, though us mere mortals have ways to go before his training philosophies fully apply to us. Tom Platz needed two weeks to recover from his leg workout, because he was doing 500 lbs for over 20 reps....
Can you upload or link the full recording?
I do just one second of flexing every single muscle to the limit of just before they break. Is this too muchm/?
1 workout every 20 days.
“The reason some bodybuilders have gained muscle with volume training, relates to the fact that steroids act primarily as a recovery ability enhancers. Were those same bodybuilders to train for 2 hours a day, 6 days a week without steroids, they would begin to lose muscle mass almost immediately. Heavy duty high intensity training is tailor made for the non-steroid natural bodybuilder because of the page taking precaution to properly regulate the volume and frequency of exercise to prevent overtraining.”-Mike Metzner
Yeah but I do 2 hours a day 6 days a week and I've been adding 5 lb a week to my bench. Sooo.....that kinda disproves his whole theory there
@@isaachazenberg9860and you bench about 160lbs?
@@filiptomic224 sure for about 120 reps
@@isaachazenberg9860 disproves nothing without understanding your situation and history such as muscle memory, underloading of weights, intensity generally of training etc. etc.
That was the beginning of the end for yates listening to menzter
How so?
Mike was very rigid in his views. Dorian was open minded. You can say what you want about Yates but his best asset was his mind which allowed a manic level of professionalism. Mike was bitter and obese for half his life. Dorian's point is that if his diet is hitting the mark, his sleep is consistent and uninterrupted, he was stretching with a lot of massages, that this will speed up the healing process and allow you to train more often. Science has shown this to be true (you have to remember this was decades ago). The most important point, and one Mike actually agreed with, is that the steroids Dorian was taking allowed him to train more and recover quicker. At the end of his life Mike was advocating 8 days rest. That was too much and Dorian told him. Dorian was actually losing muscle resting that long so he changed which caused friction. In 2023 the key points have been shown to be progressive overload, time under tension and full range of motion. MIKE WAS RIGHT ON A LOT OF THINGS plus way ahead of his time just NOT all things.
@@loveandmoney im doing full body every 7 days. mike consolidation exercises and, crunches, vacuums, shoulder presses. one set to negative failure. I get stronger on those exercises. I swear i cannot tolerate 2 times a week.
@@thisguy3147I just started his routine and I cannot tolerate not going everyday
@@loveandmoney. What if the science is wrong? You have to have total trust in the person or persons doing the scientific study. Also remember science is theory not fact, it takes practical application to know for sure.
Boys look it’s not a cult. Train with more intensity cut out half ur sets
When a doctor prescribes medicine, he does not says "100 mg for everyone, always, regardless of circumstances". The Rx is a starting point, and you observe and modify the dosage based on the person.
In other words, just because a general principle is applicable to all people, does not mean that all people are identical from every level of abstraction down to the concrete. The older you are, the more recovery you need. The stronger you are, the more recovery between workouts. The less rest sleep and nutrition you get (and more stress), your recovery suffers.
Dorian did more than what Mike describes as optimal, but far less than any of his contemporaries. That is the salient point. He took Mike's advice, applied it in a watered down fashion, and was happy and impressed with the results.
When you are young and have favorable metabolism and test level, any training can result in impressive muscular development. Mike conceded this. He conceded that through sheer dint of hard work, young men have built some amazing bodies. Especially newbies can transform their bodies with sub-optimal training protocols.
Here is the correct way to think about Mike's prescriptions: Heavy Duty II contains his true final word, and his routine is a starting point. His central point is that recovery ability is the limiting factor to training for size. Your ability to adapt may or may not become more efficient. But it is irrefutable that if your body can build or recover "1 unit" of muscle per day, then training 3x a week where in each workout, you do 3 units of damage, is not optimal.
All of the criticisms in the comments here seem based on feelings and innuendo.
If I were training a brand new beginner, we would train 2-3x a week and probably full body to start, mainly so they could slowly become accustomed to the movement and increasing intensity. After perhaps 4 weeks, we would being training to positive failure and an occasional forced rep or hold or negative. They would progress.
Later, as they progressed, we would add rest and eventually move to a split routine. It is the only way to ensure continued progress.
The issue isn't whether you follow the absolute letter of Mike's proposal as a religous edicit. In fact, I'd say he wouldn't want that at all.
Instead, Mike wanted bodybuilders to use their brains and down regulate workout frequency and duration while up regulating intensity and rest.
If you understand that, whether you like it or not, you owe a conceptual debt to Mike Mentzer (and Arthur Jones), no matter how you may quibble with his "perfect" proposed routine.
Anyone i put on or trained using Mikes technique has seen benefits or gains every time so whoever disbelieves his technique than obviously doesn’t understand high intensity or to train to failure because if you can do 4 fucking sets on each exercise then i know forsure your not giving it 100percent each set or your overtraining yourself and that’s why you don’t see progress .. i don’t get how people can’t understand his point when he uses science to back it up which no other people apply to there workouts
1:03 mentzer says infrequent not frequent
analog horror be like:
At some point, if we follow this theory, wouldn’t we be doing one set for of a body part every week which isn’t enough volume?
Olympic athletes and athletes in general train very frequently.
it's about intensity and volume is just a component of intensity. Doing 1 working set means you will go all out and it will be grueling and mentally taxing.
I'm doing this program for more than a month now and you really need the rest time because you feel drained physically and mentally if you do more.
Wow!
Bronze era Silver era taught you everything. No New Fundamentals....Basically it's the BASICS. Work Eat sleep Grow...Progressively overload making your muscle adapt and overcompensate (ie strength and muscle gains) it takes a long time to build muscle....exceeding adaptation over time,,,,,NO SECRETS...NO SPECIAL EXERCISES NO SPECIAL PROGRAMS.
3x a week full body or 2x a week full intense with lighter days, full body silver era style, intense & lighter, change reps up. Occasional forced reps
Well said. So much crap out there now that has young men doing gimmicky exercises and routines. Nothing has changed since bronze and silver. Basics work and they’re all you need.
Even if his methods built more muscle, progress would be so slow I would get bored. High frequency is just way more entertaining and produces faster progress in strength which in turn for me means progress in size.
It doesnt produce faster progress in strength lmao its the actual opposite
So you think the consolidation routine is better?
Where's the rest?
Just as it was getting interesting it ends. I think I'm calling bollocks, I think it comes down to what works for the individual. I workout 4 days a week and doing ok, recently added an extra arm day and they have started to grow more. What does that tell me?
@@budwise7332 Good genetics and diet?
Steroids? lol
This guy shows that if you just say anything with enough confidence, and fairly eloquently, people will listen to you, eventhough you have zero real evidence or proper hysiological training backing you. Other than some reading you've done yourself.
You have to be trolling. Must be.
HE was the evidence lol
@@infeliximpiusevidence of what? That roiding will make you bigger no matter how you train? For example - 1980 Mr was a contest between Arnold (extreme high volume training, advocating even training two times per day) and Mentzer, the fact that despite they extremely different training systems they were head to head in that contest proves that it didn't matter how they trained. For that single reason (roiding) his advice is useless for natty lifters. And I can see myself that high volume is better, when I add one whole set to the exercise I'm doing, I have more gains, the difference is that I already tried to lift heavy, maybe if you tried overloading with weight and then added reps and sets, you wouldn't have listen to the biggest sore loser in the history of bodybuilding
@@SFSFSF1418Yeah, I think you're properly evaluating the "data" as it were. All these top bodybuilders using pretty widely different training systems and still coming out looking about the same as each other shows that training methods aren't that critical when on that level of steroids.
@@SFSFSF1418your comment is not logical. If anything, using steroids will DECREASE the amount of time it takes to recover from a stimulus. Therefore steroids would be more beneficial to those with higher frequency splits as you will recover quicker, and not overtrain as easily. You also conveniently leave out that Dorian Yates then won Olympia 6 times with a low volume high intensity training style.
The problem with that is Dorian was on steroids like the rest. He could recover and trian long and harder.
BODY NEEDS FULL WORKOUT