Anyone read Mike Mentzer's "High Intensity Training"?

[jeroendebleser]

Mike trained me in 1995, my GF was helping him write his philosophy book at the time. Training was as such and this is direct from mike, not in text, book or whatever this is what we did at Golds as he counted reps.
Training was one day on, 2 days off
Warm up as much as you feel you needed to get the muscles ready.
Then it was 1 or 2 working sets to failure, depending on the performance of that first working set...there was flexibility nothing was set in stone evaluated on the floor.
-Chest and back
-Legs
-Shoulders and arms

and yes, after 9 month of this I had made REALLY GOOD gains.
But then, this was me.
It took a while for my body to interpret the training signal I was giving it , about six week as I recall.
The stagnant time out of the gym (2 days off) gave me the possibility to be FULLY recuperated between work out, I could not wait to get to the gym to add a few reps or a few LBS to the last work out.
Whats most important, is to believe in the training program you adopt and stick with it long enough to see the results. If you walk around questioning yourself if your program is good or not, that doubt in itself will prevent progress....
As for overtraining and undertraing... that is relative to many factors. Mindset is one, level of conditioning is another etc....

This was when Mike and his advice were still sane. He later preached such infrequent training with so little reps done, I can't see anyone gaining on it. You'll always need a minimum of stimulus.

 

[maldorf]

Mike trained me in 1995, my GF was helping him write his philosophy book at the time. Training was as such and this is direct from mike, not in text, book or whatever this is what we did at Golds as he counted reps.
Training was one day on, 2 days off
Warm up as much as you feel you needed to get the muscles ready.
Then it was 1 or 2 working sets to failure, depending on the performance of that first working set...there was flexibility nothing was set in stone evaluated on the floor.
-Chest and back
-Legs
-Shoulders and arms

and yes, after 9 month of this I had made REALLY GOOD gains.
But then, this was me.
It took a while for my body to interpret the training signal I was giving it , about six week as I recall.
The stagnant time out of the gym (2 days off) gave me the possibility to be FULLY recuperated between work out, I could not wait to get to the gym to add a few reps or a few LBS to the last work out.
Whats most important, is to believe in the training program you adopt and stick with it long enough to see the results. If you walk around questioning yourself if your program is good or not, that doubt in itself will prevent progress....
As for overtraining and undertraing... that is relative to many factors. Mindset is one, level of conditioning is another etc....

So that was just about 6 years before he died. Did you see him much around his time of death? Wondering how he looked and if anyone had a clue what was coming for him.

Cant get any better source for info on Mike's training that someone like you that was trained by him. This board is amazing! Such a great diversity of info at our fingertips. Im glad you posted here.

So he didn't have you doing any supersets or forced reps? That routine I did once that over trained me I think had me doing rest pause training with a weight that I could only handle for one or two reps. You would do about 5 reps or so with that weight, resting in between each for a set amount of time. Absolutely fried me. Was supposed to have been one of his routines, I cant remember where I found it. I think it was online. That was back around 2004 or so I think. Maybe it wasn't even a routine he wrote? Cant trust everything on the net!

 

[maldorf]

This was when Mike and his advice were still sane. He later preached such infrequent training with so little reps done, I can't see anyone gaining on it. You'll always need a minimum of stimulus.

See my post above. That routine I found that was supposedly by him was just the opposite. Very high stimulus, but it proved to be too much for me. Basically doing 5 or more heavy singles in a row with very little rest.

 

[KTT]

youtube

Search YouTube for Mike Mentzer training video with Markus Reinhard.

 

[Rogue]

The training slip that I followed was as such.

Day1: Chest and back
Day2: Legs
Day3: Shoulder, arms

Chest: was always fly's movement first Pec dec or machine cross-over.
Incline (Flex selectorized) or smith

Back : reverse grip PD and Deadlifts, Very seldom seated rows in there.

The Work out would start as a thorough warm up for both chest and back.
and then there was the "working set" .
So pec dec till failure then, straight away to the incline press, again to failure.
If a second set was to be added its would be pec dec to failure on the first with resisted negatives at the end OR (Not done on the same day). Removing plates that had been placed on the handles of the incline press for a drop set usually 4 plates on each side.
Things varied minimally, the order of the exercises would change. Sometimes after warm up, the whole workout would be treated as a giant set. Pec dec, reversePD, incline press with deadlifts bringing it all together at the end. So Chest, back, chest then back.
Discusion during warm up usually revolved around Mikes interpretation of Ain Rand philosophy and his own.
Failure he always explained was mental failure as muscular failure was something experienced MUCH sooner. Mike would always say that Dorian had grasped this aspect of training early after HE had explained it to him and thats why he is (was) unstoppable.

 

[Rogue]

The incline machine looks similar to the one in the attached pic, with the selectorized weight stack behind. Additional 45lb plates would be slid over the handles on each side. That machine is still at Golds in the 3rd room.

 

[SWOLNUTZ]

Ha, I remember seeing those years ago

 

[jeroendebleser]

See my post above. That routine I found that was supposedly by him was just the opposite. Very high stimulus, but it proved to be too much for me. Basically doing 5 or more heavy singles in a row with very little rest.

But did he have you do that only once or twice a month though Maldorf? (which is what he preaches in his HIT-book and what the OP must have read) There's no way anyone is going to make gains training each bodypart once or twice a month, with almost non-existant volume and with reps so slow, the weight on the bar will be next to none.

I know his second iteration of 'Mentzer-HIT' was a 3-day split done MON-WED-FRI, very similar to what BigA has laid out in the articles section. That was what could be considered a sane approach, I still think the OP would do best just to give BigA's routine a try. It's as no-nonsense as it gets and it will work a lot better than what Mentzer laid out in his book.

 

[jeroendebleser]

The training slip that I followed was as such.

Day1: Chest and back
Day2: Legs
Day3: Shoulder, arms

Chest: was always fly's movement first Pec dec or machine cross-over.
Incline (Flex selectorized) or smith

Back : reverse grip PD and Deadlifts, Very seldom seated rows in there.

The Work out would start as a thorough warm up for both chest and back.
and then there was the "working set" .
So pec dec till failure then, straight away to the incline press, again to failure.
If a second set was to be added its would be pec dec to failure on the first with resisted negatives at the end OR (Not done on the same day). Removing plates that had been placed on the handles of the incline press for a drop set usually 4 plates on each side.
Things varied minimally, the order of the exercises would change. Sometimes after warm up, the whole workout would be treated as a giant set. Pec dec, reversePD, incline press with deadlifts bringing it all together at the end. So Chest, back, chest then back.
Discusion during warm up usually revolved around Mikes interpretation of Ain Rand philosophy and his own.
Failure he always explained was mental failure as muscular failure was something experienced MUCH sooner. Mike would always say that Dorian had grasped this aspect of training early after HE had explained it to him and thats why he is (was) unstoppable.

This is his second iteration of his HIT I was talking about. This I can actually see working. The first iteration was an A-B split with the body split into two workouts and A on MON, B on WED, A on FRI, etc... Also still sane. He also wasn't as extreme on the superslow reps then as he was later.

I don't know why he went to the extremes he went to with it later on, probably to have a new book to sell? Or maybe he actually believed this still constituted overtraining but I'd put my money on the books to be sold.

I have all his books if someone wants me to look up something.

 

[Dens228]

Was this an every other day routine or three on one off?

The training slip that I followed was as such.

Day1: Chest and back
Day2: Legs
Day3: Shoulder, arms

Chest: was always fly's movement first Pec dec or machine cross-over.
Incline (Flex selectorized) or smith

Back : reverse grip PD and Deadlifts, Very seldom seated rows in there.

The Work out would start as a thorough warm up for both chest and back.
and then there was the "working set" .
So pec dec till failure then, straight away to the incline press, again to failure.
If a second set was to be added its would be pec dec to failure on the first with resisted negatives at the end OR (Not done on the same day). Removing plates that had been placed on the handles of the incline press for a drop set usually 4 plates on each side.
Things varied minimally, the order of the exercises would change. Sometimes after warm up, the whole workout would be treated as a giant set. Pec dec, reversePD, incline press with deadlifts bringing it all together at the end. So Chest, back, chest then back.
Discusion during warm up usually revolved around Mikes interpretation of Ain Rand philosophy and his own.
Failure he always explained was mental failure as muscular failure was something experienced MUCH sooner. Mike would always say that Dorian had grasped this aspect of training early after HE had explained it to him and thats why he is (was) unstoppable.

 

[jeroendebleser]

Was this an every other day routine or three on one off?

You weren't asking me but I'm sure it's the MON-WED-FRI routine he was using at the time of his first HIT-book. Definitely not 3 on, one off. Mentzer wouldn't have dared training 3 days in a row! lol (he has 2 books on training and one more on philosophy)

 

[Rogue]

Was this an every other day routine or three on one off?

It was one on, then two days off.

 

[Dens228]

It was one on, then two days off.

I'm sure it would work but I like to work out more often. Although I do keep them short and sweet.

 

[anarchocapitalist]

I consulted with Mentzer in the mid-90s. We mostly talked philosophy. I also did a three-way split like Rogue mentioned. Although I made great gains in strength the muscular gains started off with a bang but quickly diminished. Mentzers only advice was to eat more not change his very static routine.

I can remember a single set of deadlifts would leave me exhausted. I rationalized that I was training harder than anyone else in the gym but really I was just deconditioned from a lack of volume.

I think muscle mass is analogous to a callus. If I only do a single set once a week my muscles will only get as big as they need to be to handle a single set. Your central nervous system would rather economize its motion than add metabolically expensive muscle mass.

Today I do a lower volume but not a single set.

 

[maldorf]

But did he have you do that only once or twice a month though Maldorf? (which is what he preaches in his HIT-book and what the OP must have read) There's no way anyone is going to make gains training each bodypart once or twice a month, with almost non-existant volume and with reps so slow, the weight on the bar will be next to none.

I know his second iteration of 'Mentzer-HIT' was a 3-day split done MON-WED-FRI, very similar to what BigA has laid out in the articles section. That was what could be considered a sane approach, I still think the OP would do best just to give BigA's routine a try. It's as no-nonsense as it gets and it will work a lot better than what Mentzer laid out in his book.

Well, that routine was something I found on the net that was supposedly one of his workouts so I don't even know for sure if it was truly his.

I don't remember the training frequency or split. I know it was a lot more than once or twice a month. Im pretty sure it was at least once a week. I was well conditioned at the time and got overtrained fast on it.

 

[maldorf]

Something like this article

This is something like what I did. Article by Mike.

https://www.ironmanmagazine.com/restpause-training-pt-1/

I remember in particular how brutal legs were. I did squats for my set. At the time my max squat was about 545 lbs. I did 6 rest pause reps with 525 lbs or so. Tough set of squats. Each rep is basically maximum effort. It is as if each rep was the last rep in a heavy set, only the weight was much higher.

 

[Wonton]

Well, that routine was something I found on the net that was supposedly one of his workouts so I don't even know for sure if it was truly his.

I don't remember the training frequency or split. I know it was a lot more than once or twice a month. Im pretty sure it was at least once a week. I was well conditioned at the time and got overtrained fast on it.

That routine is his
That video I posted he outlined it exactly as you stated except for going back and doing negatives. He said one set is all you need , by doing another set your defeating the purpose and will hurt gains

I started it today after listening to that video
Found it extremely hard and the form I need to get use to. 4 up 2 hold 4 down seconds

But also remember I haven't lifted in 5 years

I believe advanced body builder would need to do forced and negatives in addition to his workout

 

[maldorf]

That routine is his
That video I posted he outlined it exactly as you stated except for going back and doing negatives. He said one set is all you need , by doing another set your defeating the purpose and will hurt gains

I started it today after listening to that video
Found it extremely hard and the form I need to get use to. 4 up 2 hold 4 down seconds

But also remember I haven't lifted in 5 years

I believe advanced body builder would need to do forced and negatives in addition to his workout

All I know is that I thought I was well conditioned at the time I tried it, and had to give up on it after just a week or two. Never been so sore. The squats were brutal!

 

[Wonton]

All I know is that I thought I was well conditioned at the time I tried it, and had to give up on it after just a week or two. Never been so sore. The squats were brutal!

Did you take 96 hours between each workout

I watched another video , one right before he passed , I think , don't quote

But his pupil took 6 days I believe because he felt he wasn't recovered yet

Let's put it this was I loaded up Smith machine with 250 and knew I could knock out 6 to 9 range , tested w one rep

But I forgot one important detail !!
There is literally zero momentum when you do 4 2 4
Had to cut that weight down significantly

Because 250 at that cadence felt like 350 400 for example

 

[11111]

Progressive overload, getting the strongest you can across multiple rep ranges as frequently as possible.

I know this isn't necessarily about Mentzer's HIT training but what Swifto is saying here truly is the name of the game to make maximal progress.....