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

SWOLNUTZ

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I recently read his book. Some of it doesn't seem correct, especially the fact that for most body parts he only has listed one set.

Chest
Dumbell Flyes 1 x 6-10 reps
Incline presses 1 x 1-3 reps

I'm not sure how you could follow this by using the heavy weight but seemingly skipping any warm up? Am I missing something here? This seems like a good way to get a bad injury
 
Frequency is so low that the risk of injury is reduced. I was under the impression he called for 1 warm up set before 1 set to failure, but I havent read the book.
 
I recently read his book. Some of it doesn't seem correct, especially the fact that for most body parts he only has listed one set.



Chest

Dumbell Flyes 1 x 6-10 reps

Incline presses 1 x 1-3 reps



I'm not sure how you could follow this by using the heavy weight but seemingly skipping any warm up? Am I missing something here? This seems like a good way to get a bad injury



I’m sure he states several warm ups first

Then you do fly straight into incline press.

Just 1 set of all out balls bust high intensity set




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Haven't read the book. But, I have followed Big A's similar HIT program with progressive warm ups for the first exercise of the day and 1 warm up set for the first exercise of a 2nd part the same day. Works well. Also look up Dorian's videos. He too does 1 warm up set before the all out 1 working set.
 
Seems similar to DC Training
 
If you listen to others who have used this type of training, they don't start implementing a one all out working set for each movement until they've gained some good size, specifically relating to Dorian who stated once he got to where he wanted size wise, he went to one working set. Prior, he did 2 working sets. Don't forgot which was mentioned, there are plenty of warm up and/or feeder sets in this type of routine as well.
 
it's similar to DC, which is similar to DY, which is similar to JP



basically maximize weight, intensity, and frequency.

Or in case of Mentzer HIT, minimize weight and frequency lol

His advice is retarded and won't produce results for anyone. It is such undertraining that I doubt you'll even get much in the way of results on it on steroids. If I recall correctly, he advises to train once every 2 weeks alternating the 2 upper body workouts with the leg workout. This of course would result in a quasi non-existing frequency because by the time you're doing a workout over again, you're basically detrained again.

He also advises (as do his mentors Elliott Darden and Arthur Jones) to do reps SO slow, the weights you'll be using will be sissy weights and overload will be next to none.

I always have a chuckle reading training progress logs from Mentzer HIT jedi. They're ecstatic they're getting stronger each workout (!!!) and when you look at the dates of their workouts and how little stronger they are actually getting, you will burst out in tears from the laughter.

OP don't do this crap and try the more sane HIT-variant BigA has typed out in the articles section, trust me :)
 
Last edited:
If you listen to others who have used this type of training, they don't start implementing a one all out working set for each movement until they've gained some good size, specifically relating to Dorian who stated once he got to where he wanted size wise, he went to one working set. Prior, he did 2 working sets. Don't forgot which was mentioned, there are plenty of warm up and/or feeder sets in this type of routine as well.

True and people who use Dorian Yates as an example either forgot about this or didn't know. He started doing the 1 all out set AFTER he gained (almost) all of his size. Would he have gotten to where he was size-wise if it weren't for his more sets training before? Who knows. But it's not the 1 all out set approach that actually built his physique.
 
He wouldn't do just straight sets but rather supersets. He would also do forced reps and then sometimes negatives after that all in the same set. You need a training partner for the forced and negatives. Here is an article:

https://www.ironmanmagazine.com/heavy-duty-mike-mentzers-most-productive-routine/

I followed another one of his routines that was just as intense and I actually over trained on it in just 1 week. I had to stop, lol. It fried my CNS. I was walking around all day any my muscles were twitching and going into spasms. It is intense. I figured after that go that it just wasn't for me and didn't try it again. It has been probably 12-15 years since I tried the routine and I don't remember what it was.
 
It looks like he had some great genetics for bodybuilding. Never seen this photo of him before, says he was only 19 at the time! Looks great.
 

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I think HIT can definitely work, but you need to be an extremely advanced trainer who's mastered mind-muscle connection to get the most out of it. Being able to truly fatigue a muscle in just 1 / 2 / 3 total sets and / or exercises takes serious skill.
 
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....
 
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....

Would he, or you, train like this getting ready for a contest?
 
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....

Well said!
 
Okay I went back last night and read a little more and definitely there is a warm up involved. The one body part I would not want to use HIT is the abs. Mentzer makes a well reasoned argument for HIT on ab work, but for me the goal is not big abs.

I think good abs means a situation where you've found a way to fully recruit every muscle fiber in your torso to a range of movements. So I don't just do high volume sit ups, I think it makes sense to stick with a good variety of ab work, consistently (3-4 times per week), and high volume (a few hundred reps). I don't think it makes sense to train heavy on abs unless you want big abs and that defeats the entire purpose of having a proportioned frame.
 
My thoughts on his training and the way I utilized this philosiphy is to erase sme sets to add some reps on your heaviest set. If you pyramid up in weight and lower the reps each set as normal. When your progress you might skip one step/set of the pyramid so for the next set you get more reps with the heavier weight as you have more energy. You continually drop the middle sets over the years until you can step right into the heaviest last one or two sets of the pyramid following your warm up and therefore have maximum energy for the last set. This last set is bow greater than if you did a full pyramid up to the weight and now your can trigger greater growth in a shorter amount of time. Ya dig?
 
Progressive overload, getting the strongest you can across multiple rep ranges as frequently as possible.
 

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