Mike Mentzer Video Series: HIT Training, Nutrition, Etc

[Capin]

I remember in 1978 he won the Universe with a perfect score of 300
Then again at the Olympia in 79with another perfect score of 300 in the over 200lb class.
Frank Zane won the under 200 they gave the overall to Zane because he was more astetically pleasing boosheet...

 

[alfresco]

Anyone have any arthur jones routines they can share ?

Would like to try

A good place to start in my opinion. Below, some links to some of what he wrote regarding exercise.

Arthur Jones wrote a bunch of other stuff about training, most of which is freely available here (from
where I cut and pasted the links below). http://www.arthurjonesexercise.com/home.html

Arthur Jones was a huge influence in my training. I achieved my all-time best utilizing his principles.

I think Big A’s ‘Growth principles for beginners’ has many of the same thoughts as Arthur regarding
training as does Dante in some ways (although he said here that he has never read anything Arthur
Jones wrote).

I visited Arthur many times in the 70’s and 80’s. And later in his life, I get to know him very well,
lived with him many times for short periods of time over many years until his death, and rarely,
if ever, did we talk about exercise. He was just not interested, even though I still was.

Mike Mentzer. I met a few times when he was training at Golds with his brother Mike. According to my
observations, they never trained like he recommended. I talked with him over the phone after that,
around the time he started to fall off the deep end with his training ‘philosophy’. Interesting guy, but he
learned everything he knew from Arthur (my opinion) and never had an original thought in his life,
except, maybe his extremely reduced training at the end of his life.

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/43.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/39.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/37.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/33.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/32.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/27.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/18.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/23.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/9.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/8.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/5.PDF

http://arthurjonesexercise.com/Bulletin1/11.PDF

 

[alfresco]

I remember in 1978 he won the Universe with a perfect score of 300
Then again at the Olympia in 79with another perfect score of 300 in the over 200lb class.
Frank Zane won the under 200 they gave the overall to Zane because he was more astetically pleasing boosheet...

A very very good recent interview with him where he talks about his training and the
the politics in bodybuilding. Worth listening to in my opinion.

‎Bodybuilding Legends Show on Apple Podcasts

‎Sports · 2024

podcasts.apple.com

 

[strummer]

One thing that stuck with me was he said if you take 2 workouts, one being 20 minutes and the other workout is 1 hour plus and they both produce similar results which one is better? The short workout. I tried both and it was true for me and my workouts lasted 30 mins. Plus your not mentally saving something for the next set. Now at age 61 it still works great as recovery is even more important

 

[maldorf]

Arthur Jones was in the stratosphere, IQ wise. He was also extremely wealthy and was able to pour lots and lots of money into his often eccentric passions. His original Nautilus equipment is pure gold, I wish they still made that stuff. We had an old pullover at my last gym and we treated that thing like a false idol lol. We had quite a lot of that stuff at my last gym. The owner, who had no interest in working out so he didn't know what he had, bought a shit load of old Nautilus for cheap. I still haven't found many machines that can replicate that stuff.

The leg extension is my favorite, as well as the pullover you mention. That neck machine he made was pretty nice too.

 

[alfresco]

I remember in 1978 he won the Universe with a perfect score of 300
Then again at the Olympia in 79with another perfect score of 300 in the over 200lb class.
Frank Zane won the under 200 they gave the overall to Zane because he was more astetically pleasing boosheet...

With all due respect to Frank, but also to be fair . . . who is to say that politics did
not play a part in his placing too (listen to the interview I posted, very enlightening).
One will never know . . .

 

[USMuscle9403]

Still my favorite pic of all time.
I've heard it said he built that body with conventional training the Heavy Duty stuff came later.

This is probably mine. Hell, any picture of him is pretty bad ass. Stayed in great shape. Just thick as fuck but lean. Fuckin awesome mustache.

 

[xpoc]

I remember hearing Franco Columbo talk about Mentzer. He said that although Mentzer preached about only training infrequently, every time Franco went to the gym, Mentzer was in there banging out high volume/frequent workouts.

 

[FK86]

There used to be a member on here whose screen name was Dad. He said he spent time in Deland and met Jones, Darden, and the Mentzer brothers. Told some good stories about it in older threads.

I have Ellington Darden's book, 'The New High-Intensity Training.' Darden talks about Sergio, Arnold, and Franco training at Nautilus. Jones' workouts were full-body, three times a week. He believed in training muscles frequently, but actual workout sessions should be somewhat infrequent in that they are never on consecutive days.

Like others have stated, I heard Mike didn't practice what he preached. I think his workouts were more in line with doing 6-10 work sets per body part.

 

[MAD_SCIENTIST]

Hmmm...good info. If Mentzer did not practice what he preached, what would be the reasoning?
Take care.
MS

 

[jeroendebleser]

Everyone here doesn’t have access to amazing gyms. The closest gym to me is a little over an hour away just to get there and it’s nothing special. Dumbbells only go up to 75s. There’s a squat rack, (cage) an Olympic bench and a smith machine. Two preacher curls, one for free weights and one machine. There’s a basic leg press that doesn’t even hold more than 1000lbs. A pull down center on the cable crossover machine and a few treadmills. As basic as it is it still beats what I have at home although I am accumulating more equipment every time my funds allow. I hear a lot of ppl talking about affordable GH and I don’t blame them lol but most of the time I’m thinking of ways to just buy more weights food or equipment. I feel like better equipment would help me way more than 4iu a day lol ( but I’m yet to run Gh so maybe I’m wrong there lol )

oh yea I’ve never ever had the luxury of trying any of hammer strengths equipment just old school slag iron for me since day one

I thought there were great gyms everywhere over there, guess I was wrong

 

[jeroendebleser]

Hmmm...good info. If Mentzer did not practice what he preached, what would be the reasoning?
Take care.
MS

Probably the same reason it always boils down to: money. His Heavy Duty-system was unique in that it required very little time compared to most (or all) conventional training methods so that was certainly a good selling point for him.

There's also a member here that trained under Mentzer and claimed to have made great gains under him but I can't remember who it is.

 

[way8lifter]

Everyone here doesn’t have access to amazing gyms. The closest gym to me is a little over an hour away just to get there and it’s nothing special. Dumbbells only go up to 75s. There’s a squat rack, (cage) an Olympic bench and a smith machine. Two preacher curls, one for free weights and one machine. There’s a basic leg press that doesn’t even hold more than 1000lbs. A pull down center on the cable crossover machine and a few treadmills. As basic as it is it still beats what I have at home although I am accumulating more equipment every time my funds allow. I hear a lot of ppl talking about affordable GH and I don’t blame them lol but most of the time I’m thinking of ways to just buy more weights food or equipment. I feel like better equipment would help me way more than 4iu a day lol ( but I’m yet to run Gh so maybe I’m wrong there lol )

oh yea I’ve never ever had the luxury of trying any of hammer strengths equipment just old school slag iron for me since day one

I have used many different Hammer Strength machines....cant honestly say ANY of them feel batter then barbell and dumbells...maybe a slight nod to fly machine when done strictly ...might be better then flat flys ....
in other words you are not missing any thing

 

[way8lifter]

Hmmm...good info. If Mentzer did not practice what he preached, what would be the reasoning?
Take care.
MS

Mike used to sat that he did 5-6 or more warm up sets ..then an all out blast ...so just depends on what set you want to count .. mile counted the death set .. Arnold counted all the warm up sets ...

 

[jeroendebleser]

Here's Arthur Jones taking Boyer Coe through a workout:

 

[jayk]

I have used many different Hammer Strength machines....cant honestly say ANY of them feel batter then barbell and dumbells...maybe a slight nod to fly machine when done strictly ...might be better then flat flys ....
in other words you are not missing any thing

Your probably right I mean many a great physiques were built with no fancy equipment and I try to remind myself that as much as possible but at the same time sometimes I’ll be watching a YouTube video and think “man I’d love to try that machine” lol but as with almost everything in life the grass isn’t always greener I just deload then reload every so often and keep it moving

 

[jayk]

Mike used to sat that he did 5-6 or more warm up sets ..then an all out blast ...so just depends on what set you want to count .. mile counted the death set .. Arnold counted all the warm up sets ...

I’ve never counted warm up sets even if I’m doing straight sets I warm up to a certain weight slowly then start counting my sets even if takes 3-4 warm up sets to work up in weights for the joints and ligaments

 

[Beti ona]

One thing that stuck with me was he said if you take 2 workouts, one being 20 minutes and the other workout is 1 hour plus and they both produce similar results which one is better? The short workout. I tried both and it was true for me and my workouts lasted 30 mins. Plus your not mentally saving something for the next set. Now at age 61 it still works great as recovery is even more important

My chest-shoulder triceps and back-trap-biceps workouts last 30 minutes. Full legs take me a little longer, 40 minutes.

 

[FK86]

I think what gets lost in translation with warm-up sets between an intensity trainer and a volume trainer is the amount of reps done. A volume trainer typically does the same reps on each set.

135 x 10
225 x 10
315 x 10
405 x 10

4 sets of 10

Someone who follows an intensity-based program would reduce the amount of reps and treat them only as warm-up/weight acclimation sets.

The bar x 20
135 x 10
225 x 6
315 x 4
365 x 2
405 x 12

Warming up in this fashion would allow for more weight/reps to be done in the top set. If you asked the volume trainer to do 20 reps with the bar and only do four reps with 315, it’s likely they wouldn’t "count" those sets either.